page_title: Homo erectus
section_title: Subspecies
hierarchical_section_title: Homo erectus / Taxonomy / Subspecies
context_page_description: Homo erectus is an extinct species of archaic human from the Pleistocene, with its earliest occurrence about 2 mya, and its specimens are among the first recognisable members of the genus Homo. H. erectus was the first human ancestor to spread throughout the Old World, having a distribution in Eurasia extending from the Iberian Peninsula to Java. African populations of H. erectus are likely to be the direct ancestors to several human species, such as H. heidelbergensis and H. antecessor, with the former generally considered to have been the direct ancestor to Neanderthals and Denisovans, and sometimes also modern humans. Asian populations of H. erectus are likely ancestral to H. floresiensis and possibly to H. luzonensis. As a chronospecies, the time of the disappearance of H. erectus is a matter of contention. There are also several proposed subspecies with varying levels of recognition. The last known record of morphologically recognisable H. erectus are the Solo Man specimens from Java, around 117–108,000 years old.
context_section_description: Homo erectus bilzingslebenensis (0.37 Ma)
  Homo erectus erectus (Java Man, 1.6–0.5 Ma)
  Homo erectus ergaster (1.9–1.4 Ma)
  Homo erectus georgicus (1.8–1.6 Ma)
  Homo erectus lantianensis (Lantian Man, 1.6 Ma)
  Homo erectus nankinensis (Nanjing Man, 0.6 Ma)
  Homo erectus pekinensis (Peking Man, 0.7 Ma)
  Homo erectus soloensis (Solo Man, 0.546–0.143 Ma)
  Homo erectus tautavelensis (Tautavel Man, 0.45 Ma)
  Homo erectus yuanmouensis (Yuanmou Man)
  "Wushan Man" was proposed as Homo erectus wushanensis, but is now thought to be based upon fossilized fragments of an extinct non-hominin ape.
  Since its discovery in 1893 (Java man), there has been a trend in palaeoanthropology of reducing the number of proposed species of Homo, to the point where H. erectus includes all early (Lower Paleolithic) forms of Homo sufficiently derived from H. habilis and
  distinct from early H. heidelbergensis (in Africa also known as H. rhodesiensis). It is sometimes considered as a wide-ranging, polymorphous species.
  Due to such a wide range of variation, it has been suggested that the ancient H. rudolfensis and H. habilis should be considered early varieties of H. erectus. The primitive H. e. georgicus from Dmanisi, Georgia has the smallest brain capacity of any known Pleistocene hominin (about 600 cc), and its inclusion in the species would greatly expand the range of variation of H. erectus to perhaps include species as H. rudolfensis, H. gautengensis, H. ergaster, and perhaps H. habilis. However, a 2015 study suggested that H. georgicus represents an earlier, more primitive species of Homo derived from an older dispersal of hominins from Africa, with H. ergaster/erectus possibly deriving from a later dispersal. H. georgicus is sometimes not even regarded as H. erectus.
  It is debated whether the African H. e. ergaster is a separate species (and that H. erectus evolved in Asia, then migrated to Africa), or is the African form (sensu lato) of H. erectus (sensu stricto). In the latter, H. ergaster has also been suggested to represent the immediate ancestor of H. erectus. It has also been suggested that H. ergaster instead of H. erectus, or some hybrid between the two, was the immediate ancestor of other archaic humans and modern humans. It has been proposed that Asian H. erectus have several unique characteristics from non-Asian populations (autapomorphies), but there is no clear consensus on what these characteristics are or if they are indeed limited to only Asia. Based on supposed derived characteristics, the 120 ka Javan H. e. soloensis has been proposed to have speciated from H. erectus, as H. soloensis, but this has been challenged because most of the basic cranial features are maintained.
  In a wider sense, H. erectus had mostly been replaced by H. heidelbergensis by about 300 kya years ago, with possible late survival of H. erectus soloensis in Java an estimated 117-108kya.
caption: Dmanisi skull 3 (fossils skull D2700 and jaw D2735, two of several found in Dmanisi in the Georgian Transcaucasus)
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