Evolutionists consider Homo erectus a transitional link between apes and humans. However, many palaeontologists disagree, arguing that its distinctive features are not transitional but simply variations of human traits. According to the established evolutionary timeline, humans left Africa several hundred thousand years ago. Yet, Homo erectus fossils have been found on remote islands and dated by secular methods to as early as 1.9 million years, creating a contradiction that remains unexplained.
The history of homo erectus
The first Homo erectus fossils discovered were Java Man and Peking Man.1,2 In 1891, Dutch physician and anatomist Eugène Dubois uncovered Java Man on the island of Java, naming it Pithecanthropus erectus. The remains consisted of a skullcap, a femur, and a molar tooth. Although the skullcap and femur were found about 15 metres apart, Dubois assumed they belonged to the same individual and immediately classified it as a transitional form, basing his conclusion largely on the prominent brow ridge and skull size. While smaller than the average modern human, Java Man fell within the known range of human variation, and the femur was identical to that of modern humans.
Peking Man (Homo erectus pekinensis, formerly Sinanthropus pekinensis) was uncovered between 1923 and 1937 during excavations near Beijing.1,2 The fossils were dated to between 680,000 and 780,000 years.3,4 The remains included six nearly complete skulls, 15 partial skulls, 11 jaws, numerous teeth, several skeletal bones, and a large number of stone tools.1,2 In 1933, modern human fossils were also found in an upper cave at the same site.
Similar fossil skulls were later found in East Africa and were initially classified as Homo ergaster, though they are now considered an African variant of Homo erectus. In 1984, near Lake Turkana in Kenya, the most complete H. erectus fossil, known as the Nariokotome Boy, was discovered.5 His skull displays characteristics of H. erectus, while the rest of his skeleton closely resembles that of modern humans. The remains belong to a boy estimated to be around 10 to 12 years old who, according to most researchers, would have reached an adult height of approximately 180 cm. The fossil has been dated to around 1.6 million years.
Between 1991 and 2005, a group of H. erectus fossils was found near Dmanisi, Georgia, and dated to approximately 1.8 million years.2,6 The discovery was controversial due to the considerable variation in skull shape and size. Evolutionists acknowledge that if the skulls had not been uncovered in the same rock layer and close together, they would likely have been classified as different species. Some of the skulls also show signs of a possible pathological condition.
Distinctive features of homo erectus
The Nariokotome Boy is the only nearly complete H. erectus fossil, with the species’ history based primarily on around 300 highly fragmentary specimens, mostly partial skulls, teeth, and broken bones.
Distinctive features of H. erectus include a sloping forehead, prominent brow ridges, narrower temples compared to modern humans, a reduced chin, larger teeth, a forward-projecting jaw (prognathism), and a cranial capacity at the lower end of the modern human range.2 However, its cranial volume still falls within the variation seen in modern humans.
Homo erectus in Australia and China
In 1972, in the area of Kow Swamp Lake in northern Victoria, Australia, fossil remains of about 50 Aborigines were discovered.2,7 Researchers described a set of distinctive human traits not found in recent Aboriginal skulls, which closely resembled H. erectus features: sloped foreheads, prominent brow ridges, prognathism, large teeth, and minimal chin. Scientists concluded that the age of these fossils, according to evolutionary standards, is very recent: ‘An analysis of the cranial morphology of more than thirty individuals reveals the survival of Homo erectus traits in Australia up to 10,000 years ago.’7
Similarly, in 2006, a skullcap fragment was discovered in Mongolia, which ‘shows similarities to Neanderthals, Chinese Homo erectus, and archaic Homo sapiens from the West and Far East’.8 The Mongolian fossil is dated to a recent age of about 34,000 years.
Thus, these fossils are dated to the same period as very recent anatomically modern humans, which contradicts the evolutionary narrative. Had they been dated to one or two million years ago, they would have been classified as H. erectus. Instead, they are dismissed as anomalies to uphold the idea that certain human traits disappeared long ago.
Archaic features still persist
At the Jebel Irhoud archaeological site in Morocco, scientists discovered a human skull dated to over 300,000 years, yet described as having anatomically modern features.9 This suggests that H. erectus-like individuals with certain traits and humans with modern anatomy lived alongside each other, even in the recent past. More significantly, features such as sloped foreheads, prominent brow ridges, prognathism, and smaller skulls are still found in some living humans.10
The culture and lifestyle of homo erectus
In addition to anatomical evidence, there is also abundant archaeological evidence indicating that H. erectus was a variant of the human kind. These findings show that they were highly intelligent people exhibiting a wide range of human behaviors, including:2
- Language and communication skills
- Construction of watercraft and maritime navigation
- Fishing and fish processing
- Production of ropes and knots
- Manufacturing clothing from animal hides
- Fiber production
- Jewelry making
- Tool production from stone and bone
- Woodworking
- Coordinated hunting and processing of large game
- Development of organized living and working spaces
- Controlled use of fire and cooking
- Social and family structures
- Care for the elderly and weak
- Art (figurines, petroglyphs, red ochre paint)
A major inconsistency
The evidence presents a serious challenge to the established model of human migration, which holds that humans began leaving Africa only 100,000 to 200,000 years ago. However, H. erectus fossils have been found in China and Southeast Asia, including on remote islands such as Java. Reaching these locations would have required crossing vast stretches of open ocean, something that could only have been achieved by intelligent seafarers, not by primitive humans from two million years ago.
Moreover, the initial phase of human evolution is typically represented by the ape-like Australopithecus, which significantly overlaps in time with H. erectus. How, then, could one be the evolutionary predecessor of the other if they coexisted?
Homo erectus was human
Most evidence from the H. erectus fossil record suggests that it represents a variation within the human lineage, particularly as traits traditionally associated with H. erectus can still be observed in some humans today. Even evolutionists acknowledge this, as highlighted in a recent article: ‘If you ran into Homo erectus on the street, you might not recognize them [sic] as being very different from you.’11
Given the inconsistencies and contradictions in the evolutionary model, how does H. erectus align with the historical account in the Bible? Creation scientists propose three possible explanations:
- H. erectus were humans buried in the upper layers of sedimentary rock during the Flood.
- Some H. erectus fossils may have come from specific groups of people who dispersed after the Flood from the Tower of Babel – the confusion of languages led to isolated groups, which in turn developed a large number of genetic lineages with unique sets of trait variations, such as skeletal sizes, skull shapes, and skin color.
- Genetic anomalies may have emerged rapidly in small, isolated populations, potentially accounting for certain distinctive features observed in H. erectus skulls.2
The biblical account offers a far more coherent explanation of who H. erectus may have been, in contrast to the evolutionary model, which, as demonstrated, is scientifically flawed.
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- Do UFOs Exist? – Part 2: The Forces Behind the Phenomenon
Footnotes
- Lubenow, M. 2004. Bones of Contention. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.
- Rupe, C. and Sanford, J. 2017. Contested Bones. Waterloo, NY: FMS Publications.
- Shen, G. et al. 2009. Age of Zhoukoudian Homo erectus determined with 26Al/10Be burial dating. Nature, 458: 198-200.
- Devièse, T. et al. 2019. Compound-specific radiocarbon dating and mitochondrial DNA analysis of the Pleistocene hominin from Salkhit Mongolia. Nature Communications, 10: 274.
- Brown, F. et al. 1985. Early Homo erectus skeleton from west Lake Turkana, Kenya. Nature, 316(6031): 788-792.
- Schwartz, J. H., Tattersall, I. and Chi, Z. 2014. Comment on “A Complete Skull from Dmanisi, Georgia, and the Evolutionary Biology of Early Homo.” Science, 344(6182): 360.
- Thorne, A. G. and Macumber, P. G. 1972. Discoveries of Late Pleistocene Man at Kow Swamp, Australia. Nature, 238: 316-319.
- Coppens, Y. et al. 2008. Discovery of an archaic Homo sapiens skullcap in Northeast Mongolia. Comptes Rendus Palevol, 7(1): 51-60.
- Hublin, J.-J. et al. 2017. New fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco and the pan-African origin of Homo sapiens. Nature, 546: 289-292.
- Tomkins, J. P. 2019. Recent humans with archaic features upend evolution. Acts & Facts, 48(4): 15.
- Moffat, I. 2019. A snapshot of our mysterious ancestor Homo erectus. Phys.org.
Based on: J. P. Tomkins, “Homo erectus: the ape man that wasn’t,” Acts & Facts, Institute for Creation Research, October 2019, pp. 11–13.
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