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EXTINCT ANIMALS
Homo erectus was robust and equipped with big teeth. This mandible was powered by large muscles and was undoubtedly suited to chewing tough food. Using a complete skull of Homo erectus, anatomists and artists can build up a picture of the face of this extinct hominid. If you stare into the face of one of these reconstructions, you can see yourself, but the overall impression is of an animal that was barely human. The mental capabilities of Homo erectus can only be guessed. A frequent question is whether these hominids were able to express themselves with language, and detailed studies of Turkana Boy suggest that their power of speech was very minimal, perhaps limited to simple sounds—the precursors of complex speech. We do know that they made tools, as stone artifacts have been found at the same locations as their bones and from other locations around the world. The bones of Homo erectus are so rare that these tools give us a better picture of just how geographically widespread this hominid was. In a short period of geologic time, this hominid dispersed from Africa to Eurasia in the north and China and Indonesia in the east (and possibly even farther). These movements suggest that Homo erectus was capable of solving complex practical problems as they were confronted by treacherous bodies of water and other seemingly insurmountable barriers. With narrow hips and long legs, Homo erectus was a natural athlete, and this may have been crucially important in allowing them to disperse far and wide from where they first evolved. There is also some tantalizing evidence that Homo erectus harnessed and used fire, one of the major technological leaps in human evolution. Fire made food safer and more palatable and kept predators at bay as well as having a multitude of other uses. Homo erectus stone implements may be just a fraction of what these hominids were capable of creating. They could have produced a range of different tools using plants and various bits of animal, but if these have stood the tests of time anywhere and not rotted away completely, they have not yet come to light. Homo erectus was undoubtedly a physically strong hominid, but was it an active predator or a scavenger on the kills made by predators such as big cats? Hunting requires a lot of time and energy, and it can also be very dangerous. Scavenging is less dangerous, but it is not easy, especially if you are planning on stealing a carcass from beneath the nose of a saber tooth cat. However, the risks of scavenging are outweighed by the rewards of a huge amount of fresh meat. The oldest Homo erectus fossils are around 1.8 million years old, and the most recent remains could be fewer than 100,000 years old, so this was a very successful and widespread species. What happened to Homo erectus? The likely cause of the extinction of Homo erectus was competition with modern humans, who treaded the same paths out of Africa, eventually colonizing almost the entire globe. Our species, Homo sapiens, was probably inferior to Homo erectus in terms of brute strength and stamina, but our unparalleled advantage was our brain and the language and ingenuity it gives us. • As Homo erectus evolved on the hot, arid plains of equatorial Africa, it was adapted to cope with the powerful sun’s rays. An upright stance presents less of the body’s surface to the heat of the sun, and it was probably hairless, which allows the evaporation of sweat to cool the underlying blood. Its skin was darkened with melanin, a pigment that protects the skin cells from the damaging effects of the sun’s ultraviolet radiation.