The dawn of compassion

Published in 2006

Out of a rich matrix of ancient Georgian soil comes evidence that humans do truly care for one another – and have been doing so for 1.75 million years.

Hunters, gatherers, warriors, ruthless killers: humans have been described by palaeontologists as all these things, based on the stone and bone traces our forebears left behind. Now comes fresh proof of a different sort: that even our pre-human ancestors took care of and sustained their own kind.

The evidence came in the form of a toothless skull, the fifth skull in a remarkable series unearthed by archaeologist and Rolex Laureate David Lordkipanidze, of the Georgian National Museum, at Dmanisi. Here, season after season, he and his team have astonished the world with fresh revelations about our origins.

A toothless skull is not unusual. Teeth often fall out and are lost after death and burial. In this case, however, all but one tooth were missing and the empty sockets had healed over, suggesting the skull’s owner had survived two years or more, through the harsh winters, without teeth.

“The discovery of an edentulous [toothless] hominid in Dmanisi shows that this individual survived for a long time without consuming solid food that required heavy chewing,” Lordkipanidze explains. “It is clear that he or she may not have been able to do so without help from other individuals. Therefore, it is conceivable that we have recorded one of the earliest traces of compassion in human history. We are looking at, perhaps, the first sign of truly human behaviour in one of our ancestors.”

From the Dmanisi pre-humans it is necessary to travel forward almost 1.75 million years to Homo sapiens before traces of flowers in a Neanderthal burial and of elaborate burial rituals among Australian Aborigines hint at similar feelings of care and respect for fellow beings.

Lordkipanidze is no stranger to being in the news. When the first skulls came to light in 1991 beneath the medieval town of Dmanisi in central Georgia, they plunged palaeontology into ferment because their remarkable age seemed to fly in the face of then accepted views that Homo erectus was the first human ancestor to quit Africa and travel the world, about 1 million years ago.

The Dmanisi hominids – almost twice as ancient – were small and slight, more akin to earlier African ancestors who lived between 2.5 million and 1.6 million years ago. Yet they had the initiative to travel thousands of kilometres from East Africa to Georgia. There they selected a camp site on a hill top above a narrow neck of land lying between a river and a lake – a perfect hunter’s eyrie to overlook the surrounding volcanic landscape with its abundant migrating game.

The 2005 digging season has yielded many new finds. “We discovered the fifth human skull, a humerus and a metatarsal bone in the same location. All date back to 1.75 million years ago,” Lordkipanidze reports. Analysis of these bones should throw new light on the physical attributes of the Dmanisi hominids.

These fresh insights into pre-human behaviour have garnered a harvest of popular attention. In 2005, the Georgian National Museum held an on-site exhibition explaining the Dmanisi story and its implications for human evolution, which attracted thousands of visitors.

“Also, in summer 2005, we organised a two-week summer camp at the dig site for 30 schoolchildren from the Tbilisi and Dmanisi regions, including non-Georgian kids,” Lordkipanidze says.

The funds from his Rolex Award will pay for an on-site shelter for archaeological research and analysis, and a visitors’ centre. The architectural and engineering plans have now been finalised, and a temporary shelter for examining and testing material is already in place. The first permanent constructions will be completed early this year.

According to Lordkipanidze, “the Rolex Award helped tremendously in promoting the Dmanisi story worldwide.”

Julian Cribb

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