Homo Erectus
The Ancients
History Hit
4.7 • 4.5K Ratings
🗓️ 9 February 2023
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Before modern humans walked the earth, and even before the Neanderthals, Homo Erectus dominated the plains of Africa. Eventually migrating across the land, with evidence of their existence being found in locations like Java, Homo Erectus survived for 2 million years. But how did they succeed where others failed, and become the most wide spread human species on earth at this time?
In this episode, Tristan is joined by Professor John McNabb from the University of Southampton, to explore the fascinating history of Homo Erectus. Looking at a number of tools they used to survive, including a pre-historic Swiss Army Knife, what can the archaeology tell us about the evolution of humankind and can we learn anything from our distant ancestors?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's the entrance on History Hit. |
| 0:12.2 | I'm Tristan Hughes your host and in today's podcast, well super excited for this one. |
| 0:17.6 | We've recorded it not too long ago, so it's also fresh in my mind too. |
| 0:22.8 | We're delving deep into human prehistory once more, before the time of modern humans |
| 0:28.0 | of hemisapiens, before the time of Neanderthals. |
| 0:31.9 | We're talking about an extraordinary human species, the longest lived human species that |
| 0:38.2 | we know of so far. |
| 0:40.7 | A species that lived for roughly two million years and spread out to areas as far away as |
| 0:46.9 | the islands of Indonesia. |
| 0:48.9 | We are of course talking about Homo erectus, upright man. |
| 0:55.4 | In this podcast, we're going to be explaining all about Homo erectus. |
| 0:58.2 | We're going to be doing a deep delve into its story with a leading expert, a leading professor, |
| 1:04.9 | none other than Southampton University's professor John Moknapp. |
| 1:09.9 | Mac. |
| 1:11.3 | Mac is a legend when it comes to paleoanthropology, deep human prehistory we're talking now. |
| 1:20.6 | He is a legend as soon as I announced on Twitter that we'd interviewed Mac all about this. |
| 1:25.8 | Some eminent anthropologists replied very, very quickly saying what an amazing guy he |
| 1:31.7 | is, one absolute legend he is, and they're absolutely right. |
| 1:35.1 | It was such a privilege to interview Mac all about this, to hear about his passion for |
| 1:39.9 | all things Homo erectus. |
| 1:41.9 | He brought out a number of replica skulls of Homo erectus, some other bones too discovered |
| 1:47.8 | as well as a few hand axes, these main stone tools that were used by Homo erectus. |
... |
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