A Find that Simplified Our Understanding of Human Lineage
In 1991, an archaeological dig unearthed traces of human habitation in a cave near Dmanisi, Georgia. In subsequent years, five early Homo erectus hominid skulls, whose owners lived about 1.75 million years ago, were dug up. The last of them, unearthed in 2005 and known as Skull 5, is the world’s most completely preserved skull of an adult hominid discovered to date. It is not just a well preserved fossil, however: Skull 5 and its companions from the Dmanisi cave could well overturn and rewrite the accepted evolutionary lineage of mankind.
Hominids have long been classified into a variety of species, such as Homo habilis, Homo erectus, and Homo rudolfensis, based on variations in their features, as seen in their fossils. Those different species mean that the evolutionary lineage of modern humans is relatively complex, with a family tree that contains various branches and sub branches. Some lead to us, while other branches went extinct. However, what if those different species were not actually different species at all, but simply members of the same species?