What is Homo Erectus?

Homo erectus , an ancient human who lived in Africa, Europe, and Asia 1.8 million to 3 million years ago. Homo erectus is generally believed to originate in Africa. The ape-man's mandible, skull and leg bones were found in Java, Indonesia, from 1890 to 1892. The discoverer named him "Homo erectus" or "Homo erectus." The ape-man fossil found in Zhoukoudian, Beijing in 1929 was named "Chinese Ape-Man of Beijing" or "Chinese Ape-Man Beijing Species", commonly known as "Beijing people". In the future, ape-man fossils were found in Africa and Europe, and their shapes were basically similar. Therefore, the international anthropological community has unanimously agreed to name the ape-man fossils found in various places as " Homo erectus ", which is literally translated as "human upright species" or "upright person" in Latin. Uprights in China mainly include Yuanmou people, Lantian people, Beijing people, Hexian people, Shexian people, Yiyuan people, Miaohoushan people, and Tangshan people.

Homo erectus

The presence of uprights marks the

Homo erectus

Chinese scholars are traditionally called ape-humans, and their fossils have been found in Europe, Asia, and Africa from 170 (or 1.5) million years ago to 300 (or 200,000) years ago. The skull is flat, the bone wall is thick, and the orbital ridge is thick. The brain volume is about 800 ml to 1200 ml, and the average height is 160 cm. The structure of the lower limbs is very similar to that of humans. perfect.

Homo erectus

Homo erectus (formerly known as ape man) is an extinct species belonging to the family Hominidae. Upright human fossils have been unearthed in most parts of the Old World, such as Africa, Asia, and Europe. The "phases" of the life of Homo erectus belong to the Pleistocene in the geological age (2.5 million to 10,000 years ago), and are generally referred to as the Middle Pleistocene. Most researchers believe that in the past, the fossils that belonged to the genus Javanese, Sinanthropus, Atlanthropus, and Telanthropus all belonged to uprights. The name of the Javan ape man was German zoologist Ernst Heinrich Haeckel in the 19th century

Stone-making tools unearthed from the Jianshi Homo erectus site

It's fixed. Heckel had assumed that there had been a human ancestor in the past, so he called this ape-like creature of his scientific fantasy. A few years later, Dutch surgeon Eugene Dubois discovered a skull and other bone fossils in Trinil, Java, in 1891. A human thigh bone was also found near the skull. Because this thigh is long and straight, much like the femur of a modern human, Dibois concluded that such a person must be able to walk upright. He speculated that the femur and cranium belonged to the same person, or at least belonged to the same humanoid members, so he named the small amount of fossil remains upright. Later, with more discoveries, the situation of this new and special fossil race was gradually clarified.

At first, upright human fossils were mostly found in Asia. Fossils that are basically similar to Homo erectus have been found in several places in Java: Trinil, Kedung Brubus, Modjokerto, and Sangiran . There have also been a series of discoveries in China. The earliest human fossils found in China were "Wushan people", dating back to about 2.1 million to 2.04 million years ago. The discovery in the famous Zhoukoudian cave near Beijing is particularly rich, but the fossil remains excavated from this site were all lost during the Sino-Japanese War from 1939 to 1940, and new discoveries were made after 1949. In addition, upright human fossil remains have been found in two new locations in Lantian County, Shaanxi Province. From 1954 to 1955, some of the fossil remains most similar to the Chinese type of Homo erectus were found in Ternifine, Algeria. In 1961, a typical upright human cranium was found in the Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania (that is, the old humanoid specimen No. 9). In 1965, a child and an adult's fossil remains were found in Vertesszollos, west of Budapest, Hungary. The children's fossils are deciduous teeth, and their characteristics are sufficient to show that they are related to Chinese uprights in Zhoukoudian. In order to determine the status of Homo erectus in human evolution, it is essentially to determine the age of Homo erectus as accurately as possible. Due to the great development of physics and other disciplines in modern times, ancient anthropologists can use a variety of techniques to more accurately determine the absolute age of fossils. According to preliminary measurements, the era of the Homo erectus is early in the Middle Pleistocene. The results of repeated measurements of the Trinil formation by the potassium argon method indicate that its age is about 550,000 years ago.