Dawit Lortkipanidze

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Dawit Lortkipanidze (2018)

Dawit O. Lortkipanidze (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 which the country's ten leading museums as well as two research institutes were united. Since 1997 he has also been 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.

Life

Dawit Lortkipanidze, son of the archaeologist Otar Lortkipanidze , studied from 1980 to 1985 at the Faculty of Geology and Geography of the State University of Tbilisi and from 1986 to 1992 at the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow . In 1992 he also presented his doctoral thesis in Moscow , in which he analyzed the peculiarities of the interactions between the environment and early humans in mountain regions. From 1992 to 1997 he worked for the Georgian Academy of Sciences and worked as a postdoc at times a. a. 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, Dawit Lortkipanidze led paleoanthropological excavations in several locations in Georgia - initially thanks to several grants from the Leakey Foundation , the National Geographic Society and other foundations . After his habilitation (2001) in the fields of archeology, geography and paleobiology at the University of Tbilisi, he was appointed deputy director of the National Museum of Georgia in 2002. In a tribute by the Senckenberg Society for Natural Research it was said: "Under his direction, the museum is continuously being transformed from a typical Soviet facility into a pulsating place for culture, education and science."

In 2004 he was awarded the Rolex Prize for Entrepreneurship and elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2007. In 2015 he gave the Rudolf Virchow Lecture . In 2016, Lordkipanidze was awarded the Goethe Medal by the Goethe Institute.

Research topics

"Skull 5" from Dmanisi (original), the best preserved adult skull from between 2.6 and 0.9 million years ago.

Dawit Lortkipanidze became internationally known because of his excavations at the Dmanisi site in the southern Caucasus , where the oldest fossils of the genus Homo outside of Africa were discovered under his leadership : "Exceptionally well-preserved fossils of several hominids , geologically related to animal fossils and stone tools" , the " allow a detailed investigation of the probably earliest adaptation of the genus Homo to moderate climatic conditions ” . The bone finds, dated to an age of 1.7 to 1.8 million years, are probably close to the African finds of Homo erectus or Homo ergaster , but also show morphological similarities to their predecessors Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis , so that they can also be considered separate Species ( "Homo georgicus" ), but this has not yet been accepted by the research community.

The assignment of these hominid finds to the human family tree has been the subject of intense scientific discussions since their discovery. Some researchers interpret them as transitional fossils that are morphologically and temporally between the earlier homosexual finds from Africa and the later ones from Asia and Europe: "The fossils from Dmanisi are the first reliable evidence of the emigration of early homosexuals from Africa. “ The finds from Georgia may come from a homo population that had left Africa 300,000 years before the immigration of Homo erectus (which ultimately also led to the colonization of Europe).

Fonts (selection)

  • Gerhard Bosinski , David Lordkipanidze, Konrad Weidemann : The ancient Paleolithic site of Dmanisi (Georgia, Caucasus). In: Yearbook of the Roman-Germanic Central Museum. Volume 42, 1995, pp. 21-203.
  • with Leo Gabunia, Abesolom Vekua et al .: Earliest Pleistocene Hominid Cranial Remains from Dmanisi, Republic of Georgia: Taxonomy, Geological Setting, and Age. In: Science . Volume 288, No. 5468, 2000, pp. 1019-1025, doi: 10.1126 / science.288.5468.1019
  • with Abeselom Vekuae et al .: A New Skull of Early Homo from Dmanisi, Georgia. In: Science. Volume 297, No. 5578, 2002, pp. 85–89, doi: 10.1126 / science.1072953 and - with illus. - doi: 10.1126 / science.1072953
  • with Abeselom Vekua et al .: The earliest toothless hominin skull. In: Nature . Volume 434, 2005, pp. 717-718, doi: 10.1038 / 434717b
  • with Tea Jashashvili, Abeselom Vekua et al .: Postcranial evidence from early Homo from Dmanisi, Georgia. In: Nature. Volume 449, 2007, pp. 305-310, doi: 10.1038 / nature06134
  • David Lordkipanidze: Georgia's history in 33 objects . Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 2018, ISBN 978-3-96311-045-0 .

Web links

Commons : David Lordkipanidze  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "Nature and Museum" 137, Issue 9/10, 2007, p. 247
  2. ^ Fred Spoor: Small-brained and big-mouthed. In: Nature . Volume 502, No. 7472, 2013, pp. 452-453, doi: 10.1038 / 502452a
  3. ^ A b "Nature and Museum" 137, Issue 9/10, 2007, p. 248
  4. ↑ Léo Gabounia, Marie-Antoinette de Lumley, Abesalom Vekua, David Lordkipanidze, Henry de Lumley: Découvert d'un nouvel hominidé à Dmanissi (Transcaucasie, Géorgie). Comptes Rendus Palevol 1, 2002, pp. 243–53, doi: 10.1016 / S1631-0683 (02) 00032-5 The species name "Homo georgicus" was repeatedly not mentioned in English-language publications that appeared in parallel.
  5. ↑ Marie-Antoinette de Lumleya, David Lordkipanidze: L'Homme de Dmanisi (Homo georgicus), il ya 1,810,000 ans. Comptes Rendus Palevol 5, 2006, pp. 273-281, doi: 10.1016 / j.crpv.2005.11.013
  6. ↑ Marie-Antoinette de Lumley, Léo Gabounia, Abesalom Vekua, David Lordkipanidze: Les restes humains du Pliocène final et du début du Pléistocène inférieur de Dmanissi, Géorgie (1991-2000). I - Les crânes, D 2280, D 2282, D ​​2700. L'Anthropologie 110, 2006, pp. 1–110, doi: 10.1016 / j.anthro.2006.02.001
  7. ↑ so the commentary on the publication published in 2007 in "Nature" Volume 449, p. 305 f., (See under literature) by planet-erde.de , an information service of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research
  8. ↑ Michael Balter, Ann Gibbons: A Glimpse of Humans' First Journey Out of Africa. Science 288, May 12, 2000, pp. 948-950
  9. ^ Daniel E. Lieberman: Homing in on early Homo. Nature 449 of September 20, 2007, pp. 291-292
  10. ↑ D. Lordkipanidze and A.Vekua: A new hominid mandible from Dmanisi (Georgia). ( Memento of February 21, 2003 in the Internet Archive ) Abstracts for the 2002 Meetings, Paleoanthropology Society, 19./20. March 2002, Denver, Colorado (on paleoanthro.org )
personal data
SURNAME Lortkipanidze, Dawit
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lordkipanidze, David; ლორთქიფანიძე, დავით (Georgian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Georgian paleoanthropologist
DATE OF BIRTH 5th August 1963
PLACE OF BIRTH Tbilisi , Soviet Union