ANTHR101 Lecture Notes - Homo Erectus, Homo Ergaster, Early Pleistocene

• School: University of Alberta
• Department: Anthropology
• Course: ANTHR101
• Professor: Francois Larose

Document Summary

Lower pleistocene hominins (1. 8 mya - 400 kya) Homo erectus (or homo erectus / homo ergaster) It was called such because at the time it was thought that these were the first to be bipedal. Lived during a dramatic period in terms of climate, a cooling period. Impacts the evolution of humans physical characteristics. Larger body (same height as modern humans) In the span of a million years the brain expands from 800cc to 1200cc"s. Regional differences in terms of these brain sizes. More muscular than homo habilines. robustly built, bulking up. Less sexual dimorphism, this decline begins with homo erectus. species in general is getting larger but females are catching up to males. Why would that be? the larger brain size of babies is causing women wiht larger birth canals to be selected for. Size of birth canal is increasing rapidly. They still have relatively large supraorbital torus (ridges over the eyes)