Using a new dating technique, Chinese and US researchers led by Guanjun Shen of Nanjing Normal University determined that the tool-making "erect man" lived in and around the caves of Zhoukoudian -- among the most highly-prized sites in the study of early humans -- as far back as 780,000 years ago.

The findings, published in the London-based science journal Nature, are sure to stir controversy among scientists, who have long debated the timing and routes of hominin migrations.

Up to now, the favoured theory was that a single exodus of homo erectus moved out of Africa some two million years ago, progressing across the Arabian Peninsula, the Indian subcontinent and coastal southeast Asia.

From there it was thought that some moved across land bridges during a glacial period to what later became the island of Java. The first erectus fossils were found on the Indonesian island in 1892, and have been definitively dated back some 1.6 million years.

Another group, the theory goes, made their way north, eventually settling in the region north and west Beijing.

But the revised dating of Peking Man -- combined with other recent studies -- points to a separate migration across Eurasia from another region inhabited by homo erectus some 1.8 million years ago, in modern-day Georgia.

"The actual distance is shorter if they went across the north, and the Dmanisi sight is about on the same latitude," said Russell Ciochon, a paleontologist at the University of Iowa who has worked extensively on homo erectus sites in Java.

A better understanding of early ecosystems also suggests a northern route, he said by phone. "It is harder for animals to shift longitude than latitude," he said.

Newly found fossils of extinct animals that lived only in tropical forests also suggest that much of southeast Asia -- the route along which homo erectus was thought to have travelled -- would have been impenetrable primal forest, said Ciochon.

Homo erectus' brain was about half the size of modern man's. It learned to make and use stone tools, notably a teardrop-shaped handaxe.

The species is thought to have survived up until about 30,000 years ago.

Share This Article With Planet Earth

del.icio.us	Digg	Reddit
YahooMyWeb	Google	Facebook

Related Links
All About Human Beings and How We Got To Be Here

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS Solar Energy Solutions Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ... Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News