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What are the main differences between early Homo and H erectus?
erectus fossils have brain sizes only slightly larger than earlier hominins (australopiths), early large-bodied specimens, such as the Nariokotome individual, have a brain volume greater than 800 cm3, more than 50% larger than earlier australopiths (and about 60% of the typical brain size of someone living today).
What is the difference between Homo sapiens?
Homo sapiens is called ‘wise man’ in Latin: the only known extant human species. The main difference between Neanderthal and Homo sapiens is that Neanderthals were hunter-gatherers whereas Homo sapiens spend a settled life, producing food through agriculture and domestication.
How is Homo erectus related to Homo sapiens?
Louis Leakey argued energetically that H. erectus populations, particularly in Africa, overlap in time with more advanced Homo sapiens and therefore cannot be ancestral to the latter. Some support for Leakey’s point of view has come from analysis of anatomic characteristics exhibited by the fossils.
Where did the first Homo sapiens come from?
Homo sapiens evolved in Africa from Homo heidelbergensis. They co-existed for a long time in Europe and the Middle East with the Neanderthals, and possibly with Homo erectus in Asia and Homo floresiensis in Indonesia, but are now the only surviving human species.
Is the Neanderthals and Homo sapiens the same species?
This name is used by those that describe the specimen from Herto, Ethiopia as Homo sapiens idàltu or by those who believed that modern humans and the Neanderthals were members of the same species. (The Neanderthals were called Homo sapiens neanderthalensis in this scheme). Uncover the secrets of the Australian Museum with our monthly emails.
Which is more closely related to Homo sapiens?
At the same time, it is noted, Homo sapiens does share some features, including a rounded, lightly built cranium, with earlier hominins such as H. habilis. For these reasons, some paleontologists (including Leakey) consider the more slender, or “gracile,” H. habilis and H. rudolfensis to be more closely related to Homo sapiens than is H. erectus.