Homo Erectus: Man stands upright

From on all fours, scrambling on the ground;
we began to stand, chest up and proud.

Homo Erectus: An introduction

We tend to think of early humans as being very vulnerable. Imagining we were constantly being hunted by saber tooth tigers and from whom we could never escape.

The problem with this is that it’s wrong. From about 2 million years ago humans were at the top of the food chain. Our ability to co-operate, create basic tools and work together meant that we could hunt animals much larger than us. And early humans were physically formidable and had many abilities that no other animals have. Let’s dive in, to the earliest upright man, Homo Erectus.

Homo Erectus: The first upright man

Homo erectus is an early human ancestor – roughly 75% of the way between Chimpanzees and humans. They lived about 2 million years ago, they stood upright and were able to run smoothly and efficiently for long distances. They had lost most of their body hair and their faces had gotten much flatter and more human-like. However, they still had smaller brains and had not developed particularly sophisticated art or tool use. *This is a reconstruction of Turkana Boy, an individual who was discovered in Kenya in 1984 (Image: Rekonstruktion in the Neanderthal Museum, Wikimedia).*

Homo Erectus was an early human ancestor. They were starting to get pretty close to human beings – let’s say 3/4ths of the way from chimpanzees from humans. They lived in Africa roughly 2 million years ago and spread out into some parts of Europe and South-East Asia, but didn’t get to Australia or the Americas (see our post on human migration).

The previous ancestor we talked about was Australopithecus Afarensis. It was roughly halfway between chimpanzees and human, walked mostly upright, but was covered with a fair amount of body hair, was very small, and probably couldn’t run. They certainly didn’t hunt, use complex tools or create art.

Homo erectus were a properly upright species. They walked upright all the time and no longer spent any time in trees or using their arms to move. They could also run: their feet had become more specialized, with an Achilles tendon that provided bounce when their foot hit the ground, instead of a grasping monkey foot designed for trees. They had lost almost all their body hair to cope with running long distances. Their face was much more human-like, it was flat, with a smaller jaw and flat nose.

They ate mainly meat, all sorts of large mammals – elephants, rhinos, hippos, cows whatever they could hunt. It is very likely that they used fire to cook food, to make it more digestible. They used some very basic hand tools, rocks that had been vaguely shaped to a sharp point for butchering and may have used wooden spears, but that is impossible to know. They likely also made basic clothing made from animal hide and plant fibers. Their skull had gotten significantly larger, implying increased brain power and it’s very likely they could co-ordinate and communicate highly effectively. There were examples of injured Erectus being cared for well into old age, in particular individuals who had lost all their teeth, still being alive for several years.

There were still some things that humans did not do. Their tools were very basic, nothing with a shaft or an axe. It was just sharpened rocks and potentially sharpened wood. They didn’t seem to produce any art, no carved figures of paintings in caves. They certainly didn’t have any written language, or domesticated animals and still moved from place to place depending on the season. We are still a long way from the first cities.

Homo erectus tools were a bit more sophisticated than the tools of Australopithicus afarensis. Instead of just rocks with a few edges chipped off, they had started created more sophisticated blades, carefully selecting the right rocks and using old blades to maintain and sharpen new ones – see our tools post here. These tools were unearthed in Konso, Ethiopia and span roughly 1 million years (Image: PNAS).

Early Humans: Apex predators?!?

*Early humans were top of the food chain – dangerous persistent hunters. They would run after animals for hours, sometimes even days, slowly grinding them into exhaustion.*

There are only really two physical movements humans are better at than any other animals – throwing and long-distance running.

If a human being gets into a wrestling match with a chimp, the human will always lose, despite being significantly heavier. The muscle of most monkeys and primates, particularly in their arms, is significantly stronger than humans. This makes sense, they essentially use their arms to carry themselves. However, despite this, Chimpanzees and all other apes can’t really throw things. Chimps shoulders are designed for pulling and hanging, and throwing is a very different motion.

Secondly, humans are actually better long-distance runners than almost any other species. Obviously, there are lots of species that can outsprint us, or even outrun us on medium distances. However, humans are unique in that they can keep a consistent space for a very long time, a day or multiple days. Most of the prey animals are good at escaping for a period of time, but then generally stop running and need time to recuperate. Even horses and buffalo, some of the best long-distance species, will collapse if they run for much more than 12 hours.

Early humans were persistence hunters. They would run after an animal. The animal would get a certain distance away and the humans would keep after it. The animal would suddenly see them again, and sprint away, but the humans would keep going. Over time they’d wear the animal down and then use some basic tools to kill it, like a throwing spear. They were particularly good at doing this in heat, noting the loss of body hair and developing the ability to sweat that happened around this time. This technique, when combined with human ingenuity and teamwork made early man some of the most formiable apex predators in the region.

So what does this say about us?

This is a photo of a pile of Bison skulls from American hunters. It was taken outside of Michigan Carbon Works in 1892. At the beginning of the 1800s, there were between 30 and 60 million bison in America. By the time of this photograph, that population was reduced to only 456 wild bison. It is sometimes so shameful to be a human (Image: Smithsonian).

We humans like to think of ourselves as underdogs. Little guys – just trying to get by, being clever, scrounging around and surviving on our wits.

The problem is we were not. From the very early days, humans dominated the environment and remade it to suit us. It’s one of the most remarkable traits of our species that no other species really shares with us.

These tendencies have very much followed us into the modern world. On every continent, as soon as humans arrived, the environment massively changed. We wiped out all the Australian megafauna within a few thousand years of our arrival. There used to be lions on every continent until we wiped them out. The world was full of so many wonderous creatures, particularly large mammals, mammoths, enormous aurochs, giant 3-metre tall birds in Madagascar, gorilla sized lemurs all of which have gone extinct in the last few thousand years due to humans. This trend has gotten even worse since the industrial revolution with millions of species dying out – in fact most scientists consider us to be entering the sixth great extinction event, comparable to the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs and 80% of life on Earth.

It’s fascinating to know, even back before we were really human, this trend still occurred. Maybe it’d be good to acknowledge who we really are. Powerful makers of our own destiny, as opposed to scared apes hiding from predators.

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