David Lordkipanidze

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

David O. Lordkipanidze

David O. Lordkipanidze (Georgian: დავით ლორთქიფანიძე) (born 5 August 1963, in Tbilisi) is a notable Georgian anthropologist and archaeologist, Doctor of Sciences (2001), Director General of the Georgian National Museum (GNM) (since 2004), Professor of the Tbilisi State University (TSU), Foreign Member of the United States National Academy of Sciences (2007), a Fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science (U.S., 2007).

Lordkipanidze graduated from the Faculty of Geography of the Tbilisi State University (1985) and received a Ph.D. degree in 1992. In 1999-2000 he was a Visiting Professor of the National Historical Museum of Paris. He is author of about 100 scientific publications (among them monographs) in the fields of anthropology, paleoecology, hominid evolution and archaeology, organizer of many important scientific and cultural events.

Since 2001 Lordkipanidze is a member of the Permanent Council of U.I.S.S.P., since 2002 - member of the European Cultural Parliament. He has received many awards, including the Georgia's Order of Honour (2000), Award of the Prince of Monaco (2001), French Order of "Palmes Academiques" (2002), French Order of Honour (2006) and the Rolex Awards for Enterprise (2004).

He work at the site of Dmanisi, he found skulls of an early form thought to be a precursor of Homo erectus, provisionally named Homo georgicus. Subsequently, four fossil skeletons were found, showing a species still with primitive features in its skull and upper body but with relatively advanced spines and lower limbs, providing greater mobility. They represent a stage soon after the transition between Homo habilis and Homo erectus, and have been dated at 1.8 million years before the present.

^[1]