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Homo erectus derives from early Homo or late Australopithecus. Homo habilis, although significantly different of anatomy and physiology, is thought to be the ancestor of Homo ergaster, or African Homo erectus; but it is also known to have coexisted with H. erectus for almost half a million years
Homo erectus (/ ˌ h oʊ m oʊ ə ˈ r ɛ k t ə s / lit. ' upright man ') is an extinct species of archaic human from the Pleistocene, spanning nearly 2 million years.It is the first human species to evolve a humanlike body plan and gait, to leave Africa and colonize Asia and Europe, and to wield fire.
This evolution continued in Homo erectus with 800–1,100 cm 3 (49–67 cu in), and reached a maximum in Neanderthals with 1,200–1,900 cm 3 (73–116 cu in), larger even than modern Homo sapiens. This brain increase manifested during postnatal brain growth, far exceeding that of other apes (heterochrony).
Homo erectus are the first of our relatives to have human-like body proportions. Kaplan was a co-author of the findings published Thursday in the journal Nature Communications Earth and Environment .
Replica of Sangiran 17 Homo erectus skull from Indonesia showing obtuse face to vault angle determined by fitting of bones at brow. Cast of anatomically modern human Kow Swamp 1 skull from Australia with a face to vault angle matching that of Sangiran 17 (Wolpoff's reconstruction).
About 350,000 years ago a genome of an "erectus-like" creature was injected into the Denisovan lineage. With the separation time of about 2 Ma ago and interbreeding that happened 350 ka ago, the two populations involved were more distantly related than any pair of human populations previously known to interbreed.
At least a dozen species of Homo other than Homo sapiens have been proposed, with varying degrees of consensus. Homo erectus is widely recognized as the species directly ancestral to Homo sapiens. [citation needed] Most other proposed species are proposed as alternatively belonging to either Homo erectus or Homo sapiens as a subspecies.
Homo (from Latin homō 'human') is a genus of great ape (family Hominidae) that emerged from the genus Australopithecus and encompasses only a single extant species, Homo sapiens (modern humans), along with a number of extinct species (collectively called archaic humans) classified as either ancestral or closely related to modern humans; these include Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis.