African homo erectus cranial features include:

This page has been archived and is no longer updated. Homo erectus is arguably the earliest species in the human lineage to have so many human-like qualities. Earlier hominins had important similarities with living humans, like bipedality, and H. Homo erectus is often referred to as the first cosmopolitan hominin lineage, meaning the first hominin species whose geographic range had expanded beyond a single continental region. While fossil remains from H. Homo erectus fossil localities.

Regardless of where it first evolved, the species seems to have dispersed quickly, starting about 1. This history has been recorded directly if imprecisely by many sites that have yielded fossil remains of H. At other localities, broken animal bones and stone tools have indicated the presence of the species, though there are no traces of the people themselves. The braincase was low, the forehead was receded, and the nose, jaws, and palate were wide.

Molecular and paleontological evidence suggests that modern humans first originated in Africa as early as , years ago. However, fossil remains in Eurasia dating to at least 1. Thus, the peopling of the world does not begin with modern humans. Rather, the fossil record suggests a long history of previous occupations in Africa and Eurasia. In this review, we discuss the nearest fossil relatives of modern humans.