{"id":204,"date":"2017-09-13T20:21:42","date_gmt":"2017-09-13T20:21:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-history-of-our-tribe\/chapter\/29-homo-erectus\/"},"modified":"2017-10-03T16:20:33","modified_gmt":"2017-10-03T16:20:33","slug":"29-homo-erectus","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-history-of-our-tribe\/chapter\/29-homo-erectus\/","title":{"raw":"29. Homo erectus","rendered":"29. Homo erectus"},"content":{"raw":"
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Homo erectus<\/i> (1.8 mya)<\/b><\/h1>\r\n

(\u201csame\u201d \/ \u201cupright\u201d)<\/h2>\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_306\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"350\"]\"8.11\" Figure 29.1\u00a0<\/em>Drawing of Trinil material.\u00a0<\/b>\u201cPithecanthropus-erectus<\/a>\u201d by 120 is in the public domain.[\/caption]\r\n\r\n
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SITES<\/b><\/h3>\r\nJava:<\/b> Trinil, Modjokerto, Sangiran, Ngandong\r\n\r\nChina:<\/b> Zhoukoudian, Taiwan, and sites in Yunxian, Hexian, and Lantian counties\r\n\r\nIndia:<\/b> Narmada\r\n\r\nTurkey:<\/b> Kocabas\r\n

PEOPLE<\/b><\/h3>\r\nWhile there are many people associated with Homo erectus<\/i>, I have listed a few of the historic names.\r\n\r\nJava:<\/b> Eug\u00e8ne Dubois\r\n\r\nChina:<\/b> J. Gunnar Andersson, Davidson Black, Franz Weidenreich\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

INTRODUCTION<\/h2>\r\nHomo erectus<\/i> is the genus and species combination that was retained for all mainland Asian, Taiwanese, and Javanese fossil material.\r\n

PHYLOGENY<\/b><\/h2>\r\nThe most popularly held notion is that Homo erectus<\/i> is derived from H. ergaster<\/i> or a pre-ergaster<\/i> form that \u201cquickly\u201d moved out of Africa into Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia. However, H. georgicus<\/i> is another possibility for the ancestor of H. erectus<\/i>.\r\n

DISCOVERY AND GEOGRAPHIC RANGE<\/b><\/h2>\r\nEug\u00e8ne Dubois discovered the first H. erectus<\/i> material at the Trinil site (see Figure 29.1) on the Solo River in Java in 1891. While there are problems with the dates, the oldest material from the Javanese site of Modjokerto may be \"contemporary\" with African and Georgian material at 1.8 mya. Other famous Javanese sites are Sangiran, Ngandong, and Trinil. Java is part of the Sunda shelf, and when initially colonized by H. erectus<\/i>, it was connected to mainland Asia (see Figure 29.2). After reaching Java and possibly other areas of Southeast Asia, later groups of H. erectus<\/i> moved north into China. The earliest Chinese fossils are dated to 1 mya. First assigned to the genus Sinanthropus <\/i>(\u201cChinese man\u201d), the material was later included in our own genus after Franz Weidenreich pointed to the similarities between the various assemblages of erectus<\/i>-like fossils and other extinct and modern humans. The first fossils were discovered at the now famous site of Zhoukoudian (formerly Choukoudian), near Beijing (formerly Peking and hence the term, \u201cPeking Man\u201d). The local people called them \u201cdragon bones\u201d and were using them for medicinal purposes. Material from Zhoukoudian spans a time period of over 200,000 years, from 460 to 230 kya, with three distinct cultural periods thought to be in evidence.\r\n\r\nOne of the great mysteries of paleoanthropology surrounds the Zhoukoudian material. Weidenreich and his predecessors, Davidson Black and J. Gunnar Andersson, had amassed an unprecedented amount of fossil material from the site. Due to the imminent Japanese invasion, Weidenreich packed up the fossil material in 1941 with the intent of having it shipped to the United States. However, the material disappeared, and all that remains are Weidenreich\u2019s notes, drawings, and some casts of the original fossils.\r\n\r\nOther Chinese sites are found in the counties of Lantian, Yunxian, and Hexian. A new discovery on the island of Taiwan has been linked to H. erectus<\/i>, with the closest resemblance to the Hexian remains (Chang et al. 2015). Finally, the Narmada site in India has been a topic of debate for a long time but it has now been decided, at least by a portion of the paleoanthropological community, as being Homo erectus<\/i>.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_307\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"640\"]\"8.12\" Figure 29.2<\/em> Sundaland (northwest of the Wallace Line).\u00a0<\/b>\u201cMap of Sunda and Sahul<\/a>\u201d by Maximilian D\u00f6rrbecker is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>.[\/caption]\r\n

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS<\/b><\/h2>\r\nWhile many of the physical characteristics of H. erectus<\/i> are similar to H. ergaster<\/i>, the Asian species is unique in a number of ways. Asian forms exhibit a thickening along the sagittal suture, termed a sagittal keel. The keel gives the skull a pentagonal shape in cross-section. It is unknown whether the keel served a function.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_290\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"1593\"]\"image\" Figure 29.3\u00a0<\/em>Homo erectus by Keenan Taylor.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nTheir incisors were shoveled, an adaptation that increases the stress resistance of teeth, especially when using them as tools. The molar enamel was characterized by a unique wrinkling pattern. Both of those dental characteristics are found in modern people of Asia and Asian ancestry and are interpreted by some scholars as evidence of regional continuity; in other words, there was a gradual evolution from erectus<\/i>-like forms through archaic human populations and into modern populations in multiple areas via gene flow.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_296\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"773\"]\"image\" Figure 29.4\u00a0<\/em>Homo erectus: Peking Man by Keenan Taylor.[\/caption]\r\n\r\n
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Review of Derived Characteristics<\/h3>\r\n