Introduction to Paleoanthropology

Site distribution

Africa

Unlike Australopithecines and even Homo habilis, Homo ergaster/erectus was distributed throughout Africa:

• about 1.5 million years ago, shortly after the emergence of H. ergaster, people more intensively occupied the Eastern Rift Valley;
• by 1 million years ago, they had extended their range to the far northern and southern margins of Africa.

Traditionally, Homo erectus has been credited as being the prehistoric pioneer, a species that left Africa about 1 million years ago and began to disperse throughout Eurasia. But several important discoveries in the 1990s have reopened the question of when our ancestors first journeyed from Africa to other parts of the globe. Recent evidence now indicates that emigrant erectus made a much earlier departure from Africa.

Israel

Ubeidiyeh

• Deposits accumulated between 1.4-1.0 million years ago;
• Stone tools of both an early chopper-core (or Developed Oldowan) industry and crude Acheulean-like handaxes. The artifacts closely resemble contemporaneous pieces from Upper Bed II at Olduvai Gorge;
• Rare hominid remains attributed to Homo erectus;
• Ubeidiya might reflect a slight ecological enlargement of Africa more than a true human dispersal.

Gesher Benot Yaaqov

• 800,000 years ago;
• No hominid remains;
• Stone tools are of Acheulean tradition and strongly resemble East African industries.

Republic of Georgia

In 1991, archaeologists excavating a grain-storage pit in the medieval town of Dmanisi uncovered the lower jaw of an adult erectus, along with animal bones and Oldowan stone tools.

Different dating techniques (paleomagnetism, potassium-argon) gave a date of 1.8 million years ago, that clearly antedate that of Ubeidiya. Also the evidence from Dmanisi suggests now a true migration from Africa.

China

Longgupo Cave

• Dated to 1.8 million years ago
• Fragments of a lower jaw belonging either to Homo erectus or an unspecified early Homo.
• Fossils recovered with Oldowan tools.

Zhoukoudian

• Dated between 500,000 and 250,000 years ago.
• Remarkable site for providing large numbers of fossils, tools and other artifacts.
• Fossils of Homo erectus discovered in 1920s and 1930s.

Java

In 1994, report of new dates from sites of Modjokerto and Sangiran where H. erectus had been found in 1891.

Geological age for these hominid remains had been estimated at about 1 million years old. Recent redating of these materials gave dates of 1.8 million years ago for the Modjokerto site and 1.6 million years ago for the Sangiran site.

These dates remained striking due to the absence of any other firm evidence for early humans in East Asia prior to 1 Myrs ago. Yet the individuals from Modjokerto and Sangiran would have certainly traveled through this part of Asia to reach Java.

Europe

Did Homo ergaster/erectus only head east into Asia, altogether bypassing Europe?

Many paleoanthropologists believed until recently that no early humans entered Europe until 500,000 years ago. But the discovery of new fossils from Spain (Atapuerca, Orce) and Italy (Ceprano) secured a more ancient arrival for early humans in Europe.

At Atapuerca, hundreds of flaked stones and roughly eighty human bone fragments were collected from sediments that antedate 780,000 years ago, and an age of about 800,000 years ago is the current best estimate. The artifacts comprise crudely flaked pebbles and simple flakes. The hominid fossils - teeth, jaws, skull fragments - come from several individuals of a new species named Homo antecessor. These craniofacial fragments are striking for derived features that differentiate them from Homo ergaster/erectus, but do not ally them specially with either H. neanderthalensis or H. sapiens.