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H. Habilis and H. Gautengensis: Late Pliocene Early Pleistocene

Homo habilis lived from 2.8 to 1.4 million years ago in South and East Africa and evolved from australopithecines. It had smaller molars and larger brains than australopithecines and made tools from stone and bones. In 2010, a new species, Homo gautengensis, was discovered in South Africa. Homo rudolfensis and Homo georgicus are proposed species names for fossils from 1.9-1.6 million years ago whose relation to Homo habilis is unclear. Homo erectus lived from 1.8 million years ago to around 70,000 years ago in Africa, Asia, and Europe, making more elaborate tools

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79 views1 page

H. Habilis and H. Gautengensis: Late Pliocene Early Pleistocene

Homo habilis lived from 2.8 to 1.4 million years ago in South and East Africa and evolved from australopithecines. It had smaller molars and larger brains than australopithecines and made tools from stone and bones. In 2010, a new species, Homo gautengensis, was discovered in South Africa. Homo rudolfensis and Homo georgicus are proposed species names for fossils from 1.9-1.6 million years ago whose relation to Homo habilis is unclear. Homo erectus lived from 1.8 million years ago to around 70,000 years ago in Africa, Asia, and Europe, making more elaborate tools

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nikita bajpai
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H.

habilis and H. gautengensis[edit]
Homo habilis lived from about 2.8[115] to 1.4 Ma. The species evolved in South and East Africa in
the Late Pliocene or Early Pleistocene, 2.5–2 Ma, when it diverged from the
australopithecines. Homo habilis had smaller molars and larger brains than the
australopithecines, and made tools from stone and perhaps animal bones. One of the first known
hominins was nicknamed 'handy man' by discoverer Louis Leakey due to its association
with stone tools. Some scientists have proposed moving this species out of Homo and
into Australopithecus due to the morphology of its skeleton being more adapted to living on
trees rather than to moving on two legs like Homo sapiens.[169]
In May 2010, a new species, Homo gautengensis, was discovered in South Africa.[170]

H. rudolfensis and H. georgicus[edit]
These are proposed species names for fossils from about 1.9–1.6 Ma, whose relation to Homo
habilis is not yet clear.

 Homo rudolfensis refers to a single, incomplete skull from Kenya. Scientists have


suggested that this was another Homo habilis, but this has not been confirmed.[171]
 Homo georgicus, from Georgia, may be an intermediate form between Homo
habilis and Homo erectus,[172] or a subspecies of Homo erectus.[173]
H. ergaster and H. erectus[edit]
The first fossils of Homo erectus were discovered by Dutch physician Eugene Dubois in 1891 on
the Indonesian island of Java. He originally named the material Anthropopithecus erectus (1892–
1893, considered at this point as a chimpanzee-like fossil primate)
and Pithecanthropus erectus (1893–1894, changing his mind as of based on its morphology,
which he considered to be intermediate between that of humans and apes).[174] Years later, in the
20th century, the German physician and paleoanthropologist Franz Weidenreich (1873–1948)
compared in detail the characters of Dubois' Java Man, then named Pithecanthropus erectus,
with the characters of the Peking Man, then named Sinanthropus pekinensis. Weidenreich
concluded in 1940 that because of their anatomical similarity with modern humans it was
necessary to gather all these specimens of Java and China in a single species of the
genus Homo, the species Homo erectus.[175][176] Homo erectus lived from about 1.8 Ma to about
70,000 years ago – which would indicate that they were probably wiped out by the Toba
catastrophe; however, nearby Homo floresiensis survived it. The early phase of Homo erectus,
from 1.8 to 1.25 Ma, is considered by some to be a separate species, Homo ergaster, or
as Homo erectus ergaster, a subspecies of Homo erectus.
In Africa in the Early Pleistocene, 1.5–1 Ma, some populations of Homo habilis are thought to
have evolved larger brains and to have made more elaborate stone tools; these differences and
others are sufficient for anthropologists to classify them as a new species, Homo erectus—in
Africa.[177] The evolution of locking knees and the movement of the foramen magnum are thought
to be likely drivers of the larger population changes. This species also may have used fire to
cook meat. Richard Wrangham suggests that the fact that Homo seems to have been ground
dwelling, with reduced intestinal length, smaller dentition, "and swelled our brains to their current,
horrendously fuel-inefficient size",[178] suggest that control of fire and releasing increased
nutritional value through cooking was the key adaptation that separated Homo from tree-sleeping
Australopithecines.[179]
See also: Control of fire by early humans
A famous example of Homo erectus is Peking Man; others were found in Asia (notably in
Indonesia), Africa, and Europe. Many paleoanthropologists now use the term Homo ergaster for
the non-Asian forms of this group, and reserve Homo erectus only for those fossils that are found
in Asia and meet certain skeletal and dental requirements which differ slightly from H. ergaster.

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