Eugene Dubois first discovered Homo erectus in 1891. Dr. Dubois, a Dutch anatomist, found a cranium and thighbone as digging in Trinil, Java. He named this fresh genus Pithecanthropus erectus; despite the fact that no one was at the outset sure if these bones belonged to a human or even to the identical animal. The skull appeared slighter than an up to date human skull, although the thighbone was just about the equivalent. The supposition of an utterly different species was established in the 1930's with a parallel discovery by G.H. von Koenigswald in Java and the unearthing of the "Peking Man" in China by Davidson Black. Excavations for the duration of the 1950's exposed H. Erectus fossils in east Africa dating to 1.6 to 1.2 million years back.
”Scientists have found stunning new data showing that a third human species apparently coexisted on Earth with two others as recently as 30,000 years ago. In research that could redraw the human family tree and is certain to be controversial, the scientists re-examined two major fossil sites along the Solo River in Java and found that an early human relative, Homo erectus, appeared to have lived there until about 27,000 to 53,000 years ago.
H. Erectus, which is thought to have lived as regards 1.6 million years past to approximately 400,000 years ago, is the earliest hominid far and wide dispersed right through the Old World. ”Recently discovered Homo fossils and simple stone tools in East Asia show that the dispersal of the early Homo from Africa to south and East Asia occurred about one million years earlier than previously estimated.” (The African emergence and early Asian dispersals of the genus homo. - 11/01/1996) The inquiry in relation to an innovative species is in particular complicated. In living organisms, a species is distinctive as a grouping of organisms that can mate and bring into being productive young. However with fossils, dissimilar living organisms, present are no 'tests' for shaping whether something new is or is not a detach species, and countless morphological species pointers similar to plumage or else coat color are lost.”Scientists have found a million-year-old... skull fragment in the desert of northeastern Ethiopia that they say offers new evidence that a single species of human ancestor spread across the continents of Africa, Europe and Asia long before modern humans made their appearance.” (One Human Ancestor, Indivisible? Fossil Finders' Article Adds Fuel to Debate Be... - 03/21/2002) The researchers found that the appearance of new species and the vanishing of old ones were stretch right through the 1 million year time stuck between 3 and 2 mya in the Turkana basin, which offers the richest and most excellent dated documentation of animal evolutionary transformation in Africa for the duration of this decisive gap. Consequently the proposition of a main "turnover pulse" at 2.5 mya was not sustained by the data. The researchers found, nevertheless, that subsequent to a measured mount in the quantity of species up to 2 ...