A “time capsule” from 1.8 million years ago, located in Dmanisi, Georgia, shows variations among five human skulls from that period that suggest long-debated distinctions about early human development may be overblown.
The differences between the skulls were no more than that seen in modern humans, according to a report Thursday in the journal Science. The findings suggest there may have been only one species of early human in a key period of time when they first began to migrate out of Africa, said David Lordkipanidze, an anthropologist at the Georgian National Museum in Tbilisi and the report’s author.