The mystery of Homo erectus
The mystery of Homo erectus
More than one species of human inhabited Earth at any given time Human origins between continents via short land or sea routes are considered the best global dispersal route Although Homo erectus refers to an upright human it lived between 100,000 and 1.6 million years ago although some estimates extend it to 35,000 and 1.8 million years ago Unlike the curves found in modern humans its skull was broad and elongated with sharp angles at the backThis extinct archaic hominin dating back to the Pleistocene nearly two million years ago was the first human species to evolve a human-like body shape and gait migrating out of Africa to settle in Asia and Europe Their bodies tended to be shorter and stockier than modern humans with significantly thicker bones East Asian populations tended to have stronger skeletons and larger brain volumes than the average human
Their skulls had prominent brow ridges and protruding jaws The bones were unusually thick particularly in Homo erectus The narrowing was so severe that fragments of the skull were sometimes mistaken for shells Fossil turtles had much narrower medullary canals in their long bones The bone marrow is stored in the limbs In relation to modern humans the extinct human species Erectus produced Lower Stone Age technology and is credited with inventing the Acheulean stone tool industry around 1.95 million years ago It evolved in Africa from a population that coexisted for approximately half a million years becoming the oldest known extinct human species
In East Asia Erectus also known as the Guardian of the North is often found in the form of a skullcap widely interpreted as symbolizing cannibalism and headhunting rituals This behavior is reinforced by the headhunting and cannibalism traditions of modern Indonesian Australian and Polynesian cultures which were originally believed to be directly descended from Erectus The absence of extant skeletons is often explained by natural phenomena
The artwork may be evidence of symbolic thinking The geometrically patterned carved Pseudodon shells from Trinil Java may be the oldest example of this type of artwork Dating back to 436,000 to 546,000 years ago erectus is also the earliest human to have collected a reddish-yellow pigment a lump of red pigment found in the Olduvai Valley in Tanzania related to the early human fossils discovered in the Olduvai Valley in Tanzania
