The Ape’s Reflection? 367made Richard Leakey’s reputation, and the very advanced but short-lived Homo ergaster
(fig. 15.6B), from beds 1.6–1.8 million years in age. These species are known not only from
bones but also from their primitive tools, choppers and hand axes of the “Olduwan culture.”
Many of these archaic Pliocene taxa persisted into the early Pleistocene (as recently as
1.6 million years ago), including Paranthropus robustus and P. boisei, Homo ergaster, and H.
habilis (fig. 15.3). The best-known fossil of H. ergaster is a nearly complete skeleton found
on the shores of West Lake Turkana in 1984, and known as “Nariokotome Boy” (fig. 15.6B),
which would have been 2 meters tall if fully grown.
By 1.9 million years ago, however, a new species had appeared: Homo erectus (fig. 15.7).
This creature was not only bipedal and erect (as its species name implies) but also almost as
large in body size as we are. Some individuals reached 190 centimeters (6 feet) in height. Its
brain capacity was about 1 liter, only slightly less than ours. Like earlier species of Homo, they
made crude choppers and hand axes (“Acheulian culture” tools) and certainly knew how to
make and use fire and how to construct stone and wooden dwellings and small villages.
Originally, Homo erectus was confined to Africa, where all of our other ancestors had long
lived. By around 1.8 million years ago, we have evidence that H. erectus finally escaped the
African homeland, for specimens from Indonesia (originally described as “Pithecanthropus
Homo erectusHomo
neanderthalensisHomo sapiens
sapiensFIGURE 15.7. Comparison of the skull of Homo erectus
(including specimens known as “Java Man” and
“Peking Man”), Neanderthal, and modern Homo
sapiens. Homo erectus had a brain capacity about half
of ours, much heavier brow ridges, and a more
protruding face. Yet it had upright posture and an
essentially modern skeleton; it was clearly a member of
our genus, and not “just an ape” as creationists allege.
On the other hand, it is clearly not a modern human,
but a transitional form between australopithecines
and ourselves. (Drawing by Carl Buell)