Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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.
It is believed that Homo erectus were, anatomically, modern humans as they are very similar in size, weight, bone structure, and nutritional habits. Over time, however, human intelligence developed in phases that is interrelated with brain physiology, cranial anatomy and morphology, and rapidly changing climate and environments.
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).
Java Man (Homo erectus erectus, formerly also Anthropopithecus erectus or Pithecanthropus erectus) is an early human fossil discovered in 1891 and 1892 on the island of Java (Indonesia). Estimated to be between 700,000 and 1,490,000 years old, it was, at the time of its discovery, the oldest hominid fossil ever found, and it remains the type ...
A phylogenetic analysis published in 2017 suggests that H. floresiensis was descended from a species (presumably Australopithecine) ancestral to Homo habilis, making it a "sister species" either to H. habilis or to a minimally habilis-erectus-ergaster-sapiens clade, and its line is older than H. erectus itself.
Evidence from fossil hominins suggests that the necessary enlargement of the vertebral canal, and therefore spinal cord dimensions, may not have occurred in Australopithecus or Homo erectus but was present in the Neanderthals and early modern humans. [29] [30]
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.
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 .