Homo Erectus Vs. Homo Sapien
Essay by review • February 3, 2011 • Essay • 641 Words (3 Pages) • 1,311 Views
Homo erectus existed between 2 million and 400,000 years ago, but they are considered interestingly similar to us humans today. There are researchers working hard to add pieces to this Homo erectus and human puzzle as it remains a controversial topic between some. The concept of wether the time line between Homo erectus and Homo sapien should be sunk into one or not is a main focus. With similarities in behavior and appearance it is most likely that us humans are very closely linked to the Homo erectus.
Homo erectus fossils should be classified as Homo sapiens, the Homo erectus brain sizes fall within the same range as us humans. Even though ignoring the difference in statistical distribution of brain size between the species, it is true that an extremely small percentage of living humans do overlap with the brain sizes of Homo erectus.
The Homo erectus fossil, despite the massive brow ridges and other primitive like features, is so complete and looks very similar to a human that it doesn't seem ordinary to call it an ape. The skeletal differences aren't as obvious, but once combined they show a skeleton with small differences from us humans. The length of the neck and the neck-shaft angle itself are well over 3 and 5 standard deviations away from the humans.
There is no explanation of why any conditions would cause Homo erectus to be so physically powerful as they were, in fact many erectus were most likely the average human size.
It is also not explained why all human skulls that are over 500,000 years old are erectus.
The actual facts of fossils, which is the fossil materials against evolutionary interpretations, show hands down that the earliest erectus skeleton proves by its existence that it was large like modern humans, and not small and ape-like. Even though it's brain size was smaller than most humans, it was still larger than quite a few people living today.
Throughout the spread of human remains there are instances of specimen discovery which could be erectus, but which could also be that of sapiens. The more complete they are shows similarities with the Homo erectus, the vault bones are thick, cranial capacities may overlap, the face is large and the brow ridges are well developed. However, there are also a few contrasts. The brain size is on average larger, the vault is higher and more evenly curved occipital regions. The nuchal area remains
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