Homo Erectus
Note: I started reading Africa: A Biography of the Continent by John Reader. The following posts will basically summarize what I find interesting in the book as I’m reading it. None of the ideas or thoughts are of my own.
The distinctive characters of Homo Erectus (Figure 1) compared to the earlier Homo Habilis is its larger body size, which enabled the species to cover wider planes of land. The species is known from sites in South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Morocco and Algeria. Some representatives of the species even took the human line out of Africa for the first time. Their fossil remains have been found in Europe, Java (an island of Indonesia), and China. The oldest dates from 1.8 million years ago (in Java).
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| Figure 1 - Reconstruction of a Homo Erectus at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History |
Homo Erectus is a prime candidate for the immediate ancestry of the Neanderthals (Homo Neanderthalensis), who populated Europe from about 120,000 years ago, and who became extinct about 30,000 years ago (Figure 2). The large body gave a greater mobility, but it also required larger portions of food. A larger brain gives a higher capacity to think and work out solutions to problems that the species might face, but a larger brain need more energy to think. Even thought the brain constitutes only 2% of body weight in modern humans, it consumes 16% of the body’s energy.
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| Figure 2 - Reconstruction of a Neanderthal by National Geographic |
1.5 million years ago the brain of the Homo Erectus measured about 1,000cc, which is on the edge of human range for adults (1,000cc to 2,000cc), and about 3/4 of the modern average human adult (1,330cc). Brain size is not an absolute measure of intelligence, but it is reasonable to assume that Homo Erectus depended on its brain capacity to distinguish itself from other species of the time (Figure 3). Only humans depend for their survival on elaborate systems of culture and social interactions. Even chimpanzees, which whom humans share 99% genetic identity, are far less able to assess problems and formulate solutions.
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| Figure 3 - Hominid Skulls |
The earliest known manifestation of humanity becoming specialists in advanced toolmaking dates from around 1.4 million years ago. The manufacturing style of these tools are different from the Oldowan tools found 2.4 million years ago as used by Homo Habilis (explained in Part 4). These later tools are known as “bifaces”, and they introduce the key factors of preconception and planned manufacture to human technology. The earlier Homo Habilis made tools according to an arbitrary “least effort” principle: by knocking off some flakes from a cobble and use whatever is produced, whereas Homo Erectus made bifacial cutting tools according to a predetermined pattern.
The toolmakers selected suitable pieces of stone, knocked flakes from both sides and consistently produced tools that were longer than they were broad, pointed at one end and rounded at the other (Figure 4). There was nothing arbitrary about this manufacturing process. The long axis, the cutting edge, the point and the symmetry of the carefully controlled curves were imposed on the stone, they did not happen by chance. The process of making this kind of a tool could only happen by constant comparison of the result with an image of the finished product that is fixed “in the mind’s eye.”
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| Figure 4 - The biface tool |
This capacity to visualize things that do not yet exist has been seen as the fundamental hallmark of culture. Imagination combined with memories of the past and experience in the present enables people to plan for the future.
To be continued...
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