Homo erectus

In Our Time: Science

BBC

History

4.5 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 12 May 2022

⏱️ 52 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of our ancestors, Homo erectus, who thrived on Earth for around two million years whereas we, Homo sapiens, emerged only in the last three hundred thousand years. Homo erectus, or Upright Man, spread from Africa to Asia and it was on the Island of Java that fossilised remains were found in 1891 in an expedition led by Dutch scientist Eugène Dubois. Homo erectus people adapted to different habitats, ate varied food, lived in groups, had stamina to outrun their prey; and discoveries have prompted many theories on the relationship between their diet and the size of their brains, on their ability as seafarers, on their creativity and on their ability to speak and otherwise communicate. The image above is from a diorama at the Moesgaard Museum in Denmark, depicting the Turkana Boy referred to in the programme. With Peter Kjærgaard Director of the Natural History Museum of Denmark and Professor of Evolutionary History at the University of Copenhagen José Joordens Senior Researcher in Human Evolution at Naturalis Biodiversity Centre and Professor of Human Evolution at Maastricht University And Mark Maslin Professor of Earth System Science at University College London Producer: Simon Tillotson

Transcript

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0:46.9	Hello. When we, Homo Sapiens, emerged around 300,000 years ago, we followed an ancestor
0:53.2	who had thrived on Earth for up to two million years. This was Homo erectus, a bright
0:58.5	man who spread from Africa to Asia and whose fossilised remains were found in 1891 on the
1:04.3	island of Java. These people adapted to different habitats, eight varied foods, lived in groups,
1:11.0	had stamina to outrun their prey, and if we imagine ourselves superior to them so far,
1:16.2	we could perhaps make a dire note to reassess that once we'd been on the Earth as long
1:20.0	as they were.
1:21.5	We'd mean to discuss Homo erectus, our Peter King God, the director of the Natural History
1:26.0	Museum of Denmark and Professor of Evolutionary History at the University of Copenhagen,
1:30.5	Jersey Jordan, Senior Researcher in Human Evolution and Naturalist Bio-Diversity Centre
1:35.4	and Professor of Human Evolution at Mastery at University, and Mark Muslim, Professor
	...

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