ARE WE HOMO ERECTUS? - INTRODUCTION

Are We Homo Erectus?
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Introduction

This poster presentation will discuss the hotly contested topic of the origin of modern humans.

That modern humans evolved from ape-like ancestors, Australopithecus sp. is not disputed today.

Drawing of Australopithecus sp., now regarded as an ancestor of Homo sapiens, which first appeared in Africa about 5 million years ago.

What is a matter of contention and is strongly debated is whether or not, modern humans, Homo sapiens, evolved in Africa, as discussed in this article and then spread across the world, replacing a closely related species, called Homo erectus - the so-called “Out-of-Africa” theory as discussed in this article

OR ,

instead, Homo erectus, the first hominid found across the world, evolved into modern humans, and in doing so, formed the regionally distinct ‘races’ of modern humans that we see today – the so-called Multiregional Hypothesis, as discussed in this article.

Fossils of early modern H. sapiens have been recovered from numerous sites in Europe, Africa and Asia. What do palaeoanthropologists mean by the term “anatomically modern human”? This is difficult to answer objectively. Others want to describe modern humans by behavioural traits – which is even more difficult to prove as all prehistoric behaviours are inferred from archaeological remains.

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NEXT PAGE
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INTRODUCTION
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MULTI-REGIONAL HYPOTHESIS
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OUT-OF-AFRICA HYPOTHESIS
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ANALYSIS OF HYPOTHESES
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EVIDENCE FROM MITOCHONDRIAL DNA
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DISPUTED EVIDENCE
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AUSTRALIAN CONTROVERSY
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BEHAVIOURAL EVIDENCE
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CONCLUSION
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REFERENCES
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