Homo erectus may have been on Earth 200,000 years earlier than previously thought. A team of researchers from five countries concludes that one skull found can be around two million years old.
It is said to be a homo erectus who died at about the age of three. The find was made in 2015 near the Drimolen excavation site in South Africa, which is located about 40 kilometers above Johnanesburg.
In conversation with several international media, research leader Andy Herries says that the skull was assembled after collecting more than 150 parts. “It is unprecedented to find so many matching particles from one skull, so that you end up with a complete specimen.”
The useful find is also extra special, because the extinct human species was extra vulnerable at a young age, Harries argues. “The group that this two- or three-year-old was part of may have been the origin of everyone on Earth.”
Homo erectus is said to have shared the African landscape about two million years ago with two other extinct human species: the Paranthropus and Australopithecus sediba. Scientists are still investigating whether the three types of human ancestors influenced each other’s activities and extinction.
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