Editing Caucasus (section)

===Prehistory===
[[File:Gobustan ancient Azerbaycan full.jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[Petroglyphs]] in [[Gobustan National Park|Gobustan]], [[Azerbaijan]], a [[UNESCO]] [[World Heritage Site]], dating back to 10,000 BC]]
The territory of the Caucasus region was inhabited by Homo erectus since the [[Paleolithic Era]]. In 1991, early [[Hominini]] fossils dating back 1.8&nbsp;million years were found at the [[Dmanisi#Archaeological site|Dmanisi archaeological site]] in [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]]. Scientists now classify the assemblage of fossil skeletons as the subspecies ''[[Homo erectus georgicus]]''.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Ferring|first1=Reid|last2=Oms|first2=Oriol|last3=Agustí|first3=Jordi|last4=Berna|first4=Francesco|last5=Nioradze|first5=Medea|last6=Shelia|first6=Teona|last7=Tappen|first7=Martha|last8=Vekua|first8=Abesalom|last9=Zhvania|first9=David|last10=Lordkipanidze|first10=David|date=2011-06-28|title=Earliest human occupations at Dmanisi (Georgian Caucasus) dated to 1.85–1.78 Ma|journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences|language=en|volume=108|issue=26|pages=10432–10436|doi=10.1073/pnas.1106638108|issn=0027-8424|pmid=21646521|pmc=3127884|doi-access=free}}</ref>

The site yields the earliest unequivocal evidence for the presence of early humans outside the African continent;<ref>Vekua, A., Lordkipanidze, D., Rightmire, G. P., Agusti, J., Ferring, R., Maisuradze, G., et al. (2002). A new skull of early Homo from Dmanisi, Georgia. ''Science'', 297:85–9.</ref> and the Dmanisi skulls are the five oldest [[hominins]] ever found outside [[Africa]].