The exhibit “The Journey of Mankind: The First Humans Out of Africa—The Hominids of Dmanisi, Georgia” aims to provide an opportunity for learning by interaction and discussion about the unfolding of the human story from the distant past through the lens of the science of material evidences left by early humans. The first of a series of exhibits about the story of humanity’s journey through time, i
t focuses on the first humans that left Africa as soon as they evolved in East Africa 2 million years ago. Their remains were found in the country of Georgia in the Caucasus along with those belonging to animals, many of them now extinct, and stone tools that the humans had made and used. The exhibit will showcase scientific casts of three complete hominid skulls, the skull of a saber-tooth cat, the skull of an extinct wolf, Canis etruscus, and an elephant molar. All the fossils and stones from which these were casted have been dated to 1.8 million years ago, which is to say that all of them were found in the same stratigraphic layer in the soil. Scientific casts are used by scientists to allow the study of a fossil or an artefact away from where it is kept usually under very tight security and strict climate control. These casts are made by very highly trained experts and capture even the minutest details of the actual fossil. For this reason, scientific casts can be sent to laboratories halfway around the world when there is a need for a specialist in a distant location to study a fossil. The universities where the exhibit will be held are:
Ateneo De Manila University - February 9 – March 4
Jose Rizal University - March 14 - April 6
University of Santo Tomas - April 25 - May 28
University of the East - June 27 - July 22
University of the Philippines Diliman - August 2 - August 26
De La Salle University - September 12 - October 14
The exhibit will run for four weeks in each university and included in the event are two lectures and one sandbox archaeology activity. The first lecture will be about the first humans out of Africa and the paleoanthropological and archaeological site of Dmanisi. The second lecture will be about human evolution in general to show the broader context in which the Dmanisi hominids belong. The sandbox archaeology activity will be held on the last week of the exhibit and will be conducted by practicing archaeologists. The first lecture will be given by an archaeologist that has worked in Dmanisi while the second lecture will be conducted by a specialist in the science of human evolution.
