Homo erectus | Why Did the Most Successful Early Human Go Extinct?
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- Опубліковано 3 чер 2024
- Homo erectus | Why Did the Most Successful Early Human Go Extinct?
The Ancients host Tristan Hughes sits down with Professor John Mcnabb at the University of Southampton to discuss the extinct species of archaic human, Homo Erectus (aka the 'Upright Man') that existed about 2 million years ago.
Were these ancient ancestors the first to make stone tools? Were they the first to create fires? How did they hunt? How similar were they to Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens? Why did they go extinct?
Tristan and John cover all of this ground as well as touching upon another species of human that lived on the remote islands of Indonesia, Homo Floresiensis, otherwise known as 'The Hobbit' due to its small structure and features.
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#historyhit #homoerectus #humanevolution
00:00 Introduction
03:57 Homo Habilis
05:59 Homo Erectus
12:49 Stone Tools
16:53 Fire Making
19:24 Origins of Language
21:40 Origins of Art
23:29 Neanderthal and Homo Erectus Diet
25:41 Extinction of Homo Erectus
27:57 Homo Floresiensis ('The Hobbit')
Hey guys! If you enjoyed this video, you'll probably also like 'The Origins Of Homo Sapiens With Professor Chris Stringer' 👉 ua-cam.com/video/mG4nxegSTCg/v-deo.html
ua-cam.com/video/yUUZ38vaxFI/v-deo.html
The image in the thumbnail definitely does not represent _Homo erectus_ -- why not use an _H. erectus_ image in a video about _H. erectus_ ?
Its so confusing if there were people In Indonesia for so long and the Australian Aborigines have only been there for 80000 years it doesn't make sense . How did Australia's stay so isolated when we were hooked up to the rest of the world with the land bridge
Evolution is fiction.
I think as he said the parent species & child coexist. What if it was Disease from the child that killed the parent
There is a pub near me where the patrons haven't yet reached this stage
I have a few neighbours that act and look exactly like this too
Sadly, it’s not an isolated occurrence.
👍👍👍👏👏👏😆😆😁😁👵🇦🇺
U must live in(Boer)-South Africa . 👾
Are they all Brexit voters. 🤔
You can tell John McNabb is a real scientist because so many of his answers were variations of , "We're really not quite sure". It has always struck me in life that real experts in any subject you care to mention will sometimes say that they don't know the answer, whereas the 'armchair' experts always know absolutely everything.
I'm a "armchair" and I don't know anything really, I know a few things but not like this guy, but I do know what you are saying because I get talked down when I get to speaking about something I know about, and I no longer get upset about it because eventually I'm right, not being arrogant about it, and what really makes me laugh is when they ask either Siri or Alexa after they asked me when I give them the answer and they give them the same answer 🙄🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂
But what's the actual point if science is both so uncertain & imprecise. Such Academics then risk coming across to the average layperson as being utter ignoramuses and probably mere charlatans!
@@cyankirkpatrick5194 me too. I'm known as the "whacky professor" in my largely ignorant, lower decile neighbourhood. Unlike these gutless boffins, I am not afraid to share my out of left field opinions. However even axioms are often dismissed as so much gibberish by my uneducated neighbours. I always preface anything unproven with, "this may sound a little odd to you, yet ...". Professor John McNabb should keep in mind, while on UA-cam, that he is neither under: cross examination as an expert legal witness, or academic peer review. I believe that he discounts himself. And i humbly suggest, that if in any doubt, his ilk instead say that, "although I am not absolutely certain, my best educated guesstimate is ...". Otherwise it's all rather academic and a seemingly big waste of time. So much hot, stinky air.
Exactly. You see this so often now in the podcast era where for example, every other guest on the Joe Rogan podcast is some grifter proclaiming to KNOW some "secret knowledge" about some thing. They often use the fact that real experts readily admit they "don't know" all the facts by saying, "SEE?! THEY EVEN ADMIT THEY DON'T KNOW! BUT I DO! blah blah blah by my book/video/podcast series for the real ancient knowledge!".
@@julianpalmer4886
Its about being honest and not making shit up.
We dont know is the answer until we DO know.
I really appreciate the way that John clarifies where there is a difference of opinion and is careful to point out what we don't know. I think that's real intellectual integrity and respect for the viewer.
Agreed. Saying “I don’t know” creates more trust then any other statement out there.
Bacon isn't overrated.
Are you suggesting that he's keeping the religious folk happy? It seemed pretty obvious to me where his beliefs lie! And that is that we well and truly evolved from our Ape friends!
What the fuck? Nobody is or could argue anything else lol. What he's unsure of is whether we evolved specifically from Homo Erectus like many scientist believe we did or whether it was another similar ancestor. Whatever the case Homo Erectus is our close relative, anything with the prefix Homo is, technically they are "Huamns".
It's just basic science.
I'm a huge fan of the fact that scientists have become more comfortable communicating what is still unknown and what is still debated in the field. I think it lends more credence to the things that are generally well known.
This has always been the case..🤷♂️ Science is there to be disproven,hence peer review..🤷♂️
Maybe you’re just new to discussions such as these, since that’s usually the norm cadence for any professional scientist.
@@Talleyhoooo, I am actually a professional scientist. The problem isn't so much that scientists haven't been doing this within the field, the problem is that we haven't been doing this when it comes to public communication. Scientific knowledge has always kind of been presented to the public as dogma, particularly when I was a kid in the early 90s, rather than an ongoing process with continuing uncertainty and questions. That's what I was commenting on.
@@troykuersten2831 lol come on, you’re not a professional scientist dude…
Don’t lie, just defend your opinions
@@Talleyhoooo, I'm actually a professor of Astronomy, you can look me up. Why is your first instinct to jump to personal attacks?
The passion in the voice of John whilst explaining is felt.
I initially was slightly disappointed because this is rather a podcast than a documentary, but the conversation is so engaging and with all the visual aids integrated into the discussion, I now think this is a marvelous and very informative episode and one of the most up to date sciencewise.
Imagine if there was an after life, and you could look down after thousands of years and see someone holding and describing your skull.
Imagine a peaceful and quiet afterlife for millions of years then we turn up with our culture wars
@@docastrov9013I fairly doubt there was anything "peaceful" about living in the wilderness.
And decribing the "creature" as primitive, stupid, and ugly.
Excellent, Professor John Mcnabb is thoroughly academic in his approach to the evidence and acknowledges areas of uncertainty, the abscence of evidence and where there are disagreements in how evidence is interpreted. Thoroughly enjoyable. More please.
All those apes running around on their knuckles are apes not early man.
What they don't tell students is when Darwin was on his death bed he called for an Episcopal priest and received Last Rites.
@@chaplainsoffice6907 - And.........?
(But you are correct. Early Hominidae as far back as the Australopithecus folk were upright walkers. Remember Lucy? She is an A. Afarensis.
However, the Apes split into several pathways. An earlier split led to the 'Lesser Apes", the Gibbons. The "Great Apes" went down several parallel pathways - one path eventually leading to Gorillas and Orangutans; another eventually leading to Chimpanzees, Bonobos, and Homo Sapiens. All of these species remain in the Primate / Ape category.)
Got a lot of love for the stormtrooper helmet on the top shelf 👌
I searched to see if anyone else spotted that... right on bruv!
Ditto!
Well they did live a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. So we’re probably their descendants.
One of the skulls in the display cases looks like it came from a long time ago in a galaxy far far away.
Especially the large, hairy, one.
I just love Prof. McNabb's approach on things. It reminds me of the idea that wisdom begins with saying, "I don't know," and researching from there.
I wish we still had big ass brow ridges. Those look so cool.
Fascinating chat! Wish it kept going!
the force is strong with the top shelf in the display cabinet......
Wonderful!! thank you both , Professor John Mcnabb and Tristan Hughes ,for a great enlightening video.
Very good discussion.
So much info conveyed, yet clear to follow and absorb.
Video title: homo erectus
Thumbnail: Australopithecus
Haha I caught that too... apparently the person in charge of editing isn't an anthropologist!
Hmm I wonder why... 😅😅😅
And it's smiling too!!! 😆
Homo Erectus was taller and less hairy along with a drastically different skull.
Fascinating look at our ancestors.
There is a kind if implement called the Skaill knife from Skaill on Orkney. Right up into astonishingly recent times, people were picking up these beach stones of old red sandstone and splitting them, using and discarding them. You just bang one against a harder stationary rock, and it splits into a fat and a thin half, and the thin one has a sharp edge.
They have been described as the equivalent of the plastic disposable knife.
Recently Homo Erectus was dated to be alive up to 100,000 years ago!!! That means we were walking the earth with them, pretty cool eh!
I know it’s common for species that branches off of one to still coexist with the original or a cousin. But it’s still weird to wrap my head around since Homo sapiens sapiens are the last one’s standing.
Like (most likely) some erectus members developed into heidelbergensis and then some of those developed in our ancestor sapiens and also neanderdenisovans (who then split into Neanderthals and denisovans, where denisovans mixed with another super archaic hominin - my guess is Homo erectus - before mixing occasionally with Neanderthals and then out of Africa Homo sapiens). All the while there still woulda been overlapping time where erectus communities could run into any one of their descendant species, and those descendants ran into each other, and everyone was having a lot of prehistoric sex and well, here anatomically modern humans are with trace DNA of that history
It’s tenuous and hard to prove but I read the language gene likely existed in Homo erectus, maybe it started with them and they were the first to really speak, while Homo habilis and Australopithecus grunted. So if they could, and we know we can and Neanderthals could and do probably heidelbergensis and denisovans could, how developed was language then even? It’s hard enough learning a different language between our own species, how would communication barriers work between species that have differently developed brains? That don’t have behavioral modernity vs those that do?
Also What animal species exist today that has that overlap, if any? Where the ancestor species still co-exists in time with a descendant or sub species. I know there are plenty Im just blanking on specific examples
@@BlueMax507 Russians are proof that Germans did.
@Max actually we did. They never actually died out, just got mixed out.
They went exstinct 50 thousand years ago
We were ?? What does it mean ?
They were what we are now...doesn't it ?
What a treat this was. Thank you so much for making and sharing this.
on the top shelf of that display case... that's a star wars stormtrooper helmet, not a skull?
That is definitely a stormtrooper helmet. Old mate clearly has a good sense of humour 😂
Noticed that. Didn't see a Predator though :/
it was a time long ago
Absolutely enjoyed this video, so fascinating. John Mcnabb was a joy to listen to and learn from. Thank you so much!
Much respect for John Mcnabb. I like the way he looks at and present science, discoveries etc. Very keen on not jumping ahead. Nice interview!
That was so interesting, I love learning about our ancient ancestors I find them fascinating
A really great interview, so clearly expressed for lay people like me who want to gain a greater understanding.
So glad you did a video of this podcast. Would have to be one of my favourites
Good job, gentlemen. Fascinating stuff.
Why did they go extinct? I have read that they made the same tools for a million years. Unable to adapt to something? Thank you both for a clear discussion with an amazing set of specimens.
war between species, homo sapiens are known for their barbaric and wage war to each other. Most hominim are tribals group with small populations, maybe 20-50 persons per group. And also they married each other and make their gene pool quite pure.
But for what I know that The Hobbit in Flores were wipeout by Homo Sapiens by their old folk songs where those Hobbits try to kidnapp child and they burn them down.
They were featured like small, with wide face and wide nose.
I imagine that there could many reasons for their exctinction... Remember they are hominids, you can be perfectly adapted and still go extinct. It could range from bad leadership or lack of resources to simply bad luck or annihilation. Nature is terribly cruel. People too.
We as a planet have experienced 16 civilization ending cataclysms in just the last 150k years. Imagine if we could go back 2 million years to find out how many asteroids, biblical floods, climate disasters have nearly wiped out us in the early years.
Its frankly a miracle we are here.
We are they. They are we.
They evolved into us.
They didnt go extinct, basically. Not in the same way H. Neanderthalenis went extinct.
@Michael-du2fv biblical floods? Pretty sure there's still never been a worldwide flood that covered the mountains.
Well goddam! This was about the best discussion on early humans I have ever seen! Well done to every one involved.
I’m so happy that I find this on the Internet.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us.
I have been looking for a video on early hominids that wasn't 3 hours long. I really appreciate this.
Wish John Mcnabb had been my professor when I did my degree in physical anthropology!
Professor Mcnabb’s enthusiasm makes for a fantastic learning experience!
propaganda experience
Wow! That was brilliant! Engrossing! Professor McNabb is a superlative educator! Big deference after listening to him. Ty!
...absolutely fascinating doc, brilliantly presented!
What a wonderful interview. So fascinating. I would love to know why he doesn't believe homo erectus created art; why he isn't convinced. He is so knowledgeable that I feel his explanation would be interesting and informative as well as any arguments for the creation of art by homo erectus. And, yes, I did also watch the Origins of Homo Sapiens with Dr. Stringer. Another excellent interview.
Art is a concept..
If an individual put red from a food sorce on its face to express some emotion, I would call that art.. i think we would see the beginnings of artistic expression very early. Maybe none were carving David, but id bet we would recognize art ,in some form anywhere we find culture.
It has been a long, tiring day, so was going to skip this. I am so glad that I didn't! Enjoyed immensely.
Very informative, and well presented. Many thanks.
One of the most interesting videos I have ever seen on the topic. Very well explained.
Great conversation, very informative and enjoyable. Thank you
Now I know what the strange hardly worked, flat sided stone tools from my local brook are called 'Cleavers.! The brook runs along a valley parallel to a south coast long sandy beach so early habitation makes sense given the abundant food supplies of a coastal location.
Like the video I really enjoyed this video more please 💯🎉
Thanks for making this so clear.
Absolutely fascinating! Thank you.
Star Wars stormtrooper helmet in the top display case!
The interview is presented as if modern humans are the pinnacle of our development, I believe that we are still evolving.
You believe correctly.
Every living species is still and will always be evolving.
We are the pinnacle at this moment in time.
Our brains are actually getting smaller through a process that might be smiliar to domestication
Excellent video, LOVE it!👍🏻👍🏻
Very interesting listening to John. Very measured and highly intelligent.
The guy being interviewed states points of view he disagrees with and lends them honest credibility before stating his own point of view. That makes him eminently credible himself.
Aka, he’s acting like a scientist
Good jobs
Interesting video and more easy to understand than some. Thanks!
Thanks John. I really learned a lot here
Is small teeth an adaptation to fire? With cooked food you don't need as powerful jaws and teeth?
yes
I wanted him to ask, "When we compare the brain sizes of two species of Homo, where adults of one tend to be 5'6" tall, and the other 3'6" tall, how can we do that realistically?" Surely we can't simply conclude that the species that's smaller in stature was less intelligent, solely because of brain size.
Yes, I’ve always wondered that too. I mean small dogs & large dogs have the same level of intelligence, but just look at the variations in the size of brain.
That’s a good argument. The same can said about the debate on neanderhals vs sapiens. The size of their brains were not the same, and they looked different, but were most likely on the same level, and shared many cultural traits.
@@stefanthorpenberg887
Neanderthals had larger brains than us (Sapiens).
it's understood now that corvids are very clever and their brains are teeny compared to ours. The quality is better than the capacity.
I was going to make a similar comment. Intelligence is far less about brain size than it is about neuron density. This is why corvids and some parrots are far more "intelligent" than much bigger species and why border collies are smarter than say huge headed Rottweilers for example.
Fascinating video
Fascinating, clearly an expert and very passionate about the way he talks about the origins about humans and how we evolved etc But So many unanswered quesions , yet to be discoverd . Thanks very enlightening.
Some modern human males have a brow ridge, not that large but they do have them. I have seen a few modern humans with rather large brow ridges, actor Ron Perlman for instance.
Some Australian Aborigines have a distinct brow ridge.
A long time ago... In a display cabinet just behind the presenters... 😅
What a wonderful educator
Another informative and excellent video.m, for which I thank you.
We all are bipedal, hairless African primates evolved from a variety of predecessors who competed for available resources & adapted sometimes successfully, sometimes not. Our species is IMO lucky to have developed language, music, art, as well as technical advances. Unfortunately, we like to fight, dominate & control. Cultural influences have to some extent allowed us to subdue the “savage beast” within with many positive results. I strive for Peace. Defend yourself daily against feelings of pride, greed, lust, anger, gluttony & sloth
Do you think the handaxe could have been thrown as a projectile? I had the opportunity to visit Olorgesailie in the early 80's and was impressed by how the handaxes littering the ground were most common below what would have been the shore dropoff to deep water. The H. E. there were butchering huge hippos and I don't imagine they were jumping on them and stabbing them. That would have terminated the individual's membership in the gene pool rather quickly, no?
Even a thrown regular stone upsets the evolutionary arms race.
I don't think it's out of the question, but I doubt it was a common thing they did, since it took a long time to make a handaxe, and you'd want to keep them with you. Also Homo erectus didn't have the evolutionary pressures to develop proper throwing, later species were better at it, but it wasnt until Homo sapien that we actually became adapted to throwing
The hand axes I saw at Olorgesailie were of rather finer manufacture than the ones in the youtube viddy, and all the ones present were below the beach shelf, ie in deep water. No axes or giant hippo bones on the beach. I read an article about an experiment done in Belgium where a grad student made plaster casts of hand axes@@thychozwart2451
This was outstanding.
Wonderful, wow, thanks very much!
I wish there was a size comparison between all species in height it's so interesting 💯🙂🧐
It's lies. Subjective reconstructions aren't science. It's like modern art but with a veneer of "science" to dazzle the gullible.
@@scintillam_dei 🤨???
@@parisfrance6483 This is macro-evolutionist propaganda. I prove the Neanderthal and such, are lies, in Part 2 of my series "Greeks, Latins, Iberians and Jews were, and are, NOT BLOND!"
I also undermine their claims of millions of years.
I used to be subjected to such indoctrination attempts in public schools growing up in the USA a long time ago... but I questioned what I was taught, while my peers fell like flies, because when you stand for nothing, you can fall for anything; even racist garbage like Darwin's. Got a video proving he worshipped Satan.
You can find that online Sapiens are close to the tallest though Neanderthals where bigger. Erectus is a fair bit shorter than us.
@@scintillam_dei dude seriously... all I said was ( I just would like to see skeletons of each species of what people think is correct ). 😐
This is totally fascinating
Awesome discussion.
What fascinates me about human species is just how MANY there were, especially that there were 5-6 the coexisted at the same time on the planet. What I don’t really understand is why we are the only species of human left. Anytime I research the others no one ever knows what happened to them. They all just seem to phase out at some point in time. Some theories say that they all just merged into one mega species - which is us today. I wonder how true that is considering the very small (relatively) DNA contributions they made to our own. Perhaps we only share the amount of DNA we do with them is due to the common ancestors, as opposed to direct procreation between the species. Just my thoughts. I’d love to know what actually happened to them.
We are very tribal as a whole. Some of us fear differences and others embrace curiosity, challenge, and the beauty in our differences. I’d imagine it was no different back then. What little evidence we have doesn’t argue against it. The evidence shows their were multiple branches, interbreeding, multiple migrations in and out of Africa and Asia into and from Europe. We have dna sequences from 3 and have evidence that we are missing at least one more in south east Asia. Geological disasters, climate change, population growth, etc….. would have been factors reducing population in areas and perhaps forcing different species/subspecies to interbreed or die off. Very interesting to see new information with our growing knowledge.
I think we mainly outcompeted and perhaps killed them too. Our ancestors were just better at doing everything and surviving in those times was not always easy, there was constant competition with other animals and other groups of hominids, since we probably had a very similar diet too. Think about how humans can kill without second thoughts and be merciless in war, this is similar to the situation our ancestors lived in, because survival was a constant war with other animals; it's either you, your family, your friends, your group, or them. This is how I view it, but I am no expert, to put it mildly.
@@IosifStalinsendsyoutoGulagit’s such an interesting questions. I understand why we develop instincts to kill for survival but I do wonder eventually if we will slowly lose a lot of our aggression.
It is also possible the weirder and more primitive humanoids and hominids DEVOLVED as offshoots of a main line of development and then were killed off by their stronger relatives or otherwise inbred to the point they were no longer survivable... inbreeding can make a tribe more susceptible to disease and mental retardation.
H. Erectus is my favorite ancestor human. They got absolutely everywhere. There's even a (very controversial) site in North America that at least one academic is claiming shows signs of human interaction (tool use) with mastadon bones 130,000 years ago. Granted that site and those assertions are extremely controversial, but, paired with how successful and well-travelled H. Erectus was, and the age of the site described, i have my little heart hoping that in the future, we might, perhaps find unambiguous evidence of a lost branch of H. Erectus in North America that died out long before modern humans ever arrived.
Btw, love the storm trooper helmet in the display cabinet. Obviously from long ago and far, far away.
First?
What a pity man then invented god to try to explain its origins.
Brilliant; Many Thanks 👍
Excellent, very interesting 👍
Looks like a typical MAGA.
Amazingly, several of these have managed to survive to this day!
They can be found in a place called "Congress" and "The White House" in Washington DC.
Wow. Dude! Hold on! That is a grave insult to the intelligence of homo etectus.
That was really interesting and easy to understand pretty cool! ❤
The ability to move through time, to be where monumental changes occurred. What an experience that must have been. To be there in that moment!
Still clinging to the theory humankind started in Africa despite recent discoveries.
Please do tell?
Yes. Enlighten us.
😄
In what way, please enlighten
The genetic evidence overwhelmingly supports the out of Africa theory.
While hominin evolution is quite a mosaic, with many species migrating all around Africa and Eurasia, the evidence is overwhelmingly clear that Africa is the origin point for Homo sapiens, as well as our genus's progenitors the Australopithecines.
Good to hear a real scientist. He's so careful and so clear with his statements.
I find all this highly compelling.
Fascinating. We know nothing really. At least compared with what we're about to discover.
Fascinating field.
Cheers.
Those stone axes look handy for clearing vegetation, scraping hides, opening shell fish, shaping timber...
Loved it!
Cheers from the Pacific West Coast of Canada.
What a great interview, thoroughly enjoyable, especially for its candour about how much we don't know.
Florensis, the outlier in our history, is especially fascinating. Then there is the other great anomaly, the Denisovans, not mentioned here.
Together they suggest strongly that human evolution took many turns, not all of which necessarily led to descendants. Or did they?
That’s because your timeline is off. The subject is focused on Erectus.
Excellent!!
Well done.
So interesting!
Interesting documentary
I enjoyed the Star Wars Stormtrooper helmet on the top shelf of the display case behind them.
Thanks!
Excellent conversation and some new points I haven't known. I know much of the appearance is of H. Erectus is conjecture but considering how long he existed, his dispersal across the region, his elegant human bipedalism, I wonder if showing as apelike with hair rather than smooth (for more heat dispersal thanks to running ability). And i wish there were more conjecture on socialization of these early hominids. I expect that much of the same social structures that we have were possibly expressed then... hunters were male, caretakers were elderly, the extended family of aunts and cousins surviving together. Language (as we know it) would not necessarily be needed. I will always consider Erectus as the first "human" in behavior (considering how long he survived). Then again... it might be those who became MORE human, that ended his reign. Heidelbergensis could have been more language capable and thus better at planning war/raiding parties.
Such a mystery. Maybe one day answers will be revealed.
I was hunting in northern NV and came across a lot of flint chips where the natives made arrowheads.
Thanks
thank you very much. are all the skulls from University of Southampton?
History and science is the two interesting and intriguing and fascinating things and stuff in life
It's instructive to remember that back then there was little entertainment. Homo Erectus simply became bored to death.