What Is The Range Of H. Erectus Brain Size?

Homo erectus is arguably the earliest species in the human being lineage to accept so many human-like qualities. Earlier hominins had of import similarities with living humans, similar bipedality, and H. erectus yet had a long evolutionary path to become similar you and me, merely the fossils assigned to H. erectus display a number of new and distinctly mod homo traits.

Homo erectus is oftentimes referred to as the first cosmopolitan hominin lineage, meaning the kickoff hominin species whose geographic range had expanded beyond a unmarried continental region. While fossil remains from H. erectus are found in Africa, like those of before hominins, they have also been identified at fossil sites widely dispersed beyond Eurasia (Figure 1, Table 1).

Map of <i>Homo erectus</i> fossil localities.

Figure 1: Map of Homo erectus fossil localities.

Date (mya)	Locality	Key Fossils
1.9 – 1.ii	Koobi Fora, Kenya	WT 15000 (Nariokotome), ER-3733, ER-3883
1.9 – 0.7	Olduvia Gorge, Tanzania	OH 9, OH 12
1.8 – ane.vii	Dmanisi, Georgia	D3444, D2700, D2280, D2282
ane.8 – 1.six	Swartkrans, South Africa	SK 847
1.8 – 0.9	Sangiran/Trinil, Indonesia	Trinil ii, Mojokerto, Sangiran 17, Sangiran 2
1.0 – 0.viii	Ceprano, Italy	Ceprano 1
0.viii – 0.4	Zhoukoudian, China	ZKD E1, D1, L1, L2, H3
0.eight – 0.half dozen	Bodo, Ethiopia	Bodo
0.6 – 0.3	Atapuerca, Spain	Sima de los huesos (numerous)
0.3 – 0.1	Jinniushan, China	Jinniushan
0.2 – 0.05	Ngandong, Indonesia	Ngandong 1, 9, x, 11
Table i: *Key Homo erectus* fossil sites**. A fractional list of fundamental Homo erectus fossil localities, and some of the key specimens preserved at each. Verbal dates are difficult to obtain for many of these localities, so the above dates stand for best approximate ranges. In some cases, such equally Olduvai Gorge and Koobi Fora, fossils have been recovered from many individual localities within the area, spanning a large range of dates.

There are a number of fascinating evolutionary questions that tin can exist asked of H. erectus. The species was not only geographically widespread, it also had a long temporal span in the hominin fossil record (Antón 2003). With its earliest appearance in the fossil record from localities in the Lake Turkana Basin, Republic of kenya, erstwhile around two one thousand thousand years ago, H. erectus populations persisted until near the end of the Pleistocene, every bit evidenced past fossils from Southeast Asia. Homo erectus thus presents paleoanthropologists with the challenge of trying to interpret fossil variation in the context of both widespread geographic and temporal distribution.

Furthermore, the expansion of H. erectus beyond a big range of environments suggests a alter in the ecology of this lineage relative to early hominins, a modify that certainly has significance for how evolutionary forces acted to shape the pattern of variation we detect in the fossil lineage.

These are some of the questions that researchers ask of H. erectus fossils: How did the ecology of Human erectus differ from that of preceding hominins? What are the characteristics of H. erectus that allowed it to expand across dissimilar habitats throughout portions of Eurasia and Africa? What limitations constrained the expansion and evolution of H. erectus in the Pleistocene? What office did behavioral and technological innovation play in establishing the complex and geographically widespread evolutionary design of H. erectus? How might we draw and explain the evolutionary pattern of H. erectus?

History and Geography

Eugene Dubois first identified and described a new human-like set of Indonesian fossils at the end of the 19^th century, naming the specimens Pithecanthropus erectus (upright, ape-man) because of their combination of bipedality and a brain size much smaller than living humans. Dubois had specifically been looking for the missing link betwixt apes and humans, and for him the combination of a human-similar torso and ape-similar brain represented just that (Shipman 2002). Subsequent discoveries in the 1920s and 1930s from the site of Zhoukoudian, Prc, of fossils with similar characteristics-originally designated Sinanthropus pekinensis-raised the question of a possible evolutionary relationship betwixt these regional samples. Today, these two samples, forth with a much larger drove of fossils from Asia, Africa, and Europe, are nearly commonly referred to simply as Homo erectus.

What is the evolutionary relationship among fossils that share many similarities, but also subtle differences, separated beyond time and infinite? This question, prompted by the early Chinese and Javan fossils, remains an active research question today for the much larger sample of fossils assigned to H. erectus. Whether or not a sample from i region, for example Africa, part of a polytypic, geographically widespread lineage (Human erectus), or whether it is function of a related, but unlike species, is a debated topic and reveals much virtually the evolutionary pattern of the species (Rightmire 1998). For case, some researchers argue that H. erectus is restricted largely to Eastern and Southeast Asia, consistent with the original fossils attributed to the taxon. In that case, the bulk of its representatives lived from the terminate of the Lower Pleistocene through the Middle Pleistocene (~one.4-0.ii mya). From this perspective, before fossils from Western asia (e.k., Dmanisi, Georgia; Figure 2) and Africa (eastward.g., Koobi Fora, Kenya) that are similar to the classic Asian H. erectus, but also have more ancestral traits, might be considered a separate lineage (often called Homo ergaster). Eye Pleistocene remains from Europe might exist a 2nd or third split up lineage (Homo heidelbergensis). In this view, the ecological niche occupied by these species is more express, leading to the isolation, and ultimately speciation, among different regional populations.

Cranial and mandibular fossils from Dmanisi, Georgia.

Figure 2: Cranial and mandibular fossils from Dmanisi, Georgia.

Fossils dated to roughly 1.7 one thousand thousand years ago, demonstrate morphological variation in Homo erectus from a single site.

Humans are widespread and variable today, but much of the variation observed beyond contemporary populations is the event of relatively recent events in the by 100,000 years of our evolutionary history. Patterns of variation in H. erectus occurred on a time calibration as long as a million years, and may have been different from those nosotros find today. This presents a claiming for researchers in terms of how we explicate the blueprint of variation seen in H. erectus, but as well presents an opportunity to written report how evolutionary forces operate beyond such scales.

Who was Homo erectus?

As with any fossil lineage, identifying the primeval appearance of the species is difficult. Notwithstanding, a gear up of shared, derived features tin can be assigned to all of the fossils assigned to H. erectus, regardless of where they fall amid the geographic and temporal range of the lineage. The post-obit sections summarize some of these characteristics.