The Paranthropus lineage persisted until just over 1 million years ago. Difficulties caused by a low-quality abrasive diet were apparently offset by a reduction in competition for food resources with other hominines. The second new genus to appear shortly after the 2.8 m.y. Tooth wear in Homo habilis suggests that scavenging was an occasional phenomenon and that vegetation still comprised the majority of its dietary intake. Homo erectus , which first appeared 1.9 million years ago in Africa, was the first species to attain modern human height and had a larger brain case than H. habilis .
Tooth wear indicates that meat was a primary component of their diet.
They were cooperative hunters, not merely scavengers, and may have left the continent in the pursuit of prey. Homo heidelbergensis evolved from African H. erectus populations about 800,000 years ago. This species possessed a yet larger brain than H . The neanderthals, which evolved from European populations of H. heidelbergensis , were restricted to Europe and the Middle East. Aside from the increase in braincase, these morphological changes are adaptations to cold climate.