Homo Erectus Erectus (1 ene 1600000 año aC – 1 ene 500000 año aC)

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Java Man (Homo erectus erectus, formerly also Anthropopithecus erectus, Pithecanthropus erectus) is an early human fossil discovered in 1891 and 1892 on the island of Java (Dutch East Indies, now part of Indonesia). Estimated to be between 700,000 and 1,000,000 years old, it was, at the time of its discovery, the oldest hominid fossils ever found, and it remains the type specimen for Homo erectus. Led by Eugène Dubois, the excavation team uncovered a tooth, a skullcap, and a thighbone at Trinil on the banks of the Solo River in East Java. Arguing that the fossils represented the "missing link" between apes and humans, Dubois gave the species the scientific name Anthropopithecus erectus, then later renamed it Pithecanthropus erectus. The fossil aroused much controversy. Less than ten years after 1891, almost eighty books or articles had been published on Dubois's finds. Despite Dubois's argument, few accepted that Java Man was a transitional form between apes and humans. Some dismissed the fossils as apes and others as modern humans, whereas many scientists considered Java Man as a primitive side branch of evolution not related to modern humans at all. In the 1930s Dubois made the claim that Pithecanthropus was built like a "giant gibbon", a much misinterpreted attempt by Dubois to prove that it was the "missing link". Eventually, similarities between Pithecanthropus erectus (Java Man) and Sinanthropus pekinensis (Peking Man) led Ernst Mayr to rename both Homo erectus in 1950, placing them directly in the human evolutionary tree. To distinguish Java Man from other Homo erectus populations, some scientists began to regard it as a subspecies, Homo erectus erectus, in the 1970s. Other fossils found in the first half of the twentieth century in Java at Sangiran and Mojokerto, all older than those found by Dubois, are also considered part of the species Homo erectus. The fossils of Java Man have been housed at the Naturalis in the Netherlands since 1900. H. erectus arrived in Eurasia approximately 1.8 million years ago, in an event considered to be the first African exodus. There is evidence that the Java population of H. erectus lived in an ever-wet forest habitat. More specifically the environment resembled a savannah, but was likely regularly inundated ("hydromorphic savanna"). The plants found at the Trinil excavation site included grass (Poaceae), ferns, Ficus, and Indigofera, which are typical of lowland rainforest. The control of fire by Homo erectus is generally accepted by archaeologists to have begun some 400,000 years ago, with claims regarding earlier evidence finding increasing scientific support. Burned wood has been found in layers that carried the Java Man fossils in Trinil, dating to around from 500,000 to 830,000 BP. However, because Central Java is a volcanic region, the charring may have resulted from natural fires, and there is no conclusive proof that Homo erectus in Java controlled fire. It has been proposed that Java Man was aware of the use of fire, and that the frequent presence of natural fires may have allowed Java Man "opportunistic use did not create an archeologically visible pattern".

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