Definition
Homo erectus (upright man) is an extinct species of human that occupies a fascinating spot within the human evolutionary lineage. These prehistoric hunter-gatherers were highly successful in adapting to extremely different habitats across the Old World, as fossils connected with this species have been found ranging from Africa all the way to Southeast Asia (Brauer et al., 1992). With the earliest remains appearing around 1.9 million years ago (MYA), and continuing into the Middle Pleistocene, Homo erectus spanned an extraordinarily large time frame. However, the amount of variation between different fossils from different times and places has raised questions regarding the actual classification of the species, and its accurate role in the evolutionary story.
Who Were They?
In the 1890s, fossils found at the site of Trinil by Eugene Dubois on Java, Indonesia, became the first to be classified as Pithecanthropus erectus(Dubois 1926). After this discovery, more Homo erectus...
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References
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Saha, D., Rai, P., Jha, A.K. (2019). Homo erectus . In: Vonk, J., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_1936-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_1936-1
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