12 questions · Science
Homo erectus is the great emigrant of human history and the most successful human species that ever lived: measured in time, for it existed almost two million years, about six times as long as our own species so far. The first find came from Java in 1891, where the Dutch physician Eugène Dubois had gone deliberately hunting for the "missing link" and found a skull cap and a thigh bone; he called his creature Pithecanthropus erectus, the upright ape-man, and was mocked for decades. Later came Peking Man from China, the finds from Dmanisi in Georgia, and the nearly complete "Turkana Boy" from Kenya: a youth of some 1.6 million years whose body already looks modern: long legs, narrow hips, an endurance runner. With that body Homo erectus became the first human species to leave Africa, settling Asia as far as Indonesia. Its brain measured around 900 cubic centimetres, its tools were the elegant, bifacially worked hand axes of the Acheulean: a form that stayed nearly unchanged for over a million years. The earliest convincing hearths fall into its time as well, for instance at the Israeli site of Gesher Benot Ya'aqov. And, fittingly ironic, the most successful human died quietly: on Java the last representatives lived only about 110,000 years ago, when Homo sapiens had long been on the move.
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Foto: Thomas Roche from San Francisco, USA · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Homo erectus
Finds from Dmanisi in Georgia are about 1.8 million years old: the earliest secure evidence of humans outside Africa.
Almost two million years
From about 1.9 million to some 110,000 years ago: the longest-lived human species of all. At around 300,000 years, Homo sapiens has managed about a sixth of that.
Eugène Dubois
The Dutch physician quit his post to hunt specifically for the missing link and actually found it. The scientific world disbelieved him for decades.
Java Man
Originally Pithecanthropus erectus, "upright ape-man". Only later was it recognised as Homo erectus: the same species as Peking Man.
Peking Man
From the caves of Zhoukoudian. Tragic twist: the original fossils vanished in 1941 during transport ahead of Japanese troops and have never been found: only casts remain.
Foto: Claire Houck from New York City, USA · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Turkana Boy
Also Nariokotome Boy: about 1.6 million years old, died aged roughly eight to twelve: one of the most complete skeletons of an early human ever found.
Long legs and a narrow trunk: an endurance runner
For the first time the body looks truly human: legs longer than arms, narrow hips, adaptations for sweating. Persistence hunting in daytime heat became possible.
Foto: Sussex Archaeological Society, Laura Burnett, 2008-04-09 10:25:08 · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
The hand axe
Worked on both faces, symmetrical, versatile: the Swiss Army knife of the Stone Age. Its shape stayed nearly unchanged for over a million years.
The Acheulean
After the French site of Saint-Acheul. It replaced the simple Oldowan and demanded planning: the stone had to be prepared, turned and shaped on both sides.
Around 900 cubic centimetres
Between Homo habilis (600) and us (1,350): over 1,000 in later populations. Growth came in bursts, not steadily.
Homo erectus
Hearths in Israel (Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, some 780,000 years) count as the most convincing early evidence; older African hints are disputed.
At Dmanisi in Georgia
Five skulls, 1.8 million years old, beneath a medieval castle. Their great variety prompted the idea that some "species" may be variants of a single one.
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