Dmanisi

Dmanisi holds two entirely different histories on the same promontory above the confluence of the Mashavera and Pinezauri rivers. The first is medieval: a town and citadel that served as a significant trading node between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries. What remains is the defensive wall, a bathhouse, burial vaults and Dmanisi Sioni, a sixth-century basilica to which a finely carved porch was added in the thirteenth.

The second history is far deeper. From 1991, digging beneath the medieval layers, archaeologists recovered hominin remains dated to roughly 1.8 million years. These are still the oldest human ancestors found anywhere outside Africa, and the finds are often assigned their own designation, Homo erectus georgicus. Five skulls have come out of the site, including the two known in Georgia as Zezva and Mzia, along with stone tools and the bones of the animals they were used on.

There is a museum on site and a covered shelter over the excavation, where a section of the dig is left open in its original state so you can see the stratigraphy directly. The original skulls are in the Georgian National Museum in Tbilisi; Dmanisi displays casts with detailed explanation. Excavation continues each summer and visitors can often watch the work in progress.