Museum complex

Portrait sculpture of HOMO ERECTUS

Workshop of M.M. Gerasimov (1907-1970)
Moscow
The middle of the 20th century
Gypsum
Height – 46 cm
From: gift from M.M. Gerasimov
Open storage

HOMO ERECTUS (1,5 - 0,4 million years ago). Portrait sculptures of ancient human ancestors presented in the hall were made after the method of scientific human appearance reconstruction based on skull bone remains. This method was developed y famous soviet archaeologist and anthropologist, member of the Academy of Sciences Mikhail Mikhaylovich Gerasimov. The problem of formation of modern humans is far from solving, in spite of many bone remains of ancient human found. Their original homeland is Africa. Several waves of human ancestors peopling different continents started from there. Homo erectus was one of the first to settle widely in Eurasia up to China already 1 million 800 thousand years ago. The last representatives of that species became extinct less than 100 thousand years ago. European subspecies of that human ancestor is known as pithecanthrope. He was 120-150 cm high and walked on two legs. The skull of pithecanthrope was massive, it had a crest on top and big brow ridges, without chin boss. Pithecanthropes created material culture that was called Acheulean. The most well known stone tools were hand axes, choppers, tools with flakes, tools of bone and wood that rarely remain. Presumably pithecanthropes already used fire.

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