Some suggest Neanderthal, Homo erectus, or Homo heidelbergensis to be the creature, but no remains of any of those species have been found in the Americas.

What is now China was inhabited by Homo erectus more than a million years ago.

The archaeological site of Xihoudu in Shanxi Province is the earliest recorded use of fire by Homo erectus, which is dated 1. 27 million years ago.

Perhaps the most famous specimen of Homo erectus found in China is the so-called Peking Man discovered in 1923-27.

In 1995, one of the oldest hominids, representing a possible link between Homo erectus and an archaic Homo sapiens was found in Buya, Eritrea by Italian scientists dated to over 1 million years old ( the oldest of its kind ), providing a link between hominids and the earliest humans.

Furthermore it is believed that the Eritrean section of the Danakil Depression was a major player in terms of human evolution and may " document the entire evolution of Homo erectus up to the transition to anatomically modern humans.

Java Man originally carried Haeckel's Pithecanthropus label, though they were later reclassified as Homo erectus.

During the next million years a process of encephalization began, and with the arrival of Homo erectus in the fossil record, cranial capacity had doubled to 850cc.

Homo erectus and Homo ergaster were the first of the hominina to leave Africa, and these species spread through Africa, Asia, and Europe between.

According to the Recent African Ancestry theory, modern humans evolved in Africa possibly from Homo heidelbergensis and migrated out of the continent some 50, 000 to 100, 000 years ago, replacing local populations of Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis.

The pattern of encephalization started with Homo habilis which at approximately 600 cc had a brain slightly larger than chimpanzees, and continued with Homo erectus ( 800-1100 cc ), and reached a maximum in Neanderthals with an average size of ( 1200-1900cc ), larger even than Homo sapiens.

Despite the 1891 discovery by Eugène Dubois of what is now called Homo erectus at Trinil, Java, it was only in the 1920s when such fossils were discovered in Africa, that intermediate species began to accumulate.

From the fossil beds of Olduvai and Lake Turkana they amassed fossils of Asutralopithecines, early Homo, and even Homo erectus.

Replica of fossil skull of Homo ergaster ( African Homo erectus ).

During the next million years a process of encephalization began, and with the arrival of Homo erectus in the fossil record, cranial capacity had doubled.

Homo erectus were the first of the hominina to leave Africa, and these species spread through Africa, Asia, and Europe between.

Some scientists consider Homo rudolfensis, a group larger bodied group of fossils with similar morphology to the original H. habilis fossils to be a separate species while others consider them to be part of H. habilis-simply representing species internal variation, or perhaps even sexual dimorphism.

One population of H. erectus, also sometimes classified as a separate species Homo ergaster, stayed in Africa and evolved into Homo sapiens.

The earliest transitional fossils between H. ergaster / erectus and Archaic H. sapiens are from Africa such as Homo rhodesiensis, but seemingly transitional forms are also found at Dmanisi, Georgia.

Many paleoanthropologists now use the term Homo ergaster for the non-Asian forms of this group, and reserve Homo erectus only for those fossils that are found in Asia and meet certain skeletal and dental requirements which differ slightly from H. ergaster.

H. neanderthalensis, alternatively designated as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, lived in Europe and Asia from 400, 000 to about 30, 000 years ago.

H. floresiensis is intriguing both for its size and its age, being an example of a recent species of the genus Homo that exhibits derived traits not shared with modern humans.

Current evidence does not preclude some multiregional evolution or some admixture of the migrant H. sapiens with existing Homo populations.

Possibly the first hunters, H. erectus mastered the art of making fire and was the first hominid to leave Africa, colonizing most of the Old World and perhaps later giving rise to Homo floresiensis.

Although some recent writers suggest that Homo georgicus was the first and most primitive hominid ever to live outside Africa, many scientists consider H. georgicus to be an early and primitive member of the H. erectus species.

This shows that some chimpanzees lived close to Homo ( H. erectus or H. rhodesiensis ) at the time ; the same is likely true for gorillas.

Homo habilis ( or possibly H. rudolfensis ) was the earliest known species of the genus Homo until May 2010, when H. gautengensis was proposed by Darren Curnoe, a species theorized to be even older than H. habilis.

Homo habilis lived from about 2. 4 to 1. 4 Ma.

Homo habilis (, " handy-man ") is a species of the genus Homo, which lived from approximately 2. 33 to 1. 4 million years ago, during the Gelasian Pleistocene period.

Ötzi (, also called Ötzi the Iceman, the Similaun Man, the Man from Hauslabjoch, Homo tyrolensis, and the Hauslabjoch mummy ) is a well-preserved natural mummy of a man who lived about 3, 300 BCE.

All species of Paranthropus were bipedal, and many lived during a time when species of the genus Homo ( which were possibly descended from Australopithecus ), were prevalent.

Plains in Hebei were the home of Peking man, a group of Homo erectus that lived in the area around 200, 000 to 700, 000 years ago.

Mitochondrial Eve is estimated to have lived around 200, 000 years ago, most likely in East Africa, when Homo sapiens sapiens ( anatomically modern humans ) were developing as a population distinct from other human sub-species.

Mitochondrial Eve lived later than Homo heidelbergensis and the emergence of Homo neanderthalensis, but earlier than the out of Africa migration.

In this period, the Homo sapiens sapiens lived by cultivating cereals and animal husbandry ( Bovinae and Caprinae ).

Homo ergaster ( also " African Homo erectus ") is an extinct chronospecies of Homo that lived in eastern and southern Africa during the early Pleistocene, between 1. 8 million and 1. 3 million years ago.

Named Homo floresiensis, the hominin is a dwarfed version that lived 18, 000 years ago on the island of Flores.

Homo sapiens idaltu is an extinct subspecies of Homo sapiens that lived almost 160, 000 years ago in Pleistocene Africa.

Homo neanderthalensis, traditionally considered the last surviving relative, died out about 24, 000 years ago, though recent discoveries suggests two other species, Homo floresiensis and the " Red Deer Cave people " may have lived much more recently.

The man who lived there was called Homo Aeserniensis.

Homo habilis is assumed to have lived primarily on scavenging, using the tools to cleave meat off carrion or to break bones in order to extract the marrow.