May 19,2000 UNT Inhouse publication: Professor helps in dating important fossilized skulls

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Professor helps in dating important fossilized skulls

Reid Ferring, professor of geology, played a critical role in dating archeological findings that suggest the first humans migrated out of Africa much earlier than was previously believed. An article co-written by Ferring about the significance of the discovery appeared in the May 12 issue of the journal Science.

Ferring was part of an international team that unearthed two fossils last summer from a site in the southern portion of the Republic of Georgia (formerly part of the Soviet Union). The almost complete skull and a separate skullcap have been determined to be 1.7 million years old. Previously, the oldest hominid fossils of African ancestry, from a site in Israel, were estimated to be 1.4 million years old.

Ferring's research was conducted in conjunction with colleagues from the Berkeley Geochronology Center. The Homo erectus fossils and artifacts were buried below the ruins of the medieval town of Dmanisi.

Working summers with scientists from the Republic of Georgia, France, Germany and the United States since 1993, Ferring also analyzed the soil strata and sediments at the site.

The team's conclusions now confirm the discovery as the oldest fossil evidence of the early human species that migrated out of Africa to Eurasia more than one million years ago.

The discovery shatters the widely accepted theory that the migration of Homo erectus from Africa to Eurasia coincided with the advancement of technology.

"The implications are not only that people set out of Africa earlier, but that the early migrating Homo erectus species were less technologically advanced than previously believed," Ferring says. "Tools found at the Georgian site are less sophisticated than the types found in Africa at earlier dates.

"This changes everything about the interpretations of why people migrated. It means people were much less dependent on technology and much more dependent on their human social structure."

Ferring has been using grants from the Louis S.B. Leakey Foundation and the National Science Foundation to fund his research. Initially, he was asked to determine the age of the entire Dmanisi site to resolve the age of a mandible, or jaw bone, uncovered in 1991. The fossil sparked a debate because it was not complete enough to determine the species.

In recent years, graduate student Johnny Byers of Fort Worth has assisted Ferring with his annual research at the site.