Homo Erectus
In the quest to explain human origins it is necessary to find a species that bridges modern man (Homo sapiens) with the apes. To fill this gap evolutionists have set forth Homo erectus, who lived approximately 400,000 to 1.6 million years ago (Johanson and Shreeve1989). Although the distinctions are somewhat vague, below the neck, Homo sapiens and Homo erectus are practically Identical and Homo erectus was responsible for pioneering the use of standard tools (such as the hand axe), big-game hunting, and the use of fire (Johanson and Shreeve1989).
You may know Homo erectus as "Java man" or "Peking man"( Johanson and Shreeve 1989). Erectus was low of brow, thick of bone, endowed with a brain larger than that of its
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Other than this remarkable jump, the physical features stayed relatively constant over those 1.4 million years(Washburn, McCown 1972). Some anthropologists say that their supra-orbital ridges were slightly more pronounced than previously, cranial bones were heavier and there was still no protruding chin but their molars had decreased in size (Washburn, McCown 1972).
Foreheads began to develop in the later members of the species, most likely as a result of an expanding frontal lobe (that part of the brain that we believe controls many of our higher functions such as reasoning, foresight and concentration) (Johanson and Shreeve 1989). Homo erectus had a lighter jaw than did Homo Habilis (Johanson and Shreeve 1989).
The following characteristics are generally accepted:
Skull low, broad and elongated Cranial capacity 750-1250 cc Median sagittal ridge Supraorbital ridge Postorbital constriction Receding frontal contour Occipital bun or torus Nuchal area extended for muscle attachment Cranial wall unusually thick Brain case narrower than zygomatic arch Heavy facial architecture Large jaw, wide ramus No chin (mentum) Teeth generally large Post-cranial bones heavy and thick Alveolar (maxilla) prognathism (Johanson and Shreeve 1992, 82 -83)
At least 222 fossils of Homo erectus have been found to date throughout Africa, Asia, Australia and Europe that support these statistics
The “wrist morphology” is more similar to that of African ape/humans than that of Neanderthals or Homo Sapiens (iv.). The reason that this is contradictory to the theory that Lb1 is simply a mutated member of Homo Erectus is that the wrist structure actually forms during the early stages of prenatal development greatly decreasing the possibility that the wrist structure could have been a modified version of modern Homo’s. This evidence would indicate that Lb1 belongs to a species of Homo that branched off before the evolution of the modern wrist structure that was prevalent in more recent
Many of the features that distinguish Homo erectus from other hominin species—both earlier and later species—are seen in the skull. The average brain size of Homo erectus is estimated to have been roughly 900 cubic centimeters (cc.), which is larger than Homo habilis, but smaller than that of Homo heidelbergensis and other later forms. The size of the Homo erectus brain is negligibly larger than in Homo habilis when it is considered as in relation to body size—i.e., brain size increased substantially in Homo erectus, but, because body size also increased, the relative size of the Homo erectus brain is not considerably larger than that of Homo habilis. The absolute in brain size, however, caused changes in the brain case; for instance, the
If the Homo erectus, Homo Neanderthals and Homo sapiens were different from each other then they would have the same cranial traits but they would be significantly different from each other. The traits that would tell the difference between each other from the cranial traits would be the Skull case, Zygomatic, Brow ridge and lastly Sagittal keel. I predicted for the Skull case for the Homo erectus would be the smallest box line, for the skull case for the Homo Neanderthal would be the largest skull while the Homo sapiens skull case would be round. I predicted for the Zygomatic for the Homo erectus would have a medium sized cheek, for the zygomatic for the Homo Neanderthal would have a thickest and largest cheek out of all of them, and lastly
Throughout history, humans have gone through evolution and adapted to new environmental changes to survive. One would wonder how they manage to survive and dominate the Earth for so long. A possible ancestor to humans known as Homo erectus (sometimes called Homo ergaster) may have been the reason why humans have been so successful in survival today. Homo erectus has been a live about 1.89 million years ago to 143,000 years ago. He was the first hominid to leave Africa and was also known as Turkana Boy in Africa, Peking Man in China, and Java Man in Indonesia. H. erectus gained his name for being able to stand upright or have an erect posture. One can say that they are the pioneers of the Old World because they were the first hominid to master the use of fire. Once evolution took place, they began developing larger skulls. This allows their brain to grow larger, thus becoming even more intelligent. Because of this, H. erectus became very successful in creating cultural technologies that allowed them to adapt to new environmental opportunities. Through speculating this
The biology and culture of the Homo erectus that led to its success relative to earlier hominids is that it had a body shape similar to the Turkana boy who was bipedal and had a closely related body to humans. The erectus body proportion was long and linear-adapted to tropical conditions as well. Their skull was longer than it was wide, angular from the side, a sagittal keel, bar-like supraorbital torus, occipital torus, and greatest breadth is low.
Homo erectus was branched off after H. habilis as the justification for this was from the muzzle angles of the different species. As H. erectus had a muzzle angle of 107° it was decided that it was reasonable to assume that H. erectus evolved from H. habilis. However, in the overall positioning of the phylogeny, it was placed on a side branch off H. habilis. This reasoning for this was that if H. erectus was placed on the main evolutionary line to evolve from H. ergaster, the muzzle angles from H. ergaster, H. erectus, and Homo neaderthalensis would increase then decrease. It would not be logical to place H. erectus on the main evolutionary line. Further justification that H. erectus was not a direct ancestor
Like I stated before regarding the cranium of the Au. afarensis, they have a sagittal crest. The sagittal crest offers a dock for large chewing muscles in the primate. This has evolved due to the tough materials that the hominins needed to chew through and the stress that it placed on the skull while eating. This is also a factor for why robust australopithecines have huge cheek bones. This is why in the later evolved gracile australopithecines you see the reduction of a sagittal crest.
floresiensis have also been found in Liang Bua Cave. (Morwood 2005) If we follow our conclusions an H. erectus origin, these older tools were likely from early population of H. erectus. In this way, we can conclude that there was indeed belonged to a population of earlier hominins present before H. floresiensis. Despite all this evidence for a H. erectus origin, there an issue of the details which H. erectus population. H. erectus is wide spread species with subspecies. The subject of the H. floresiensis debate is pinning one of these subspecies as the origin species. In doing this, we hope create a better understand for H. floresiensis’s relation for the other members of the Homo genus. But if we truly look at the genus of Homo critically, it doesn’t take much for us to see that the genus itself is yet to perfectly defined. It the recent times, there has been a lot of changes to ideas we use to define a member of the genus Homo. There has been debate on where to change the name of our H. sapiens. The idea would be to define the current modern day human as a subspecies. For now, Homo appears to be an umbrella term with species under it that serve as their umbrella terms. This brings to the question of whether H. floresiensis is subspecies of H. erectus due the fact it displays similar morphologies. H. floresiensis could easily bear the name Homo erectus floresiensis, but this is issue of debate. Because of the nature
Human evolution; the length of time when hominids started to develop, as well as creating more sophisticated use of their surroundings. One of the major ideas was when hominids developed their body image. Homo Erectus were very similar to Homo Sapiens considering their physical appearance. Despite the fact that Homo Sapiens and Homo Erectus were two separate species, they contained many of the same characteristics. Homo Erectus’s average weight was 40-68 kilograms. Whereas, Homo Sapiens average weight was about 79 kilograms. Their heights were about identical, Homo erectus were 1.6 - 1.8 meters tall. Homo sapiens were 1.6- 1.7 meters tall. These two hominids had very big noses which is strange because the sense of smell is considered, by many,
Our world as we know it, is full of missing puzzle pieces when it comes to completing the picture of how human kind truly came to be. For years and years talented fieldworkers have been working all over the world to try and collect all of these missing pieces. Slowly over the years an increasing amount of body and fossil records are helping us better understand when, where and how hominins came into and left existence. There have been many discoveries between the Australopithecus Afensis and more recent discoveries with very human like features like the Homo Erectus. The discovery of the Australopithecus Sediba is seen as a bench mark halfway point in our evolutionary time line their fossil discovery gives us insight on how they would have lived, what they could have looked like and how they are presumably related to humans.
Human used to be monkeys and evolved as time went by. Humans did not evolve from the monkeys that are around us today, they are our cousins. As the habitat changed and their was less trees for us to climb, we started to walk on two legs to be able to run from danger. Australopithecines were the first human evolution. They walked on two legs and were not that tall. They had larger brains than the modern Chimpanzies.Homo habilis came next and had way bigger brains than Australopithecines. They started using rocks to cut things. Next was the Homo ergaster. They had bigger brains and were the ones who started traveling and adapting to new environments. Also Homo ergasters may have been the first people to try to make fire. They started making
erectus' immediate ancestor seems to have been either A. africanus or a species very much like it. Africanus gave rise to Genus Homo; most likely Homo habilis. Habilis is an early Homo species who was named for being a tool maker, or handyman. Habilis then gave rise to erectus. From there, H. erectus migrated across Africa and then into Asia, going as far as China and even Indonesia.H. erectus continued to thrive in several populations until at about 143,000 years ago, at least one erectus population continued to evolve. That population gave rise to Homo heidelbergensis, which then gave rise to Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis
The mandible that is to be identified has similar sizes of anterior and posterior teeth, a parabolic dental arcade shape, an intermediate thickness of the corpus, an absence of molarized premolars, no simian shelf, and an absence of a chin and retromolar space. Using our knowledge of these traits, we can proceed to figure out which hominin this mandible is
The Out of Africa hypothesis and the Multiregional hypothesis are the two most contentious theories pertaining to the origins and migration patterns of modern Homo sapiens. The aim of this essay is to examine the genetic and phenotypic evidence of these two greatly debatable theories using the scientific method to adapt, adjust, reject or accept these theories in order for the reader to retrieve information about this discussion and make an informed decision as to which theory they deem most logical. Recent studies (Jin & Su 2000) has suggested that both the Out of Africa (OOA) and Multiregional hypotheses agree that Homo erectus originated in Africa and expanded to Eurasia about one million years ago, but they vary in clarifying the origin of modern Homo sapiens. The Out
Australopithecus afarensis is one of the best known of the of the australopithecine species with Laetoli footprints found in Tanzania and many bones and bone fragments found in Ethiopia and Kenya. Because of certain very well preserved remains, we can tell a lot about this species. The most famous of these remains is “Lucy”, a skeleton with remains from almost every bone dating 3.2 million years old. This is a sexually dimorphic bipedal species, meaning the males and females have different characteristics and they walk on two legs. Males tend to be about 1 and 1/2 times the size of females and have larger canine teeth, but these teeth are still smaller than those of the Chimpanzee. Body size ranges between 1.1 and 1.6 meters and weight can be anywhere between 29 and 45 kilograms. This species has a jutting lower face (prognathic) and closely resemble an ape from the waist up and a human from the waist down. The curvature that the fingers and toes and elevated position of the shoulder joint show that this species is more adapted to tree climbing than more recent human ancestors.