What are the features of Homo Erectus?

Newer discoveries have since been made in the Zhoukoudian caves and at four other Chinese sites:

H. erectus appears to have been the first human species to control fire, some 1,000,000 years ago.

Those bigger brains and bodies required more food and energy to survive. Analyses on the dental micro-wear and stable isotope chemistry of H. erectus fossils (molecules from foodstuff naturally become incorporated into growing teeth and bones) suggest the ancient man ate a fairly flexible and diverse diet, which likely included a lot of animal protein, according to a 2011 review of hominin diets published in the journal Science.

Gongwangling (Kung-wang-ling) and Chenjiawo (Ch’en-chia-wo) in the Lantian (Lan-t’ien) district of Shaanxi province, Hulu Cave near Nanjing, and Hexian (Ho-hsien) in Anhui province.

The species seems to have flourished until some 200,000 years ago (200 kya) or perhaps later before giving way to other humans including Homo sapiens.

Homo erectus' larger brain may explain why its apparent intelligence and why it displays so many distinctly human behaviors. In terms of intelligence, "I don’t think [H. erectus] would be great elementary school students if we try to put them through our education system," Van Arsdale said. "But they were very successful in a lot of different environments."

By the end of World War II the pattern of early discovery had given rise to the idea that H. erectus was a peculiarly Asian expression of early humans.

The first fossils attributed to Homo erectus were discovered by a Dutch army surgeon, Eugène Dubois, who began his search for ancient human bones on the island of Java (now part of Indonesia) in 1890.

For example, a study published in 2011 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) suggests H. erectus (and potentially other, earlier Homo species) may have harnessed fire to cook food as early as 1.9 million years ago. A 2013 analysis of ancient tools (stone hand axes), also published in PNAS, reveal the human ancestor was butchering animals by at least 1.75 million years ago.

Subsequent discoveries in Africa changed this view, and by the end of the 20th century it was confirmed that Europe also harboured H. erectus.

. Dubois found his first specimen in the same year, and in 1891 a well-preserved skullcap was unearthed at Trinil on the Solo River.

And in 2014, researchers discovered 540,000-year-old shell carvings — the oldest engravings ever found — belonging to H. erectus, as well as shells that were apparently used as tools. Many of the shells discovered at the Java site contained unnatural holes near the shells' hinges, exactly at the point where muscle keeps the shell closed.

In North Africa in 1954–55, excavations at Tighenif (Ternifine), east of Mascara, Algeria, yielded remains dating to approximately 700,000 years ago whose nearest affinities seemed to be with the Chinese form of H.

Dubois concluded that the Trinil cranium showed anatomic features intermediate between those of humans (as they were then understood) and those of apes. Several years later, near where the skull was discovered, he found a remarkably complete and modern-looking femur (thighbone

This suggests H. erectus may have purposely drilled these holes to easily open the shells and eat the mollusks, before using the shells as tools and canvasses, according to the study published in Nature.

erectus. Other Moroccan hominin fragments from this region—parts of a skull found in 1933 near Rabat and jaws and teeth from Sīdī ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (Sidi Abderrahman) in Morocco—show features reminiscent of H.

substantial evidence appeared. Most paleontologists now regard all of this material as H. erectus, and the name Pithecanthropus has been dropped.

Homo erectus' ability to make complex tools was possible because of the strength and dexterity in its hands, which it owes to a certain hand-bone projection called a "styloid process" that was previously thought to only exist in Neanderthals and modern humans, according to a 2013 PNAS study.

erectus, though they are rather more advanced in structure than those of Tighenif and Asia. Another fossil likened to H. erectus is a 400,000-year-old cranium found in 1971 at Salé, Morocco.

Subsequent discoveries continued to establish a case for this new and separate species of fossil hominin. At first these discoveries were centred largely in Asia

The lineage and evolutionary history of H. erectus and other Homo species is unclear, and has been muddied further by recent finds.

Homo erectus was once thought to have first evolved from an earlier human ancestor, known as Homo habilis, somewhere in East Africa. It was thought that H. erectus then spread out to inhabit South Africa, parts of Europe (Spain and Italy), the Caucasus, India, China, and Indonesia.

Although nearly all of the face and part of the forehead have broken away, it is an important specimen.

Some of the more convincing evidence for the existence of H. erectus in Africa came with the discovery in 1960 of a partial braincase at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania.

similar fossils were found during the early 20th century at several different locations in Java: Kedung Brubus, Mojokerto (Modjokerto), Sangiran, Ngandong (Solo), Sambungmacan (Sambungmachan), and Ngawi.

However, there's much disagreement about whether these populations are actually all H. erectus, or if they should be considered other species. According to Van Arsdale's H.