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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.
From its earliest appearance at about 1.9 Ma, H. erectus is distributed in East Africa and Southwest Asia (Homo georgicus). H. erectus is the first known species to develop control of fire, by about 1.5 Ma. H. erectus later migrates throughout Eurasia, reaching Southeast Asia by 0.7 Ma.
In the Late Pliocene, hominins were set apart from modern great apes and other closely related organisms by the anatomical evolutionary changes resulting in bipedalism, or the ability to walk upright. [8] [9] Characteristics such as a supraorbital torus, or prominent eyebrow ridge, and flat face also makes Homo erectus distinguishable.
Ape skeletons. A display at the Museum of Zoology, University of Cambridge.From left to right: Bornean orangutan, two western gorillas, chimpanzee, human. The evolution of human bipedalism, which began in primates approximately four million years ago, [1] or as early as seven million years ago with Sahelanthropus, [2] [3] or approximately twelve million years ago with Danuvius guggenmosi, has ...
The hominoids are descendants of a common ancestor.. Homo sapiens is a distinct species of the hominid family of primates, which also includes all the great apes. [1] Over their evolutionary history, humans gradually developed traits such as bipedalism, dexterity, and complex language, [2] as well as interbreeding with other hominins (a tribe of the African hominid subfamily), [3] indicating ...
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.
The discovery of these footprints settled the issue, proving that the Laetoli hominins were fully bipedal long before the evolution of the modern human brain, and were bipedal close to a million years before the earliest known stone tools were made. [11] The footprints were classified as possibly belonging to Australopithecus afarensis.
Bipedalism is a form of terrestrial locomotion where an animal moves by means of its two rear (or lower) limbs or legs. An animal or machine that usually moves in a bipedal manner is known as a biped / ˈ b aɪ p ɛ d /, meaning 'two feet' (from Latin bis 'double' and pes 'foot'). Types of bipedal movement include walking or running (a bipedal ...