HOMO ERECTUS: BODY FEATURES, DEVELOPMENTS AND FAMOUS FOSSILS

HOMO ERECTUS

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Homo erectus “Homo erectus” had a considerably larger brain than “Homo habilis, its predecessor. It fashioned more advanced tools (double-edged, teardrop-shaped "hand axes" and "cleavers" ) and controlled fire (based on the discovery of charcoal with erectus fossils). Better foraging and hunting skills, allowed it to exploit its environment better than “Homo habilis” Nickname: Peking Man, Java Man. “Homo erectus” lived for 1.3 million years and spread from Africa to Europe and Asia. Paleontologist Alan Walker told National Geographic, “Homo erectus “ "was the velociraptor of its day. If you could look one in the eyes, you wouldn't want to. It might appear to be human, but you wouldn't connect. You'd be prey."

Geologic Age 2 million years to 100,000 years ago. Homo erectus “ lived at the same time as “Homo habilis “ and “Homo rudolfensis” and later at the same time as Neanderthals and modern humans, but not necessarily in the same places. Linkage to Modern Man: Regarded as a direct ancestor of modern man, May have had primitive language skills. Discovery Sites: Africa and Asia. Homo erectus“ fossils have been found in eastern Africa, southern Africa, Georgia, Algeria, Morocco, China and Java.

Homo erectus was the first of our relatives to have body proportions like a modern human. It may have been the first to harness fire and cook food. L.V. Anderson wrote on Slate.com: It’s thought that both Neanderthals and Homo sapiens evolved from H. erectus, with Neanderthals emerging about 600,000 years ago (and going extinct around 30,000 years ago) and modern humans emerging around 200,000 years ago (and still going strong). Neanderthals were shorter and had more complex societies than H. erectus, and they’re thought to have been at least as large-brained as modern humans, but their facial features protruded a little more and their bodies were stouter than ours. It’s thought that Neanderthals died out from competing, fighting, or interbreeding with H. sapiens.” [Source: L.V. Anderson, Slate.com, October 5, 2012 \~/]

Websites and Resources on Hominins and Human Origins: Smithsonian Human Origins Program humanorigins.si.edu ; Institute of Human Origins iho.asu.edu ; Becoming Human University of Arizona site becominghuman.org ; Hall of Human Origins American Museum of Natural History amnh.org/exhibitions ; The Bradshaw Foundation bradshawfoundation.com ; Britannica Human Evolution britannica.com ; Human Evolution handprint.com ; University of California Museum of Anthropology ucmp.berkeley.edu; John Hawks' Anthropology Weblog johnhawks.net/ ; New Scientist: Human Evolution newscientist.com/article-topic/human-evolution

Homo Erectus Size

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Homo erectus Size: The tallest hominin species until modern man. The body looked almost like a modern human. males: 5 feet 10 inches tall, 139 pounds; females: 5 feet 3 inches tall, 117 pounds. “Homo erectus” was considerably larger than its forebears. Scientists speculate that the reason for this is that they ate more meat.

Brain Size: 800 to 1000 cubic centimeters. Enlarged over the years from the size of a one -year-old infant to that of a 14-year-old boy (about three-fourths the size of a modern adult human brain). A 1.2-million-year-old skull from Olduvai Gorge had a cranial capacity of 1,000 cubic centimeters, compared to 1,350 cubic centimeters for a modern human and 390 cubic centimeters for a chimp.

In an August 2007 article in Nature, Maeve Leakey of the Koobi Fora Research Project announced her team had found a well-preserved, 1.55-million-year-old skull of a young adult “Homo erectus “ east of Lake Turkana in Kenya. The skull was the smallest ever found of the species which indicated that “Homo erectus” may not have been as advanced as had been previously thought. The finding does not challenge the theory that “Homo erectus” are the direct ancestors of modern humans. But does make one step back and wonder could such an advanced creature such a modern man evolved from such a diminutive, small-brained creature such as “Homo erectus”.

The finding shows that if nothing else there is great degree of variation in the size of “Homo erectus” specimens. The fossils were found several years before but extra care was taken identifying the species and dating the fossils, which was done from volcanic ash deposits.

Susan Anton, an anthropologist at New York University and one of the authors of the discovery, said that the variation in sizes is particularly noticeable between males and females and the finding seems to suggest that sexual dimorphism was present among “Homo erectus”. Daniel Leiberman, a Harvard anthropology professor, told the New York Times, “the small skull has got to be female, and my guess is all the previous erectus we have found turn out to be male.” If this turns out to be true then it could turn out that “Homo erectus” had a gorilla-like sex life like that of “Australopithecus robustus” (See Australopithecus robustus).

Homo Erectus Skull and Body Features

Homo erectus skull Skull Features: Thickest skull of all homonids: long and low and resembling a "partially deflated football." More similar to predecessors than modern man, no chin, protruding jaw, low and heavy braincase, thick browridges, and backward sloping forehead. Compared to its predecessors there was a reduced size and projection of the face, including much smaller teeth and jaws than those of Paranthropus and loss of the skull crest. A bony nasal bridge suggests a nose that projected like ours. “Homo erectus” was the first hominin to have asymmetrical brains like modern humans. The frontal lobe, where complex thinking takes place in modern humans, was relatively underdeveloped. The small hole in vertebrae probably meant that not enough information was transferred from the brain to the lungs, neck and mouth to make speech possible.

Body Features: Body similar to modern humans. It had long-limbed proportions common in tropical people. Tall, lean and slim hipped, it had a rib cage virtually identical to that of modern humans and strong bones able to withstand the wear and tear of a hard life on the savannah.

“Homo erectus was about five to six feet tall. Its narrow pelvis, changes in the hips and arched foot meant that it could move more efficiently and quickly on two legs than even modern humans. The legs grew longer relative to the arms, indicating more efficient walking and perhaps running,It almost certainly could run like modern humans. It's large size meant it had a large surface area able to dissipate tropical heat through sweating.

Homo erectus's teeth and jaws were smaller and less powerful than its predecessors because meat, its main food source, is easier to chew than coarse vegetation and nuts eaten by its predecessors. It was most likely a hunter well adapted for the open grasslands of savannah Africa.

Homo erectus's skull was surprisingly thick — so thick in fact that some fossil hunters have mistaken it for a turtle shell. The top and sides of the cranium had thick, bony walls and a low, a wide profile, and in many ways resembled a bicycle helmet. Scientists have long wondered why the skull was so helmet-like: it didn’t offer much protection against predators that killed mostly by bites to the neck. Recently it has been suggested that a thick skull offered protection against other homo erectus, namely males who battled each other, perhaps by bashing each other with stone tools aimed at the head. On some erectus skulls there is evidence that suggests the head may have been struck with repeated heavy blows.

Homo Erectus Tools

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tools found at
Konso-Gardula, Ethiopia Hand axes are usually associated with “Homo erectus”. Ones found at Konso-Gardula, Ethiopia are believed to be between 1.37 and 1.7 million year old. Describing a primitive 1.5- to 1.7-million-year-old ax, Ethiopian archaeologist Yonas Beyene told National Geographic, "You don't see much refinement here. They've only been knapped away a few flakes to make the edge sharp." After displaying a beautifully-crafted ax from a perhaps a 100,000 year later he said, "See how refined and straight the cutting edge has become. It was an artform for them. It wasn't just for cutting. Making these is time-consuming working."

Thousands of primitive hand 1.5-million- to 1.4-million-year-old hand axes have been Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania and Ubeidya, Israel. Carefully-crafted, sophisticated 780,000-year-old hand axes have been unearthed in Olorgesaile, near the Kenya and Tanzania border. Scientists believe they were used to butcher, dismember and deflesh large animals like elephants.

Sophisticated “ Homo erectus “ teardrop-shaped stone axes that fit snugly in the hand and had a sharp edged created by careful shearing of the rock on both sides. The tool could be used to cut, smash and beat.

Big symmetrical hand axes, known as Acheulan tools, endured for more than 1 million years little changed from the earliest versions found. Since few advances were made one anthropologists described the period in which “Homo erectus” lived as a time of “almost unimaginable monotony.” Acheulan tools are named after 300,000-year-old hand axes and other tools found in St. Acheul, France.

Turkana Boy

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Turkana boy "Turkana Boy" is a nearly complete skeleton and skull from a 12-year-old boy that lived 1.54 million years ago and was discovered in 1984 near the shores of Lake Turkana not far from Nariokotome, Kenya. Some scientists think he is “Homo erectus”. Others regard him as distinctive enough to be regarded as a separate species — “homo ergaster”. Turkana Boy was about 5-foot, 3-inches tall when he died and probably would have reached a height of about six feet if he reached maturity. Turkana boy is the most complete skeleton of a hominin more than a million years old.

“Homo ergaster “ is a hominin species that lived between 1.8 million and 1.4 million years ago. Many scientists regard “Homo ergaster “ as a member of the “Homo erectus “ species. Skull Features: smaller jaws and a more projecting nose than earlier Homos. Body Features: Arm and leg proportions more similar to modern man. Discovery Site: Koobi Fora at Lake Turkana, Kenya.

1.8-Million-Year-Old Hominin Fossils in Georgia

The Dmanisi hominins refers to population of early hominins whose fossils were found at Dmanisi, Georgia. The fossils and stone tools found there range in age from 1.85 to 1.77 million years old, making them the earliest well-dated hominin fossils in Eurasia and the oldest undisputed hominin fossils found outside of Africa. The first of these fossils were unearthed in 1991 and big deal was made when the first skulls were unearthed in the late 1990s. Earlier fossils and artifacts have been found in Asia but they have not been as precisely dated and carefully excavated as the Dmanisi fossils Though the precise classification is still disputed, the Dmanisi fossils are highly significant for the insights they provide on early hominin migrations out of Africa. [Source: Wikipedia]

The Dmanisi fossils is the largest collection of “Homo erectus” bones ever found in one place and and the best preserved fossils of early Homo from a single site so early in time. They include over a hundred postcranial fossils and five famous well-preserved skulls, referred to as Dmanisi Skulls 1–5. The taxonomic classification of the Dmanisi hominins is somewhat unclear due to their small brain size, primitive skeletal features, and different morphologies of the five skulls. Dmanisi would have been reachable from Africa through the Levantine corridor. Stone tools found at the site are like those found in Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania.

Some scientists say the Dmanisi fossils belong to “ Homo Erectus” . Others think they are closer to “Homo habilis”, the “H. erectus” predecessor. Many see them as a link between erectus and habilis. Yet others say they belonged to different species, “Homo ergaster” . Others still say they belong to a new species “Homo georgicus”.

Java Man

Java Man Java man was discovered by Eugene DuBois, a young Dutch military doctor, who came to Java in 1887 with the sole purpose of finding the "missing link" between humans and apes after hearing about discoveries of ancient human bones (which later turned out to belong to modern man) near the Javanese village of Wajak, near Tulung Agung, in eastern Java.

With the help of 50 East Indian convict laborers, he discovered a skull cap and thighbone — that clearly didn't belong to an ape — along the banks of the Sunngai Bengawan Solo River in 1891. After measuring the cranial capacity of the skull with mustard seeds, Dubois realized that the creature was more of an "ape-like man" than a "man-like ape." Dubois dubbed the find “Pithecanthropus erectus”, or "upright ape-man,” which is now regarded as an example of “Homo erectus”.

The discovery of Java Man was the first major hominin find, and helped launch the study of early man. His finding created such a storm of controversy that Dubois felt compelled to re-bury the bones for 30 years to protect them.

Peking Man and Fire

"Peking Man" refers to a collection of six complete or nearly complete skulls, 14 cranial fragments, six facial fragments, 15 jawbones, 157 teeth, one collarbone, three upper arms, one wrist, seven thighbones, and one shinbone found in caves and a quarry outside of Peking (Beijing). It is believed the remains came from 40 individuals of both sexes that lived during a 200,000 year period. Peking Man is categorized as a member of the hominin species Homo erectus as is Java Man.

The Peking Man bones are the largest collection of hominin bones ever found at one site and were the first evidence that early man reached China. It was first thought the bones were between 200,000 and 300,000 years old. Now it is believed that they are 400,000 to 670,000 years old based on dating the sediments in which the fossils were found. No chemical tests or research were ever done on the bones before they mysteriously disappeared at the beginning of World War II.

right "Peking Man" was found in quarry and some caves near the village of Zhoukoudian, 30 miles southwest of Beijing. The first fossils found in the quarry were dug up by villagers who sold them as "dragon bones" to a local folk medicine shop. In the 1920s, a Swedish geologist became fascinated with a human-like tooth believed to be two million years old in the collection of a German physician who hunted fossils in China. He began his own search for fossils, beginning in Beijing and was led by a local farmer to Zhoukoudian, which means Dragon Bone Hill.

Foreign and Chinese archeologists launched a major excavation at Zhoukoudian. The digging intensified when a human molar was found. In December 1929 a complete skullcap was found imbedded in a rock face by a Chinese archeologist clinging to a rope. The skull was presented to the world as the "missing link" between man and monkeys. Excavations continued through the 1930s and more bones were found along with stone tools and evidence of the use of fire. But before the bones had a chance to be carefully examined, the Japanese invaded China and World War II broke out and most of the fossils disappeared.

The oldest largely accepted evidence of fire used by an ancestor of modern man is a group of burned animals bones found among remains of Homo erectus in the same caves in Zhoukoudian, China where Peking man was found. The burned bones have been dated to be about 500,000 years old. In Europe, there is evidence of fire that is 400,000 years old.

Homo Erectus Footprints Reveal They Walked Like Modern Humans

In the mid 2010s, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig discovered multiple assemblages of 1.5-million-year-old Homo erectus footprints in northern Kenya that provide unique opportunities to understand locomotor patterns and group structure through a form of data that directly records these dynamic behaviours. Novel analytical techniques used by the Max Planck Institute and an international team of collaborators, have demonstrated that these H. erectus footprints preserve evidence of a modern human style of walking and a group structure that is consistent with human-like social behaviours. [Source:Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Science Daily,July 12, 2016]

Homo georgicus?

Max-Planck-Gesellschaft reported: “Fossil bones and stone tools can tell us a lot about human evolution, but certain dynamic behaviours of our fossil ancestors — things like how they moved and how individuals interacted with one another — are incredibly difficult to deduce from these traditional forms of paleoanthropological data. Habitual bipedal locomotion is a defining feature of modern humans compared with other primates, and the evolution of this behaviour in our clade would have had profound effects on the biologies of our fossil ancestors and relatives. However, there has been much debate over when and how a human-like bipedal gait first emerged in the hominin clade, largely because of disagreements over how to indirectly infer biomechanics from skeletal morphologies. Likewise, certain aspects of group structure and social behaviour distinguish humans from other primates and almost certainly emerged through major evolutionary events, yet there has been no consensus on how to detect aspects of group behaviour in the fossil or archaeological records.

“In 2009, a set of 1.5-million-year-old hominin footprints was discovered at a site near the town of Ileret, Kenya. Continued work in this region by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, and an international team of collaborators, has revealed a hominin trace fossil discovery of unprecedented scale for this time period — five distinct sites that preserve a total of 97 tracks created by at least 20 different presumed Homo erectus individuals. Using an experimental approach, the researchers have found that the shapes of these footprints are indistinguishable from those of modern habitually barefoot people, most likely reflecting similar foot anatomies and similar foot mechanics. "Our analyses of these footprints provide some of the only direct evidence to support the common assumption that at least one of our fossil relatives at 1.5 million years ago walked in much the same way as we do today," says Kevin Hatala, of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and The George Washington University.

Based on experimentally derived estimates of body mass from the Ileret hominin tracks, the researchers have also inferred the sexes of the multiple individuals who walked across footprint surfaces and, for the two most expansive excavated surfaces, developed hypotheses regarding the structure of these H. erectus groups. At each of these sites there is evidence of several adult males, implying some level of tolerance and possibly cooperation between them. Cooperation between males underlies many of the social behaviours that distinguish modern humans from other primates. "It isn't shocking that we find evidence of mutual tolerance and perhaps cooperation between males in a hominin that lived 1.5 million years ago, especially Homo erectus, but this is our first chance to see what appears to be a direct glimpse of this behavioural dynamic in deep time," says Hatala.

Journal Reference: Kevin G. Hatala, Neil T. Roach, Kelly R. Ostrofsky, Roshna E. Wunderlich, Heather L. Dingwall, Brian A. Villmoare, David J. Green, John W. K. Harris, David R. Braun, Brian G. Richmond. Footprints reveal direct evidence of group behavior and locomotion in Homo erectus. Scientific Reports, 2016; 6: 28766 DOI: 10.1038/srep28766

Endurance Running Key Part of Human Evolution

Broken Hill skull from Zambia Many scientists believe large brains developed relatively rapidly hand in hand with scavenging and endurance runners. Our upright posture, relatively hairless skin with sweat glands allow us to keep cool in hot conditions. Our large buttocks muscles and elastic tendons allow us to run long distance more efficiently than other animals. [Source: Abraham Rinquist, Listverse, September 16, 2016]

According to the “endurance running hypothesis,” first proposed in the early 2000s, long-distance running played a critical role in the development of our current upright body form. Researchers have suggested that our early ancestors were good endurance runners — presumably using the skill to efficiently cover large distances in search of food, water and cover and maybe methodically chase down prey and — and this characteristic left an evolutionary mark on many parts of our bodies, including our leg joints and feet and even our heads and buttocks. [Source: Michael Hopkin, Nature, November 17, 2004 ||*||]

Michael Hopkin wrote in Nature: “Early humans may have taken up running around 2 million years ago, after our ancestors began standing upright on the African savannah, suggest Dennis Bramble of the University of Utah and Daniel Lieberman of Harvard University. As a result, evolution would have favoured certain body characteristics, such as wide, sturdy knee-joints. The theory may explain why, thousands of years later, so many people are able to cover the full 42 kilometres of a marathon, the researchers add. And it may provide an answer to the question of why other primates do not share this ability. ||*||

“Our poor sprinting prowess has given rise to the idea that our bodies are adapted for walking, not running, says Lieberman. Even the fastest sprinters reach speeds of only about 10 metres per second, compared with the 30 metres per second of a cheetah. But over longer distances our performance is much more respectable: horses galloping long distances average about 6 metres per second, which is slower than a top-class human runner. "Everyone says humans are bad runners, because when you think of running you tend to think of sprinting," he adds. "There's no question we're appalling sprinters, but we're quite good at endurance running."||*||

Claim That Human Throwing Developed 2 Million Years Ago Greeted with Skepticism

In 2013, scientists said in a study published in Nature that around 2 million years our human ancestors first started throwing with some degree of accuracy and power. Malcolm Ritter of Associated Press wrote: “There's plenty of skepticism about their conclusion. But the new paper contends that this throwing ability probably helped our ancient ancestor Homo erectus hunt, allowing him to toss weapons — probably rocks and sharpened wooden spears. [Source: Malcolm Ritter, Associated Press. June 26, 2013 ***]

“The human throwing ability is unique. Not even a chimp, our closest living relative and a creature noted for strength, can throw nearly as fast as a 12-year-old Little Leaguer, says lead study author Neil Roach of George Washington University. To find out how humans developed this ability, Roach and co-authors analyzed the throwing motions of 20 collegiate baseball players. Sometimes the players wore braces to mimic the anatomy of human ancestors, to see how anatomical changes affected throwing ability. ***

“The human secret to throwing, the researchers propose, is that when the arm is cocked, it stores energy by stretching tendons, ligaments and muscles crossing the shoulder. It's like pulling back on a slingshot. Releasing that "elastic energy" makes the arm whip forward to make the throw. That trick, in turn, was made possible by three anatomical changes in human evolution that affected the waist, shoulders and arms, the researchers concluded. And Homo erectus, which appeared about 2 million years ago, is the first ancient relative to combine those three changes, they said. ***

“But others think the throwing ability must have appeared sometime later in human evolution. Susan Larson, an anatomist at Stony Brook University in New York who didn't participate in the study, said the paper is the first to claim that elastic energy storage occurs in arms, rather than just in legs. The bouncing gait of a kangaroo is due to that phenomenon, she said, and the human Achilles tendon stores energy to help people walk. ***

“The new analysis offers good evidence that the shoulder is storing elastic energy, even though the shoulder doesn't have the long tendons that do that job in legs, she said. So maybe other tissues can do it too, she said. But Larson, an expert on evolution of the human shoulder, said she does not think Homo erectus could throw like a modern human. She said she believes its shoulders were too narrow and that the orientation of the shoulder joint on the body would make overhand throwing "more or less impossible." Rick Potts, director of the human origins program at the Smithsonian Institution, said he is "not at all convinced" by the paper's argument about when and why throwing appeared. ***

“The authors did not present any data to counter Larson's published work that indicates the erectus shoulder was ill-suited for throwing, he said. And it is "a stretch" to say that throwing would give erectus an advantage in hunting, Potts said. Large animals have to be pierced in specific spots for a kill, which would seem to require more accuracy than one could expect erectus to achieve from a distance, he said. Potts noted that the earliest known spears, which date from about 400,000 years ago, were used for thrusting rather than throwing.” ***

Last Homo Erectus

Skull from Sangiran

Research appears to indicate that the last place homo erectus survived was on of Java. Archaeology magazine reported: A team used new technology on previously excavated remains to confirm that 12 H. erectus skulls from Ngandong were between 117,000 and 108,000 years old, making them the last known members of their species. [Source: Archaeology magazine, March -April 2020]

At first the Homo erectus fossils found at Ngandong were thought to be between 100,000 and 300,000 years old. Then it was reported the fossils were found strata dated between 27,000 and 57,000 years old. This implied that “Homo erectus” lived much. much longer than anyone thought and “Homo erectus” and “Homo sapiens” existed at the same time on Java. Many scientists were skeptical about the 27,000-to-57,000-years-old Ngandong dates and they were ultimately tossed.

Image Sources: All Posters com 2) Peking Man skull, Wesleyan University ; 3) Peking Man cave, World Heritage Site website; 4) Peking Man bust, World Heritage Site website ; Others Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: National Geographic, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Nature, Scientific American. Live Science, Discover magazine, Discovery News, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, BBC, The Guardian, Reuters, AP, AFP and various books and other publications.

Last updated April 2024