Human evolution; new anthropological erectus info (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, April 02, 2020, 23:46 (1694 days ago) @ David Turell

Erectus is even older than previously thought:

https://cosmosmagazine.com/palaeontology/the-earliest-known-skull-of-homo-erectus?utm_s...

"The two-million-year-old fossil – believed to be of a child just two or three years old – was reconstructed from more than 150 fragments excavated over five years from the Drimolen cave system north of Johannesburg in South Africa.

"It suggests that Homo erectus existed 100,000 to 200,000 years earlier than previously thought.

"The researchers also uncovered the oldest known skull of the species Paranthropus, and their analysis reveals that in fact three hominin genera – Australopithecus being the third – were living as contemporaries in the area two million years ago.

"Combined with other evidence, this leads them to argue that the site reflects a period of transition in southern Africa driven by climatic variability, with endemic species such as Australopithecus going extinct, while new migrants – Homo and Paranthropus – moved in.

"According to La Trobe’s Andy Herries, who led the research, we can now say that Homo erectus shared the landscape with two other types of humans – a point that has been much debated.

“'This suggests that one of these other human species, Australopithecus sediba, may not have been the direct ancestor of Homo erectus, or us, as previously hypothesised,” he says."

Comment: Another new find that supports the idea of a hominin/homo evolutionary explosion