David Lordkipanidze

Dawit O. Lortkipanidse (also: David Lordkipanidze, georgian: დავით ლორთქიფანიძე; * August 5, 1963, in Tbilisi ) is a Georgian paleoanthropologist, and since 2004 Director General of the National Museum of Georgia, in 2002 to his initiative, the ten leading museums in the country and two research institutes were united. He is since 1997 also the director of the Institute of Geology and Paleontology at the Georgian Center for Prehistoric Research ( " Georgian Center for Prehistoric Research" ), which is also affiliated to the National Museum.

Career

Dawit Lortkipanidse, son of the archaeologist Otar Lortkipanidse, studied from 1980 to 1985 at the Faculty of Geology and Geography of Tbilisi State University and from 1986 bis1992 at the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. In 1992 he presented in Moscow before his doctoral thesis, in which he analyzed the peculiarities of the interactions between environment and early man in mountain regions. From 1992 to 1997 he worked for the Georgian Academy of Sciences and was a postdoctoral fellow at times, inter alia, at the University of Göttingen (1992 ), at the Muséum national d' histoire naturelle in Paris (1996 and 1997) and at the German Archaeological Institute in Lisbon and Madrid (1996).

From 1997, he became Dawit Lortkipanidse - initially thanks to several grants from the Leakey Foundation, the National Geographic Society and other foundations - paleoanthropological excavations at several locations in Georgia. After his habilitation (2001) for the fields of archeology, geography and Paleobiology at the University of Tbilisi, he was appointed as Deputy Director of the National Museum of Georgia, 2002. In a Findings of the Senckenberg Nature Research Society stated: "Under his leadership, the Museum continuously transformed from a typical Soviet - device into a vibrant center for culture, education and science. "

Research Topics

Dawit Lortkipanidse became internationally known for his excavations at the site of Dmanisi in the southern Caucasus, where under his leadership, the oldest fossils of the genus were discovered Homo outside Africa: " exceptionally well-preserved fossils of several hominids in the geological context of animal fossils and stone tools ," the " " permit a detailed examination of the likely earliest adaptation of the genus Homo in temperate climate conditions. The dated to an age of 1.8 million years 1,7 bis bone finds are probably the African finds of Homo erectus or Homo ergaster close, but also have morphological similarities to their predecessors Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis so that they will also be made type ( "Homo georgicus " ) were referred to, but this was not yet accepted by the research community.

The assignment of these hominid discoveries for the human family tree is the subject of intense scientific debate since their discovery. Some researchers, they are interpreted as transitionale fossils, which are morphologically and temporally between the earlier Homo - finds from Africa and later from Asia and Europe: " The fossils from Dmanisi are the first secure evidence for migration of early Homo from Africa. "Maybe come from the finds from Georgia a homo- population, the 300,000 years before the migration of Homo erectus ( which ultimately led to the colonization of Europe) had left Africa.