ANCESTRIES OF THE MAN IN THE POSTAL STAMPS III

Homo (Pithencathropus) erectus
Homo erectus (Dubois, 1892)

To understand what we mean today by "Homo erectus", some history of paleoanthropological thought is needed. The first early human fossil found outside of Europe.

The fossil was placed in the species Pithecanthropus erectus by its discoverer Eugene Dubois.

Almost 40 individuals have been recovered from Java to this day, roughly equivalent to the number of fossils found at the caves of Choukoutien in China.

The Choukoutien fossils found were originally assigned the species name Sinanthropus pekinensis.

It was not until the 1950's that Ernst Mayr proposed that all of the specimens from these two roughly contemporaneous locales, along with others localities from Europe and Africa, represented a single species, Homo erectus.

Since the 1950's, however, the early African populations of what Mayr termed Homo erectus have once again been split into a separate species Homo ergaster.

Homo erectus exhibits many features particular to the species, including a long skull shaped with thick cranial walls. The back of the skull is marked with a protruberance known as a transverse torus.

Over the eyes is a large and prominent browridge, or supraorbital torus, which joins the rest of the frontal bone at a depression called the sulcus.

Cranial capacities of Homo erectus average around 1000cc, which is far greater than earlier australopiths and even early Homo.

The dentition of Homo erectus is nearly identical to modern humans, although the cheek teeth do remain larger, and the mandible is generally more robust.

The species Homo erectus is thought to have diverged from Homo ergaster populations roughly 1.6 million years ago, and then spread into Asia.

It was believed that Homo erectus disappeared as other populations of archaic Homo evolved roughly 400,000 years ago.

Evidently, this is not the case. Recent studies into the complicated stratigraphy of the Java Homo erectus sites have revealed some surprising information.

Researchers have dated the deposits thought to contain the fossils of H. erectus near the Solo River in Java to only 50,000 years ago. This would mean that at least one population of Homo erectus in Java was a contemporary of modern humans (Homo sapiens).

REP. GUINEA CONAKRY
1998
Mi 1851
Mi Bl. 529
(07.MAY.1998)

HADRAMAUT

1971

imperfored

CAMBODGE

2001

Mi 2260
(25.OCT.2001)

R. P. CONGO

2009

CUBA

1967

1997

2008

Mi 5111
(15.AUG.2008)

UZBEQUISTAN

2002

Homo erectus modjokertensis

(10.MAY.2002)

Homo erectus georgicus

David Lordkipanidze, 2001

GEORGIA

2003

Mi 424
(423–424)

Blok 29

FDC - 25-APR-2003

Homo erectus trilliensis daphnae

GREECE

1982

Yvert: 1458

Mi 1480
FDC - (15.MAR.1982)

Finally, we raise to the rank of a separate family the whole complex of Helladopithecus finds from Greece, classifying it right after the Hominid family.

As a result of the above process we have the first standing man on earth, Homo erectus trilliensis, spreading all over the world from this region of the Aegean, of the SE of Europe 13 million years ago.

The find was named Homo erectus trilliensis Daphnae, after the name of the lady present in this hall Mrs Daphnae A.Poulianos.

INDONESIA

1989

Homo (solesis) erectus

Mi 1306/1312

(31.AUG.1989)

KENIA

1966

Kenia, Mi 211
(19.JAN.1982)

LAOS

NIUAFO'OU

1989

A

B

overprinted «SPECIMEN»

Black & White proof

Luxe Proof

A

Mi nº. 152

FDC - (1.08.1989)

B

Mi nº. 167

FDC - (17.11.1989)

Mi nº. 255

FDC - (14.SEP.1993)

Homo (ergaster) erectus

SOUTH AFRICA

2006

Homo (ergaster) erectus

RPA, Mi 1739
(20.11.2006)

PALAW

2000

Palau, Mi 1641
(15.MAR.2000)

Homo erectus

Palau, Mi 1635/36
(15.MAR.2000)

Homo ergaster - (from the Greek ἔργον, "work") is an extinct species (or subspecies) of hominid that lived in eastern and southern Africa from the end of the Pliocene epoch to the early Pleistocene, about 1.8-1.3 million years ago.

There is still disagreement on the subject of the classification, ancestry, and progeny of H. ergaster, but it is now widely thought (though not agreed) to be the direct ancestor of later hominids such as Homo heidelbergensis, Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis rather than Asian erectus.

It is one of the earliest members of the genus Homo, possibly descended from, or sharing a common ancestor with, Homo habilis.

Homo ( Sinanthopus ) erectus pekinensis

Black & Zdansky, 1927

CHINA

1989

(19.OCT.1989)

1991

Mi 2380 A

Mi 2380 C
(02.AUG.1991)

2000

(25.DEC.2000)

????

2003

(08.MAR.2003)

CUBA

1997

Mi 4067
(30.OUT.1997)

UZBEQUISTAN

2002

Homo (Sinanthropus pekinensis) erectus

10.MAY.2002

Homo (Pithecanthropus) erectus modjokertensis

Koenigswald, 1936

UZBEQUISTAN

Homo erectus modjokertensis

10.MAY.2002

Homo (heildebergensis) erectus

GERMANY

2007

MAUER (21.OCT.2007)

Homo erectus palaeohungaricus

HUNGARY

1993

Man of Barlang

Mi 4266/67

(27.OCT.1993)

Homo Aeserniensis

ITALY

1988

One of the first inhabitants of Southern Italy, the Homo Aeserniensis, lived about seven hundred thousand years ago, by hunting and fishing. Close by a small watercourse he had built huts using elephant tusks and the flat bones of rhinoceroses, boars, bison and other wild beasts.

ISERNIA (08.MAY.2003)

MILANO (19.MAY.2007)

SOUTH AFRICA

2006

Mi 1738
(20.11.2006)

UZBEQUISTAN

Mi 449

10.MAY.2002

ZAMBIA

1973

Mi. 98

(01.FEB.1973)

Homo heidelbergensis, (Broken Hill) dating back 130,000 discovered at Broken Hill, Zambia,

Is an extinct species of hominid that originated in Africa—and spread as far as China and Java—from the end of the Pliocene epoch to the later Pleistocene: about 1.8-.3 million years ago.

The evolutionary dividing line between Homo erectus and modern humans was not sharp.

It extended over several hundred thousand years during the middle of the Pleistocene Epoch.

Adding to the confusion about this important transitional period is the fact that some regions were ahead of others in the process of evolving into our species.

The evolutionary changes above the neck that would lead to modern humans may have begun in Southern Europe and East Africa 800,000-700,000 years ago.

UZBEQUISTAN

Homo (Pithecanthropus) erectus

Mi 444
(10.MAY.2002)

BIOLOGY:

The oldest flossies date of have a million and six hundred thousand years found in Eastern Turkana in the Kenya, being for Just-fond times related as pertaining to the a Turkana. A million of years later the Homo erectus and its sister, the Homo heidelbergensis, occupy all the Eurasia, since the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, Occident, until the a China and Java, the east.

The entrance in scene of erectus total introduces new characteristics in the evolution of the man, that had transmitted to our ancestor the capacity and the energy that had made them to expand for the first time is of Africa.

The cold Climate and the environment hardest prevalence the north had more compelled the man to use the fire and to dress well suitable clothes to the body, to conserve itself hot in the Winter.

Physically, erectus was more similar to the man of whom the habilis.

The biggest difference inhabited probably in the form of the head and the face, that still had accented characteristic primitive, as they are the inclined forehead, the supercilious arches very high and developed and the retreating chin.

The muscles of the nape of the neck very were developed. encephalon increased, to the long one of the time, of seven hundred and seventy and five for a thousand and three hundred centimetres cubical, equivalent, in average, the seventy percent of the encephalic volume of the modern man.

Perfectly adapted to the vertical position, endowed with a body muscled broad-shouldered; and measuring 1,50m and 1,80m.

These hunters-collectors through great areas in food search had dislocated themselves, and the population increase implies that some groups if divide and occupy new territories, to the rhythm of twenty kilometres for generation, an approach distance of 14 a thousand kilometres - that is, in the distance that it separates Nairobi to Peking that will have been covered in twenty a thousand years.