Homo erectus? |
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Homo erectus Conservation status: Fossil |
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 Peking Man reconstruction |
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| Homo erectus Dubois, 1894 |
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Homo erectus ("upright man") is a hominin species that is believed to be an ancestor of modern humans (with Homo heidelbergensis usually treated as an intermediary step). The species is found from the middle Pleistocene onwards.
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Description
The species name was initially proposed by Ernst Mayr in order to unify the classification of Asian fossils. It had fairly modern human features, with a larger cranial capacity than that of Homo habilis. The forehead is less sloping and the teeth are smaller (quantification of these differences is difficult however, see below). Homo erectus would bear a striking resemblance to modern humans, but had a brain about 74 percent of the size of modern man. These early hominids were tall, on average standing about 1.79 m (5 feet, 10 inches) tall.
Homo erectus also used more diverse and sophisticated tools than its predecessors. One theory is that H. erectus first used tools of the Oldowan style and then later used tools of the Acheulean style. The surviving tools from both periods are all made of stone. Oldowan tools are the oldest known formed tools and date as far back as about 2.4 million years ago. The Acheulean era began about 1.2 million years ago and ended about 500,000 years ago. The primary innovation associated with Acheulean handaxes is that the stone was chipped on both sides to form two cutting edges.
Homo erectus (along with Homo ergaster) was probably the first early human to fit squarely into the category of a hunter and predator and not as prey for larger animals. They migrated all throughout the Great Rift Valley, even up to the Red Sea1 Early man, in the person of Homo erectus, was learning to master his environment for the first time.
ErectusSome dispute that H. erectus was able to control fire. However, the earliest (least disputed) evidence of controlled fire is around 300,000 years old and comes from a site called Terra Amata, which lies on an ancient beach location on the French Riviera. This site seems to have been occupied by Homo erectus. There are older Homo erectus sites that seem to indicate controlled use of fire, some dating back 500,000 to 1.5 million years ago, in France, China, and other areas. A discovery brought forth at the Paleoanthropology Society Annual Meeting in Montreal, Canada in March of 2004 stated that controlled fires have been evidenced in excavations in Northern Israel from about 690,000 to 790,000 years ago. Regardless, it can at least be surmised that the controlled use of fire was atypical of Homo erectus until its decline and the rise of more advanced species of the Homo genus came to the forefront (such as H. heidelbergensis and H. neanderthalensis).
There is currently a great deal of discussion as to whether H. erectus and H. ergaster were separate species at all. This debate revolves around the interpretation of morphological differences between early African fossils (the classic H. ergaster) and those found in Asia (H. erectus; and late African sites). Since Erst Mayr's biological species definition cannot be tested, this issue may never be fully resolved.
Descendants and subspecies
Homo erectus remains one of the most successful and long-lived species of the Homo genus and unsurprisingly gave rise to a number of descendants and subspecies.
- Homo erectus soloensis
- Homo erectus palaeojavanicus
- Homo floresiensis
- Homo antecessor
- Homo heidelbergensis
- Homo sapiens
- Homo rhodesiensis
The discovery of Homo floresiensis, and particularly its recent survival, has raised the possibility that numerous descendant species of Homo erectus may have existed in the islands of south-east Asia which await fossil discovery.
Individual fossils
Existing Homo erectus fossils include:
- Java Man (1891)
- Peking Man (1927)
- Turkana Boy (1984; also classified as Homo ergaster)
See also
References
- ^ Paolo Novaresio, The Explorers, published 1996 by Stewart, Tabori & Chang, ISBN 1-55670-495-X ; p. 13: "Homo erectus roamed the natural corridor of the Great Rift Valley as far as the Red Sea."
- Tattersall, Ian and Schwartz, Jeffrey. "Extinct Humans". Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado and Cumnor Hill, Oxford, 2000. ISBN 0-8133-3482-9 (hc)