Erectus
Homo erectus is an extinct hominin that lived between 1.9 million years and 117,000 years before present (Lower and Middle Pleistocene). Classical Homo erectus inhabited eastern Asia (China, Indonesia). Related fossil remains have been found in Africa, often included in another species, Homo ergaster; Also in Europe various fossil remains have been classified as Homo erectus, although the current trend is to reserve the name Homo erectus for Asian fossils.
African populations (including those of H. ergaster) are considered to be the direct ancestors of several human species, such as H. heidelbergensis and H. antecessor, and the former is generally considered to have been the direct ancestor of Neanderthals, Denisovans, and eventually modern humans.
Asian populations of Homo erectus are considered to be possible ancestors of Homo floresiensis and Homo luzonensis. As a chronospecies, the time of their disappearance is usually therefore a matter of controversy or even convention. There are also several proposed subspecies with different levels of recognition. The last known record of morphologically recognizable Homo erectus are specimens of Homo erectus soloensis from Java, from around 117,000 to 108,000 years ago.
A main feature of Homo erectus is the «relatively low and angular shape of the cranial vault», with a marked supraorbital torus, «a markedly receding forehead, [...] and the greatest width in a very low position", "very flat forehead, flat cheekbones, marked lower orbital edge, lack of demarcation between the nasal region and the region of the face and very marked bar-shaped occipital bull continues". The cranial volume, highly variable, increased throughout its long history. It had a greater capacity than that of Homo habilis and that of Homo georgicus found in Dmanisi. The first remains that were found of him show a cranial capacity of 900 cm³, while those found later reach 1,200 cm³. He had a strong jaw without a chin, but relatively small teeth. It presented a greater sexual dimorphism than in modern man.
The body was tall, could measure up to 1.80 m, very robust, slender and modern, morphologically similar to modern humans.
Produced lithic industry, mainly Acheulean, and probably dominated fire.
Java male (Homo erectus erectus)
Between 1891 and 1892, the Dutch anatomist Eugène Dubois believed he had found the "missing link", hypothesized by Ernst Haeckel, when he discovered some loose teeth, a skull cap and a femur - very similar to that of modern man - in excavations paleontological studies he carried out in the Solo River near Trinil, in the interior of the island of Java (Indonesia). Dubois published these finds under the name Pithecanthropus erectus (upright ape-man) in 1894, but more popularly known as "Java Man" or "Man of Trinil". In the 1930s the German paleontologist Ralpf von Koenigswald obtained new fossils, both from Trinil and from new localities such as Sangiran (about 75 km), twelve specimens in all, and in 1938 von Koenigswald clearly identified a magnificent Sangiran skull, as "Pithecanthropus". It was not until 1940 when Mayr attributed all these remains to the genus Homo (Homo erectus erectus ).
Other deposits
Other important fossil sites of this species were found in China, such as Lantian, Yuanmou, Yunxian and Hexian. Researchers have also found a large number of utensils made by H. erectus at sites such as Nihewan and Bose in China, and at other sites of similar age (at least 1 million to 250,000 years old).
Then the Homo ergaster was discovered in Kenya, which can be considered the African erectus and probably the original species. They are also considered related to H. erectus in Africa, the skull KNM-ER 42700, 1.55 million years old; and the Yaho Skull (Chad) or Tchadanthropus uxoris, from one million years ago.
In Dmanisi, Republic of Georgia, in the Caucasus, Homo georgicus was discovered, dating to 1.8 million years ago, on the way to erectus of Far East, but a related descendant of Homo habilis, which traced the route followed by hominids that left Africa until they dispersed throughout Asia. A tooth found in 2003 in Mohui Cave (Guangxi, southern China) that may be up to 2 million years old, as well as fossils from Yuanmou (Yunnan, China, discovered in 1965) dating back 1.7 million years, and the Mojokerto skull (Java), dated to between 1.8 and 1.49 million years ago, are possibly related to this early arrival of Homo in Asia.
The set of these and other finds is currently classified within the genus Homo and the species of Java men (Trinil man) and Peking is designated as Homo erectus, which appears to have evolved in Africa as Homo ergaster, from earlier populations of Homo habilis, then spread across much of Asia about 1.7 million years.
Fragments of a skull, identified as belonging to an H. erectus, was found in 2002 in Kocabaş, Denizli Province, Turkey. This fossil dates from 1.1 to 1.3 million years ago.
Remains of fauna, fire and lithic industry appeared together with human bones that show intermittent occupation in the cave for perhaps half a million years. This set of fossils was called Peking Man, and the vast majority were lost at the end of World War II.
Fossils from the days of Javanese and Peking men were found between 1936 and 1963 in Lantian, Shaanxi, China: those of Gongwangling date from 800,000 - 750,000 years ago, still with an endocranial capacity of 780 cm³ and those of Chenjiawo, dated to 530,000 years old. Also in 1994 in Tangshan, (Nanjing, Jiangsu), a female Homo erectus skull was found dating to 580,000-620,000 years before the Present.
In 1940 the species Homo erectus was defined, including fossils from Java, Zhoukoudian and other East Asian sites.
In 2018, the findings were published at the Kalinga site, north of the island of Luzon (Philippines), of lithic industry and remains of a rhinoceros with clear flesh marks, dated to 709,000 years and attributable to H. erectus. This discovery raises the question of whether H. erectus acquired the ability to navigate or the colonization of this island was accidental.
Most recent fossils, classified as H. erectus, have been found in Dali (Shaanxi, 1978), from 260,000-300,000 years ago, with an endocranial capacity of 1120 cm³; in Jinniushan (Yingkou, Liaoning, 1974) up to 280,000 years old and with high cranial capacity; in Maba (Qujiang, Canton, 1958) 130,000 years old, and in Dingcun (Xiangfen, Shaanxi) 120,000-100,000 years old. antiquity.
The most recent known fossils, attributed to the species H. erectus, come from the Solo river basin, in Java, and were found since 1934 in Ngandong and in Sambungmacan (Sm-I with intracranial capacity of 1,200 cm³), they have been dated between 27,000 and 53,300 years before the present. Although the dating has been disputed and it is claimed that the Ngandong fossils may be older than 120,000 years, the finding of the Denisovan hominid and the study of its genome are consistent with its simultaneous existence with H. sapiens, from another species of hominin in Asia, which the dating of the Solo fossils suggests. In this way H. erectus would have been a very successful species: it was widely dispersed and long-lived.
Evolution
Since the discovery of Homo erectus, scientists wonder if this species was a direct ancestor of Homo sapiens, because the investigations carried out were not sufficient to prove it. The last populations of H. erectus—such as those in the Solo River in Java—may have lived as recently as 50,000 years ago, concurrently with populations of H. sapiens, and it is ruled out that H. sapiens.
Although previous populations of H. erectus Asiatics could have given rise to H. sapiens, it is now considered more likely that Homo sapiens evolved in Africa probably from African populations of H. erectus, then early H. sapiens would have migrated from northeastern Africa less than 100,000 years ago to Asia, where it may have encountered the latest H. erectus.
A species that is possibly a late descendant of Homo erectus, is the small Homo floresiensis, although from the study of the bones of the wrist, arms and shoulder it is considered more likely that it descended directly from Homo georgicus or from H. habilis.
Homo erectus in Africa
Regarding the possible phylogeny Homo habilis > Homo erectus although this is still considered possible, it does not seem to have occurred in a direct way, but, more likely, through a nexus of these species with Homo rudolfensis. What is concrete is that the findings made in 2007 in Ileret, in the Lake Turkana area, by Richard Leakey and Meave Leakey could indicate that the H. habilis lived in Africa until 1,440,000 years ago (skull KNM-ER 42703), which would confirm that both species coexisted for a period of at least 500,000 years. Although there are authors such as Erik Trinkaus who believe that coexistence does not rule out that H. habilis are direct ancestors of H. erectus.
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An unresolved debate is whether Homo ergaster should be considered a separate species or whether fossils classified as such should be included in H. erectus. Its cranial capacity ranges from the 804 cm³ of KNM-ER 3883 to the 880 cm³ of the Nariokotome child dating to 1.6 million years. It must be taken into account that a later African fossil, dating from 1.55 million years, the skull KNM-ER 42700, due to its morphology has been assigned to H. erectus, despite registering a low cranial capacity of 691 cm³, smaller than that of H. rudolfensis, dating back at least 1.9 million years.
It is discussed whether the presence of Acheulean technology tools or Mode 2 in Africa from 1.65 million years ago and the absence of the Acheulean mode for hundreds of thousands of years in the deposits where the H. erectus in East Asia and Java, is consistent with the identity between H. ergaster and H. erectus or whether an African and an Asian or Eurasian species should be recognized.
In all of Eurasia, the only Acheulean sites with an antiquity close to that of the first African sites are that of Ubeidiya (Israel), which dates from 1.3 to 1.4 million years ago, and that of Attiramapakkam (Tamil Nadu, India), more than a million years old. In East Asia, the oldest Acheulean-like lithic industry was found in southern China, at Bose (Guangxi) and dates to 803,000 ± 3,000 years ago. while in other places in China and Java, the Olduvayan mode 1 is maintained exclusively, with a relative and surprising technological stagnation for a long time.
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Fossils assigned to H. erectus in Africa have multiplied, among them the following stand out: the Man from Buia (Eritrea), similar to H. ergaster, over a million years old and with a cranial capacity of about 800 cm³; the skull from Daka (Ethiopia) or BU-VP-2/66, one million years old and with a brain capacity of 995 cm³; the skull discovered in 1961 in Yaho (Angamma, Chad), with an estimated age of one million years and which was initially designated as Tchadanthropus uxoris; three jaws and a parietal, discovered in Tighennif (Algeria), dating to 800,000 years ago and initially named Atlathropus mauritanius; and the OH 9 skull of Olduvai or Chellean Man, from 1.15 million years ago. years old and a cranial capacity of 1065 cm³, proposed as the prototype of the species Homo louisleakeyi. All these fossils are associated with Acheulean tools.
Although the African fossils in this assemblage share with H. erectus from East Asia a thick supraorbital torus, elongated skull, as well as brain capacity, present some characteristics that differentiate them and point towards H. sapiens: in the Buia skull, for example, the size and placement of the parietal bones, with their outermost position high, curved sides, and broader at the top. The Daka and Buia skulls could be ancestral or related to the European Homo antecessor, whose species character different from H. erectus, is also discussed.
Subspecies
- Homo erectus erectus - Java man.
- Homo erectus pekinensis - Peking man.
- Homo erectus soloensis - Solo Man.
- Homo erectus lantianensis - Lantian man.
- Homo erectus nankinensis - Nanking man.
- Homo erectus yuanmouensis - Yuanmou man.
There is less consensus on the names of the following subspecies:
- Homo erectus ergaster
- Homo erectus palaeojavanicus - or Meganthropus
- Homo erectus tautavelensis - Tautavel Man
Main deposits
In China
- Zhoukoudian
- Jinniu Shan
- Yiyuan
- Yuanmou
- Hexian
- Chaoxian
- Dali
- Gongwanling
- Yunxian
- Maba
- Bose Basin.
In Java
- Modjokerto
- Sangirán
- Trinil
- N Ganng
Contenido relacionado
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Arthoniaceae
Araceae