In the family tree charting human evolution, Homo erectus stands out. Originating in Africa about 2 million years ago, H. erectus was the first hominin — our closest evolutionary kin — with modern human proportions. It was also the first known hominin to venture beyond Africa and into Europe and Asia, reaching China by about 1.7 million years ago and Indonesia by 1.5 million years ago.
But the accomplishments of H. erectus don’t end there. It’s also the earliest known hominin to have lived in temperate environments, such as the Transcaucasus region that today includes the Republic of Georgia.
The longevity, range and adaptability of H. erectus make it the most successful hominin species in the fossil record.
(Sure, we modern humans live on all seven continents, surviving — often with some help from technology — everywhere from the South Pole to the Sahara, but we’ve only been around a ...
