Archaeological Updates: Recent excavations in Georgia uncover ancient jawbone of human ancestor
Photo courtesy of Santabiblia/Wikimedia Commons
An intrigued scientist examines a fossil. New archaeological evidence could provide valuable insights into the history of our species.
In July 2025, at the archaeological site of Orozmani in the Kvemo Kartli region of the country of Georgia, an international team of archaeologists discovered a 1.8 million-year-old jawbone of what is believed to be the human ancestor Homo erectus, according to the Georgian National Agency for Cultural Heritage Preservation. As reported by Archaeology News, the site is “no larger than two parking spaces,” but this recent discovery holds important implications for the study of early human migration out of Africa and for Georgia’s role in this period of prehistory.
For context, Homo erectus is a direct ancestor of modern humans. The species of hominins began evolving in Africa around two million years ago, and remains the first known ancestor to migrate out of the continent and spread across the Old World. The nearby archaeological site of Dmanisi, only 12 miles from the location of this recent discovery, contains the earliest fossil evidence to date of Homo erectus found outside of Africa, according to Live Science.
While it may be tempting to conclude that the jawbone is officially the now-oldest evidence of Homo erectus outside of Africa, Georgian archaeologist Giorgi Bidzinashvili, professor of stone age archaeology at Ilia State University in Tbilisi, Georgia and head of the excavation team, points out that, “Until we have new dates, we can neither confirm nor deny that the Orozmani human fossils are older than Dmanisi or contemporaneous… By the end of the year, we will know.” While a 2011 study categorizes both sites as “roughly contemporaneous” at around 1.7-1.8 million years old, the researchers at Orozmani are still in the process of confirming if this is true.
Regarding Dmanisi, excavations at this site have been taking place for the past 30 years, and have “revealed more than 100 fossil bones, including five skulls,” according to Live Science. Such findings show that Homo erectus were much shorter than modern humans, and had “smaller brains.”
Excavations at Orozmani, around 60 miles south of the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, are a lot more recent, with the discovery of a Homo erectus tooth in 2022 being the first sign of the species stepping foot in the area, according to Archaeology News. It was also the first hominin fossil discovered at the site, with discoveries of animal remains and stone tools being made at Orozmani before this, as reported by Popular Mechanics.
Archaeological excavations at Orozmani only began as recently as 2019, according to the archived archaeology-paleoanthropology field school page on the Archaeological Institute of America website. The recent discovery of the lower jawbone of a Homo erectus containing two preserved teeth confirms their presence at Orozmani, and this is further supported by its placement in the same layer the tooth from 2022 was found in. Also recently uncovered by the team were the fossil remains of elephants, deer, wolves, sabre-toothed tigers, and giraffes, in addition to more stone tools, according to Reuters.
The implications of these recent findings are important; Bidzinashvili stated that, “We think Orozmani can give us big information about humankind.” It shows that multiple hominin groups occupied this region after leaving Africa, instead of a “single isolated population,” according to Archaeology News. “Maybe we're seeing that this movement to Georgia wasn't an isolated incident, but maybe there was a broader distribution of Homo erectus in this time period,” explains Karen Baab, a biological anthropologist at Midwestern University in Glendale, Arizona in an article by Live Science. The large game found at the site also points to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle for its ancient inhabitants, according to Archaeology News.
More work needs to be done on both the jawbone and archaeological site, which researchers believe could reveal more information about the details of Homo erectus’ migration out of Africa, the diversity of the species, how it was able to survive in this part of the world, and what life was like in Georgia close to 2 million years ago, as observed by Archaeology News.
Excavations continue at Orozmani, but this recent discovery shows how important this site is in further pulling back the curtain on humanity’s evolutionary ancestors, and, as Archaeology News puts it, “emphasizes Georgia’s status as one of the most important locations for following the trail of the earliest journeys of mankind.”