Longest-surviving hominin

Among all species of early modern human, none survived for a longer period than Homo erectus, with fossil evidence indicating it persisted for a duration of some 1.9 million years between c. 2 million years ago to as recently as 117,000–108,000 years ago. This means that H. erectus lived on Earth roughly four times longer than our own species, H. sapiens, has done so to date (if subscribing to the school of thought that the earliest H. sapiens emerged c. 500,000 years ago; the earliest H. sapiens bones found to date, on the other hand, are c. 200,000 years old). The oldest H. erectus remains were unearthed in Africa, which is where the species is believed to have evolved around 2 million years ago (before migrating to Europe and Asia), while the youngest-known specimens of H. erectus were confirmed by uranium-series dating fossils excavated from a bone bed at Ngandong in Central Java, Indonesia. The findings were reported in the journal Nature on 18 December 2019.

The first Homo erectus individual ("Trinil 2") was found in Indonesia in 1891 by Dutch surgeon Eugène Dubois. In 1894, Dubois named the species Pithecanthropus erectus ("erect ape-man"); the genus Pithecanthropus later became Homo. At the time, it was the most primitive early human species; no early human fossils had been discovered in Africa at that point.

H. erectus is believed to have first reached Java around 1.5 million years ago and lived there until 117,000–108,000 years ago (Ngandong), which may also represent the longest occupation of an island.

Although its long survival does mean this species' timeline could have overlapped with other more recent hominins such as the Denisovans, it’s not yet clear whether the Ngandong record of H. erectus marks the disappearance of the species, or whether our two species ever crossed paths.

The Ngandong bones research was a collaboration between the Institute of Technology Bandung, Geology Museum (both Indonesia); Macquarie University, University of Wollongong, Griffith University, Southern Cross University, University of New England, University of Queensland (all Australia); University of Iowa, Indiana University, University of Texas at Austin, Minnesota State University, Rutgers University, Shore Cultural Center (all USA); University of Alberta (Canada); University of Oxford (UK); and University of Copenhagen (Denmark). The study was led by Associate Professor Kira Westaway of Macquarie University.