Homo
erectus
1.6
million years ago
Okay,
rewind the clock 1,600,000 years. You've gone back 64,000 generations in
your family history. Here's what your ancestor of around this time might
have looked like.
Your
Ancestor's Profile
Your
genus, Homo, arose about 2.4 million
years ago. Its appearance was marked by a significant, though not huge,
increase in brain size from earlier primates. H. erectus dates to 1.9 million years ago, and its best-known
skeleton, the so-called Nariokotome boy, is about 1.6 million years old. H.
erectus is the first member of your line to
show fully modern body size and proportions. Had he lived longer, for instance,
the Nariokotome boy would have grown up to be about six feet tall.
