World leading scientists explore human evolution at Georgia’s National Museum
Tweet 
Share
The Georgian National Museum (GNM) is hosting renowned scientists and historians from near and far for a program of events exploring human evolution and its traces in Georgia, and you’re invited too.
What was it like at the beginning of modern human civilization? What can human fossils almost two million years old tell us about early life in Georgia? These and other questions will be investigated and discussed by the museum within its three-day program of events.
The first event launched yesterday with a public lecture titled Human Evolution by renowned American paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson, who discovered 3.2 million-year-old fossils of early human ancestors.
Before events end on Friday there will be a public talk on the beginnings of modern human civilisation, a gathering of scientists dedicated to the research of fossils dating back nearly two million years, and an exhibition featuring Stone Age findings at archaeological sites in Georgia.
American paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson leads a public talk on human evolution for Tbilisi. Photo from the Georgian National Museum.
The opening occasion hosted over 150 visitors. His talk was regarded as part of the Tbilisi Festival of Science and Innovation.
Johanson is internationally recognised for his 1974 discovery of 3.2 million-year-old fossils of the earliest ancestor of the modern human in Hadar, Ethiopia.
He received the 1982 National Award for the bestseller book Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind, detailing his ground-breaking discovery.
Johanson's lecture was held on the first day of a five-day international conference 100+25 Years of Homo Erectus: Dmanisi and Beyond at the Georgian National Museum Auditorium.
Johanson is globally recognised for his 1974 discovery of 3.2 million-year-old fossils of the earliest ancestor of the modern human in Hadar, Ethiopia. Photo from the Georgian National Museum.
The annual international event is hosted in Georgia's capital to highlight the research of the Germany-based Senckenberg Society of Natural Study into ancient human fossils of Homo erectus.
The conference will bring together scientists to present an "evolutionary and environmental perspective" of the early evolutionary stages of history. The gathering will also "discuss the role of the Caucasus in early hominin development," said the GNM.
The Senckenberg Conference will conclude in Tbilisi on September 24.
Meanwhile to conclude the GNM program of events, a year-long display of archaeological material and reconstructions of early humans will open on September 22 at the Simon Janashia Museum of Georgia.
Titled Stone Age in Georgia, the exhibition will present findings dating back 1.7 million years to 8,000 years in Georgia and abroad to illustrate human evolution. Visitors will be able to see realistic reconstructions of early hominins created by renowned paleoartists Elizabeth Daynes, John Gurche, Mauricio Anton and Rodolfo Nogueira.
The display will run until September 22, 2017.
The September 17-25 event aimed to promote scientific research and innovation, and attract younger generations to science.
The Philippines edition of Esquire international magazine has written an extensive article about the discovery of ancient human fossils at the Dmanisi archaeological site in south-central Georgia.
Do you want to know what human beings looked like 1.8 million years ago? If yes, then you should go to a presentation of a hominin bust created by a famous American paleo-artist based on an ancient skull found in Dmanisi, southern Georgia.
A group of archeologists have discovered ruins of an ancient settlement in western Georgia’s Samegrelo region.
Grave diggers have found ancient gold and silver coins in Bandza village, Martvili Municipality.
Scientists have successfully sequenced DNA data from a tooth of an ancient rhinoceros found in Dmanisi archaeological site in Georgia, shifting the date of the oldest genetic information recovered from animal fossils back by a million years.
The German Archaeological Institute has gifted the Georgian National Museum a fabric made according to the pattern which dates back the 3rd millennium BCE, which was found in a Lagodekhi burial mound in the eastern Georgian region of Kakheti in 2012.
Artefacts unearthed by archaeologists in Georgia's south as part of a recent international expedition have revealed a "new origin" of the ancient Homo erectus outside the African continent.
Ancient human remains and tools unearthed in historic findings at southern Georgia's Dmanisi site are on display at the National Museum of Prehistory in France, with the exhibition tracing the history of stone cutting "from Africa to the doors of Europe".