Homo erectus

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Homo erectus
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Where and When?

• Early finds of Homo erectus
• Java in what is now Indonesia
• 1891 by Eugene Dubois who called it
  Pithecanthropus erectus
• Cranium and thigh bone
• Finds confirmed in mid-1930s by Koenigswald
• Recently dated during the mid-1990s to about 1.8
  mya

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Where and when?

• Early finds of Homo erectus
• Zhoukoudian, China by Canadian Davidson Black
• 1928 into the early 1930s teeth, skullcaps,
  mandibles and limb bones of about 40 individuals
• Named Sinanthropus pekinensis or Peking Man now
  called H erectus
• 900-000 to 130,000 BP

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Where and when

• More recent finds of Homo erectus
• 1950s in northern Africa
• Since then many finds from East Africa
• Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania) finds dated to 1.2 mya
• Lake Turkana (Kenya)
• Complete skeleton of Turkana boy dated to 1.6
  mya
• Cranium of female KNM-ER 3733 found in 1975 and
  dating to 1.78 mya

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Where and when

• More recent finds of Homo erectus
• Dmanisi, Georgia
• Skulls and postcranial remains dating to 1.8 mya
  discovered in late 1990s
• Classified as Homo erectus BUT
• Small brain size1/2 the size of modern humans
• Other features of skull resemble H habilis
• Stone tools were like the choppers and scrapers
  of Olduvai but were made of carefully selected
  materials
• Researchers said these hominids were not stupid
• Early date and primitive features suggest early
  move of H erectus out of Africa through a savanna
  environment

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Where and when

• More recent finds of Homo erectus
• Flores, an island in Indonesia
• Discovered in early 2000s
• Homo floresiensisdistinct species or not?
• Microcephalic Homo sapiens?
• Possible link to Homo erectus?brain size small
  but similar in form
• Possible link to Homo habilis??wrist design and
  stature
• Possible link to Australopithecines?wrist design
  and stature
• Small in stature, brain size (380 cc)
• Dates to as recently as 12,000-18,000 BP
• Made tools that resembled those of Homo
  erectusdid H floresiensis make them?
• Was small size the result of living on an
  isolated island and genetic drift? (Wallace line)

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Classifying and Naming Homo erectus

• Homo erectus
• Term our class will use to name all the variable
  specimens of these hominins
• Some people use this term for only the East Asian
  forms
• Homo ergaster
• Name used by some paleoanthropologists for the H
  erectus specimens from Africa
• Homo heidelbergensis
• Term used by some paleoanthropologists for the
  late specimens found in Europe
• Named archaic H sapiens by some
  paleoanthropologists and H erectus by still
  others
• Homo sapiens erectus?

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What do H erectus skeletal materials look like?

• Skull
• Long, low, think walled
• Sagittal keel
• Occipital torus at back of skull
• Brow ridges pronounced
• Flat frontal area
• Small teeth especially the 3rd molar
• Relatively light bone in jaw

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What do H erectus skeletal materials look like?

• Brain
• Cranial capacity of 894-1040 cc
• Larger than Australopithecines and H habilis
• About 70 of cranial capacity for modern humans
• Skull design suggests that the structure of the
  brain was different from Australopithecines and H
  habilis and closed to H sapiens

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What do H erectus skeletal materials look like?

• Post-cranial remainsthe body
• Similar to H sapiens
• Thigh bone thicker than modern humans
• Otherwise very similar to us
• Pelvic region suggests that, as with H sapiens, H
  erectus babies were born with premature brains
  that continued developing after birth
• Sexual dimorphism less pronounced than in
  Australopithecines and H habilis and closer to
  that of H sapiens
• Does this suggest pair bonding? What is the
  function of apir bonding? Can we make the jump
  from pair bonding to the social institution of
  marriage?

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Homo erectus culture

• Tools dating between 1.8 mya to 200,000 BP
  attributed to H erectus
• Early H erectus remains associated with Oldowan
  chopper tool tradition (Lower Paleolithic)
• Between about 1.5 mya and 500,000 BP H erectus
  made and used tools of the Acheulian Tool
  Tradition (still Lower Paleolithic)

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Homo erectus culture

• Acheulian Tool Tradition
• 1.5 mya to 500,000 BP
• East Africa, Europe and western Asia
• Large tools with typical shapes
• Made from large cores, carefully flaked to get
  standard styles and forms
• The tear-drop shaped Acheulian handaxe is the
  best known of these
• Hard hammer tools at the beginning but later
  soft hammer techniques used
• Acheulian forms not found in East and Southeast
  Asia probably because bamboo used rather than
  stone

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Homo erectus culture

• Keeping warm in the frozen north Fire? clothes?
• H erectus lived in parts of Asia and Europe which
  were cold. Did they use fire to stay warm?
• Possible evidence of use of fire but no direct
  association of H erectus bones and deliberate
  fire
• Date of somewhere between 1.5 and 1 mya at
  Swartkans Cave, South Africa?
• Zhoukoudian Cave in China at 500,000BP?
• Gesher Benot Yaaqov, Islreal at 800,000BP?
• European sites even later
• Did they use clothes to fend off cold?

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Homo erectus culture

• Where to live and what to eat?
• Cooperative big-game hunting
• We have evidence of hunting, but what about
  cooperative hunting?
• What would cooperative hunting mean about H
  erectus social organization?
• Sites in Europe and Africa have large scale kills
  of animals plus tools we know H erectus tools
  used but they have never been concretely linked
  at any site
• Cooperative hunting of big game? Possible but we
  dont yet know for sure

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Homo erectus culture

• Living sites
• Near water, vegetation, herbivorous animals
• Caves were sometimes used although many sites
  suggest H erectus had little shelter besides
  windbreaks
• Many sites were base camps with many kinds of
  tools although some were specialized sites, such
  as, sites to butcher kill

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Homo erectus culture

• Living sites
• Terra Amata
• Near Nice in southern France
• 400,000 to 200,000 BP
• Huts with central hearths on ancient beach
• Oysters, mussels, seafish, elephants, boars,
  rhinocerous, wild oxen,

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Homo erectus culture

• Language, religion and symbolic thought
• No evidence as of yet for these
• Intelligence shown by the sophisticated tools
  made by H erectus, but no clear evidence for
  symbolic thought

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Summary Homo erectus

• 1.8 mya -500,000 BP
• Africa, Asia and Europe
• Lower PaleolithicAcheulian Tool Tradition
• Cultural adaptation rather than biological
  adaptation was becoming increasing important as a
  means of adapting to a changing environment