Homo erectus, the first long walk

Homo erectus was the first human species known to have lived outside Africa. Its fossils have been found from Kenya to Georgia, China and Java, and it survived on Java until roughly 110,000 years ago.

Date: About 1.9 million to 110,000 years agoI · Early human ancestryII · Our species and the Old Stone Age
Place: Nariokotome, Kenya · Dmanisi, Georgia · Zhoukoudian, China · Ngandong, JavaAfrica, Asia, Europe
Laid out as: A migrationPeople on the move: where they set out from, where they went, and what they found.
Lessons: 5 planned, none written yet
Themes: Human origins and evolution
Exploration and migration
Environment, climate and disasters

The lessons we plan

Titles may change as they are written

From Nariokotome, Kenyato Ngandong, Java

ITurkana Boy
IIOut of Africa the first time: Dmanisi
IIIPeking Man and the lost fossils
IVJava, the last stand
VWhat made them walkers?

Still to come

The people and objects these lessons will cover

People

Eugène Dubois
Kamoya Kimeu
Davidson Black

Objects

The Turkana Boy skeleton
The Dmanisi skulls

Where it sits

All of human history, era by era

Early human ancestry Our species and the Old Stone Age Farming and the New Stone Age First cities and the Bronze Age The Iron Age and growing states The classical world After the empires Medieval networks and empires Oceans crossed Revolutions and the first factories Industry, empire and world war The world since 1945

1,902,000 years ago to 112,000 years ago. Each era is drawn the same width, so the earliest are squeezed: era II alone is over 300,000 years.

Nearby in time and place

This page is an outline. The summary above is a starting point; each lesson, when it is written, will give its sources, its pictures and where historians disagree. Spotted a mistake?