Debate also continues about the classification, ancestry, and progeny of Homo erectus, especially vis-à-vis Homo ergaster, with two major positions:
1) H. erectus is the same species as H. ergaster, and thereby H. erectus is a direct ancestor of the later hominins including Homo heidelbergensis, Homo neanderthalensis, and Homo sapiens; or,
2) it is in fact an Asian species distinct from African H. ergaster.
Reconstruction of a specimen from Tautavel, France
There is also another view—an alternative to 1): some palaeoanthropologists consider H. ergaster to be a variety, that is, the "African" variety, of H. erectus, and they offer the labels "Homo erectus sensu stricto" (strict sense) for the Asian species and "Homo erectus sensu lato" (broad sense) for the greater species comprising both Asian and African populations.
A new debate appeared in 2013, with the documentation of the Dmanisi skulls. Considering the large morphological variation among all Dmanisi skulls, researchers now suggest that several early human ancestors variously classified, for example, as Homo ergaster, or Homo rudolfensis, and perhaps even Homo habilis, should instead be designated as Homo erectus.
The first hypothesis of origin is that Homo erectus rose from the Australopithecina in East Africa sometime during—or perhaps even before—the Early Pleistocene geological epoch, which itself dates to 2.58 million years ago (see below, at African genesis, re earlier date at Ledi-Geraru Research Area). From there it migrated, in part, by 2.0 mya, probably as a result of broad desertifying conditions developing then in eastern and northern Africa; it joined the migrations through the "Saharan pump" and dispersed around much of the Old World.
Homo erectus, University of Michigan Museum of Natural History, Ann Arbor, Michigan
The fossil record shows that its development from about 1.8 mya to one mya was widely distributed: in Africa (Lake Turkana and Olduvai Gorge), the Transcaucasus (Dmanisi in Georgia), Indonesia (Sangiran, Central Java and Trinil, East Java), and in Vietnam, China (Zhoukoudian and Shaanxi), and India.
The second hypothesis is that H. erectus evolved in Eurasia and then migrated to Africa. They occupied the Dmanisi site from 1.85 million to 1.77 million years ago, which was about the same time or slightly before their earliest evidence in Africa. There are several proposed explanations of the dispersal of H. erectus georgicus—including whether or not Africa is the source).
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