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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.
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 (until about 1.5 Ma).
Homo erectus greatest extent (yellow), Homo neanderthalensis greatest extent (ochre) during Out of Africa and Homo sapiens (red, Out of Africa II), with the numbers of years since they appeared before present. Early human migrations are the earliest migrations and expansions of archaic and modern humans across continents.
Homo rudolfensis refers to a single, incomplete skull from Kenya. Scientists have suggested that this was a specimen of Homo habilis, but this has not been confirmed. [65] Homo georgicus, from Georgia, may be an intermediate form between Homo habilis and Homo erectus, [66] or a subspecies of Homo erectus. [67]
Homo erectus emerges just after 2 million years ago. [11] Early H. erectus would have lived face to face with H. habilis in East Africa for nearly half a million years. [12] The oldest Homo erectus fossils appear almost contemporaneously
Peking Man (Homo erectus pekinensis) is a subspecies of H. erectus which inhabited what is now northern China during the Middle Pleistocene. Its fossils have been found in a cave some 50 km (31 mi) southwest of Beijing (then referred to in the West as Peking ), known as the Zhoukoudian Peking Man Site .
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.
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.