The Dmanisi Skull: What Does It Reveal About Man’s Origins?

A recent skull discovered in Georgia has challenged scientific assumptions about the origin of humans. Does the discovery truly support evolution?

A recent stunning discovery in the paleoanthropological world was announced a few days ago. A complete skull and mandible (jaw) of a Homo erectus, a type of fossil man, was unearthed at Dmanisi, Georgia, between Russia and Turkey.

The reaction in the evolutionary world is interesting. Most of the scientists are making statements such as, “This skull throws the story of human evolution into disarray.” Others have said that a small bomb has been dropped in the field of human evolution and all evolutionary theories concerning man will have to be reexamined.

Lumpers vs. splitters

The problem is that the history of human evolution has been likened to a battle between lumpers and splitters. Lumpers try to fit all the human fossils into a few species, while splitters tend to split fossil men into many species.

With the discovery of the Dmanisi Homo erectus skull, the lumpers are having a field day. The reason is, when this skull is analyzed and compared with other skulls that have been unearthed from Dmanisi, it seems to indicate that early humans can be categorized into a few species. So if the team that excavated the Dmanisi fossils is correct, then most of the fossils of early man can be attributed to a few species and the lumpers have been correct all along.

The false evolutionary premise states that humans have evolved over the course of millions of years from ancient, apelike creatures into modern man. But this premise does not explain how life in general started or the order and design that so many other branches of science have discovered.

If God created humans and all humans have descended from that created pair, then God is the ultimate lumper. His Word, the Bible, states that He is the Creator of that first pair, Adam and Eve: “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27).

Homo erectus hardly a caveman

Whether you are a lumper or a splitter, when you look at the properly interpreted fossil record, some interesting facts about Homo erectus come to light. These discoveries challenge the common idea that Homo erectus was a brutish, undeveloped, apelike man.

• H. erectus used fire (C.K. Brain and A. Sillent, “Evidence From the Swartkrans Cave for the Earliest Use of Fire,” Nature, December 1988). 
• H. erectus had a permanent camp life and a social structure (D. Mania and U. Mania, “Latest Finds of Skull Remains of Homo erectus From Bilzingsleben (Thuringia),” Naturwissenschaften, April 1994).
• H. erectus made water crossings using boats or watercraft (M.J. Morwood et.al., “Fission-Track Ages of Stone Tools and Fossils on the East Indonesian Island of Flores,” Nature, March 1998).
• H. erectus used and made “toothpicks” and flossed their teeth (L.J. Hlusko, “The Oldest Hominid Habit? Experimental Evidence for Toothpicking With Grass Stalks,” Current Anthropology, December 2003).
• H. erectus made high-quality javelins and was a master toolmaker (H. Thieme, “Lower Palaeolithic Hunting Spears From Germany,” Nature, February 1997).
• Scientific reconstructions of H. erectus show they were completely human looking. Although they would have been shorter than most modern humans, the skeletons and skulls all fall within the variation for modern humans (N.T. Boaz and R.L. Ciochon, “Headstrong Hominids,” Natural History, February 2004).
• They could also manufacture and use musical instruments (M.K. Miller, “Music of the Neanderthals,” Dispatches From the Field, AAAS 2000 Annual Meeting, Feb. 21, 2000).

The above facts also apply to Neanderthal man and most of the other fossil men in the Homo line that have been unearthed (though there are some misinterpreted exceptions). All of these traits have been documented by the writings of evolutionists. All of these behaviors are human, no animal has ever been observed making fires, flossing their teeth or building structures. The properly interpreted fossil record indicates that the fossil men are fully human and therefore descended from Adam and Eve.

If evolution were true, then there would be a gradual blending of species. This would also be true for fossil humans. Human evolution, if it were true, would show a gradual blending from the apelike ancestors of man to the more modern man. That is not what the fossil record shows.

Misinterpretations and truth

Most evolutionary scientists assign apelike traits to humans and assign human traits to apes. They are trying to bridge the gap between the fully human fossil men such as Homo erectus and the extinct apes (for example, Australopithecines). The properly interpreted fossil record proves that these early fossil men were true men in every sense of the word. Evolutionary scientists, whether lumpers or splitters, have misinterpreted them to advance their own agenda.

As time goes on and more fossils are unearthed, and they will be, the debate about the origin of man and the interpretation of the fossil record will continue.

What can we learn by looking at the discoveries that have been made in the field of paleoanthropology? We learn that there is much scientific and biblical evidence that man has not evolved, that so-called fossil men were fully human, that there is much variety among humans (including ancient humans), and that all humans have a common ancestor. Therefore, the following words ring true: “And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living” (Genesis 3:20).

Arnold C. Mendez Sr. is an adjunct faculty chemistry instructor at TAMU-CC. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biology and chemistry. He is an elder in the Church of God, a Worldwide Association, serving the Corpus Christi, Texas, congregation and the south Texas area. He has studied the creation-evolution controversy for more than 40 years and has presented seminars on the subject in more than 120 locations in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Australia.

Photo credit: The face of Dmanisi skull 5 on display at the Georgian National Museum (Photo by Malkhaz Machavariani, Georgian National Museum, Wikimedia Commons)