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The first member of the genus Homo to be hairless was Homo erectus, originating about 1.6 million years ago. [6] The dissipation of body heat remains the most widely accepted evolutionary explanation for the loss of body hair in early members of the genus Homo, the surviving member of which is modern humans.
Homo erectus is the most long-lived species of Homo, having survived for almost two million years. By contrast, Homo sapiens emerged about a third of a million years ago. Regarding many archaic humans , there is no definite consensus as to whether they should be classified as subspecies of H. erectus or H. sapiens or as separate species.
Homo erectus populations lived in southeastern Europe by 1.8 million years ago. [17]The most archaic human fossils from the Middle Pleistocene (780,000–125,000 years ago) [18] have been found in Europe.
About 1.8 million years ago, Homo erectus left the African continent. [2] This species, whose name means "upright man", is believed to have lived in East and Southeast Asia from 1.8 million to 40,000 years ago. [3] Their regional distinction is classified as Homo erectus stricto. [4]
The oldest controlled use of fire by Homo erectus also was discovered at Swartkrans and dated to more than 1 million years ago. [ 11 ] [ 12 ] In 1966, Phillip Tobias began his excavations of Sterkfontein that are still continuing and are the longest continuously running fossil excavations in the world.
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 47 km (29 mi) southwest of Beijing (then referred to in the West as Peking ), known as the Zhoukoudian Peking Man Site .
The paleoanthropoligist Eudald Carbonell, who serves as co-director of the excavations at the Archaeological Site of Atapuerca, hypothesizes that the aforementioned jawbone belongs to a specimen of Homo erectus. [24] Other researchers suggest it may have come from Homo antecessor, an early species of human. It located about two meters deeper in ...
Zhoukoudian Peking Man Site (周口店北京人遗址), also romanized as Choukoutien, is a cave system in suburban Fangshan District, Beijing.It has yielded many archaeological discoveries, including one of the first specimens of Homo erectus (Homo erectus pekinensis), dubbed Peking Man, and a fine assemblage of bones of the giant short-faced hyena Pachycrocuta brevirostris.