Homo erectus

Homo erectus is an extinct species of archaic human that lived across nearly two million years of the Pleistocene. It was the first human species to develop a humanlike body plan and gait, to leave Africa and settle Asia and Europe, and to use fire. Eugene Dubois first described it in 1893 as Pithecanthropus erectus from a skullcap, molar and femur found on Java, Indonesia. The typical skull has a pronounced brow ridge, a protruding jaw and large teeth, with brain volume averaging about 1,000 cubic centimetres in East Asian populations; adults stood roughly 141 to 167 centimetres tall and weighed about 50 kilograms. The species made Acheulean stone tools and was a major predator of large herbivores on expanding savannas, and some populations gave rise to later humans such as Homo heidelbergensis. The last known occurrence is 108,000 to 117,000 years ago in Southeast Asia.