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H omo erectus is the founding early hominin species of Island Southeast Asia, and reached Java (Indonesia) more than 1.5 million years ago 1 , 2 . Twelve H. erectus calvaria (skull caps) and two tibiae (lower leg bones) were discovered from a bone bed located about 20 m above the Solo River at Ngandong (Central Java) between 1931 and 1933 3 , 4 , and are of the youngest, most-advanced form of H. erectus 5 – 8 . Despite the importance of the Ngandong fossils, the relationship between the fossils, terrace fill and ages have been heavily debated 9 – 14 . Here, to resolve the age of the Ngandong evidence, we use Bayesian modelling of 52 radiometric age estimates to establish—to our knowledge—the first robust chronology at regional, valley and local scales. We used uranium-series dating of speleothems to constrain regional landscape evolution; luminescence, 40 argon/ 39 argon ( 40 Ar/ 39 Ar) and uranium-series dating to constrain the sequence of terrace evolution; and applied uranium-series and uranium series–electron-spin resonance (US–ESR) dating to non-human fossils to directly date our re-excavation of Ngandong 5 , 15 . We show that at least by 500 thousand years ago (ka) the Solo River was diverted into the Kendeng Hills, and that it formed the Solo terrace sequence between 316 and 31 ka and the Ngandong terrace between about 140 and 92 ka. Non-human fossils recovered during the re-excavation of Ngandong date to between 109 and 106 ka (uranium-series minimum) 16 and 134 and 118 ka (US–ESR), with modelled ages of 117 to 108 thousand years (kyr) for the H. erectus bone bed, which accumulated during flood conditions 3 , 17 . These results negate the extreme ages that have been proposed for the site and solidify Ngandong as the last known occurrence of this long-lived species. Bayesian modelling of radiometric age estimates provides a robust chronology for Homo erectus at Ngandong (Java), confirming that this site currently represents the last known occurrence of this species.

Argon and luminescence dating of fossil shell infills from Trinil in Java, where Homo erectus lived, reveals that the hominin-bearing deposits are younger than previously thought; perforated shells, a shell tool and an engraved shell indicate that Homo erectus ate freshwater mussels, used their shells as tools and was able to create abstract engravings. The food, tools and art of 'Java man' Homo erectus made tools from shells, and even decorated some of them with what look like intentional incisions. The fossils of the hominid that came to be known as Homo erectus were discovered at Trinil in central Java by Eugene Dubois in 1891. Josephine Joordens and colleagues have been looking over the historic Dubois collections, now in Leiden in the Netherlands, concentrating on the freshwater shells. They find evidence for shellfish consumption by hominins, a shell tool and other shells showing signs of intentional modification. Age determination on the sediment directly associated with the shells show that they were used sometime between 380,000 and 640,000 years ago, well within the time during which Homo erectus lived in Java, and pre-dating the oldest geometric engravings described previously by more than 300,000 years. The manufacture of geometric engravings is generally interpreted as indicative of modern cognition and behaviour 1 . Key questions in the debate on the origin of such behaviour are whether this innovation is restricted to Homo sapiens , and whether it has a uniquely African origin 1 . Here we report on a fossil freshwater shell assemblage from the Hauptknochenschicht (‘main bone layer’) of Trinil (Java, Indonesia), the type locality of Homo erectus discovered by Eugène Dubois in 1891 (refs 2 and 3 ). In the Dubois collection (in the Naturalis museum, Leiden, The Netherlands) we found evidence for freshwater shellfish consumption by hominins, one unambiguous shell tool, and a shell with a geometric engraving. We dated sediment contained in the shells with 40 Ar/ 39 Ar and luminescence dating methods, obtaining a maximum age of 0.54 ± 0.10 million years and a minimum age of 0.43 ± 0.05 million years. This implies that the Trinil Hauptknochenschicht is younger than previously estimated. Together, our data indicate that the engraving was made by Homo erectus , and that it is considerably older than the oldest geometric engravings described so far 4 , 5 . Although it is at present not possible to assess the function or meaning of the engraved shell, this discovery suggests that engraving abstract patterns was in the realm of Asian Homo erectus cognition and neuromotor control.

The age of Zhoukoudian Homo erectus, commonly known as 'Peking Man', has long been pursued, but has remained problematic owing to the lack of suitable dating methods. Here we report cosmogenic (26)Al/(10)Be burial dating of quartz sediments and artefacts from the lower strata of Locality 1 in the southwestern suburb of Beijing, China, where early representatives of Zhoukoudian Homo erectus were discovered. This study marks the first radioisotopic dating of any early hominin site in China beyond the range of mass spectrometric U-series dating. The weighted mean of six meaningful age measurements, 0.77 +/- 0.08 million years (Myr, mean +/- s.e.m.), provides the best age estimate for lower cultural layers 7-10. Together with previously reported U-series dating of speleothem calcite and palaeomagnetic stratigraphy, as well as sedimentological considerations, these layers may be further correlated to S6-S7 in Chinese loess stratigraphy or marine isotope stages (MIS) 17-19, in the range of approximately 0.68 to 0.78 Myr ago. These ages are substantially older than previously supposed and may imply early hominin's presence at the site in northern China through a relatively mild glacial period corresponding to MIS 18.

The genus Homo had considerably smaller cheek teeth, chewing muscles and jaws than earlier hominins; here, the introduction of raw but processed meat, from which energy could more easily be extracted, is shown to have possibly been responsible for this change. Food processing in the Palaeolithic era The arrival of Homo erectus almost two million years ago introduced hominins with dramatically smaller teeth than anything that went before, implying a reduced capacity for processing the amount of food required to sustain a large animal. It is often claimed that the development of cooking allowed for tooth reduction, but cooking didn't become common until about 500,000 years ago. What happened in the interim? Katherine Zink and Daniel Lieberman tested the effects of eating meat — and of simple food preparation techniques — on masticatory effort and oral fracture efficiency. Their findings suggest that the introduction of raw yet eminently chewable meat could have made the difference — together with the use of stone tools to pound the less digestible but starch-rich storable plant materials. The origins of the genus Homo are murky, but by H. erectus , bigger brains and bodies had evolved that, along with larger foraging ranges, would have increased the daily energetic requirements of hominins 1 , 2 . Yet H. erectus differs from earlier hominins in having relatively smaller teeth, reduced chewing muscles, weaker maximum bite force capabilities, and a relatively smaller gut 3 , 4 , 5 . This paradoxical combination of increased energy demands along with decreased masticatory and digestive capacities is hypothesized to have been made possible by adding meat to the diet 6 , 7 , 8 , by mechanically processing food using stone tools 7 , 9 , 10 , or by cooking 11 , 12 . Cooking, however, was apparently uncommon until 500,000 years ago 13 , 14 , and the effects of carnivory and Palaeolithic processing techniques on mastication are unknown. Here we report experiments that tested how Lower Palaeolithic processing technologies affect chewing force production and efficacy in humans consuming meat and underground storage organs (USOs). We find that if meat comprised one-third of the diet, the number of chewing cycles per year would have declined by nearly 2 million (a 13% reduction) and total masticatory force required would have declined by 15%. Furthermore, by simply slicing meat and pounding USOs, hominins would have improved their ability to chew meat into smaller particles by 41%, reduced the number of chews per year by another 5%, and decreased masticatory force requirements by an additional 12%. Although cooking has important benefits, it appears that selection for smaller masticatory features in Homo would have been initially made possible by the combination of using stone tools and eating meat.

Virtually reconstructing the jaw of OH 7 reveals a remarkably primitive shape, suggesting that the Homo habilis lineage originated before 2.3 million years ago; marking deep-rooted species diversity in the genus Homo . Digital makeover for Homo habilis The 4 April 1964 issue of Nature featured fossils of a partial skull and a hand of the then earliest known member of the genus Homo . The 1.8-million-year-old fossils, from Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, were catalogued as Olduvai Hominid 7 (OH 7) and the specimen was formally named Homo habilis or 'handy man'. The challenge in the intervening years has been to work out which other fossils also belong to Homo habilis , a task complicated by the distortion of the OH 7 mandible which disguises its original shape. Now the mandible and vault bones of OH 7 have been subjected to state-of-the-art virtual reconstruction, using computed tomography and 3D imaging technology to realign the broken parts. The Homo habilis type emerges in a new light, combining a primitive jaw shape, resembling that of Australopithecus afarensis ('Lucy'), with a brain as large as that of early Homo erectus . This new evidence indicates that multiple evolutionary lineages of the genus Homo existed well before 2 million years ago. Besides Homo erectus ( sensu lato ), the eastern African fossil record of early Homo has been interpreted as representing either a single variable species, Homo habilis 1 , or two species 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 . In the latter case, however, there is no consensus over the respective groupings, and which of the two includes OH 7, the 1.8-million-year-old H. habilis holotype 7 . This partial skull and hand from Olduvai Gorge remains pivotal to evaluating the early evolution of the Homo lineage, and by priority names one or other of the two taxa. However, the distorted preservation of the diagnostically important OH 7 mandible has hindered attempts to compare this specimen with other fossils 8 , 9 . Here we present a virtual reconstruction of the OH 7 mandible, and compare it to other early Homo fossils. The reconstructed mandible is remarkably primitive, with a long and narrow dental arcade more similar to Australopithecus afarensis than to the derived parabolic arcades of Homo sapiens or H. erectus . We find that this shape variability is not consistent with a single species of early Homo . Importantly, the jaw morphology of OH 7 is incompatible with fossils assigned to Homo rudolfensis 8 and with the A.L. 666-1 Homo maxilla. The latter is morphologically more derived than OH 7 but 500,000 years older 10 , suggesting that the H. habilis lineage originated before 2.3 million years ago, thus marking deep-rooted species diversity in the genus Homo . We also reconstructed the parietal bones of OH 7 and estimated its endocranial volume. At between 729 and 824 ml it is larger than any previously published value, and emphasizes the near-complete overlap in brain size among species of early Homo . Our results clarify the H. habilis hypodigm, but raise questions about its phylogenetic relationships. Differences between species of early Homo appear to be characterized more by gnathic diversity than by differences in brain size, which was highly variable within all taxa.

The genus Homo had considerably smaller cheek teeth, chewing muscles and jaws than earlier hominins; here, the introduction of raw but processed meat, from which energy could more easily be extracted, is shown to have possibly been responsible for this change.

Argon and luminescence dating of fossil shell infills from Trinil in Java, where Homo erectus lived, reveals that the hominin-bearing deposits are younger than previously thought; perforated shells, a shell tool and an engraved shell indicate that Homo erectus ate freshwater mussels, used their shells as tools and was able to create abstract engravings.

Stratified stone tools found with elephant and hippopotamus teeth at Evron Quarry can be dated to before 780 000 years ago. The assemblage includes handaxes, but less expectedly, small stone tools in the form of flakes with notches and points. Not thought to be points for spears or arrows, these small tools are suggested to be usable for butchery. They represent an adaption of local materials that make poor handaxes—so showing an ingenious improvisation on the part of Homo erectus.