Nikoloz Vanishvili

• Senior Researcher at L. Davitashvili Institute of Paleobiology - Georgian National Museum

The extremely rich palaeontological record of the horse family, also known as equids, has provided many examples of macroevolutionary change over the last ~55 Mya. This family is also one of the most documented at the palaeogenomic level, with hundreds of ancient genomes sequenced. While these data have advanced understanding of the domestication h...

The Southern Caucasus represent one of the hubs for the earliest range expansions of hominins during the Early Pleistocene, as evidenced by the extensive archaeological site at Dmanisi, Georgia. Here, we present findings from a new Lower Paleolithic archaeological site in Georgia: Kvemo Orozmani, which is located approximately twenty kilometers wes...

The Caucasus is one of the most important areas for the study of Paratethyan Neogene phocids, with a number of ‘paleorookery’ sites that are still poorly studied. In this study, the remains of a fossil phocine from the Late Miocene locality of Eldari I (late Vallesian/late Sarmatian s.l.) in the Southern Caucasus are described and compared with oth...

Food and its interactions with the environmental, economic, social, and cultural spheres play an essential role in communities’ cultural identity. This theory has been verified by an analysis of the Kura-Araxes (KA) culture, characterised by original cultural developments, which spread in the South Caucasus around the middle of the fourth millenniu...

Two millets, Panicum miliaceum and Setaria italica , were domesticated in northern China, around 6000 BC. Although its oldest evidence is in Asia, possible independent domestication of these species in the Caucasus has often been proposed. To verify this hypothesis, a multiproxy research program (Orimil) was designed to detect the first evidence of...

The skull fragment of carnivore from the collection of vertebrates from the Late Sarmatian site Udabno is studied. New taxon for this locality is revealed, the material is assigned to the genus Simocyon. Remains of the genus are rear in the Neogene faunas of Georgia. The first note about presence of Simocyon in the Late Miocene deposits of the Sout...

Sufficiently diverse and rich fossil palaeontological materials were accumulated during the last years of the excavations in the Satsurblia cave. The rich remains of the bird’s bones are especially interesting and the results of the studies are presented in this article. Among the findings the most interesting are some bones of the Tetragallus cauc...

The porcupine family (Hystricidae) is notable for the diversity of fossil and modern forms. Due to vagueness of morphological characters their taxonomy is not yet established. Lately an interesting work by van Weers and Rook was published about the taxonomy of European, Asian and African porcupines in which the authors propose relatively natural an...

Diliska fauna is of outstanding biostratigraphic significance. The presence of Anancus arvernensis, Equus stenonis and Mimomys polonicus undoubtedly dates the fauna to the end of Pliocene and indicates that fauna corresponds to the terminal part of the MN17 unit. The fauna occupies an intermediate position between Dmanisi and Kvabebi faunas. Dilisk...

Fossil remains of hystrix are not found in the Pliocene of the Eastern Georgia, however they were widely spread in the Pleistocene of the Western Georgia. Lately interesting material of fossil hystrix was found in Dmanisi site in the layers that are transitional from Pliocene to Pleistocene (MN17/MQ18). The article is dedicated to the results of th...

In consequence of the last excavation in Dmanisi the interesting material of fossil Giraffe has been accumulated. The study of the molars and post-cranial elements revealed the fact, that in Dmanisi the Pliocene form Palaeotragus rouenii Gaudry inhabited during the upper past of Villafrancian. It is known, that the Apsheronian (Biharian) age of lay...

Tsalka, a lower pleistocene palaeontological site in the Caucasus : Correlation with Dmanisi site (Georgia)

It’s already many years that brownish-grey Maykopian clays exposed on the hills between the Metekhirailway station and Nadarbazevi valley (Kaspi region, Eastern Georgia) have attracted attention because of the frequent finds of fossilized bone fragments. These sediments are dated as the Late Oligocene according to the complex of foraminifera. Verte...

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Description of the complete skeleton of shrew from the Late Miocenian (Pontian) deposits of the South Georgia (Kisatibi locality), is given. It is determined as Sorex cf. minutus. This is one of the oldest representative of this species, which points out that this species may be arose on the territory of Eastern Paratethyan region.