Homo ergaster

Homo ergaster, also called "African Homo erectus", is an extinct chronospecies of Homo which lived in eastern and southern Africa during the early Pleistocene, between 1.8 million and 1.3 million years ago.

Homo ergaster Temporal range: Pleistocene,
Skull KNM-ER 3733, the Koobi Fora fossil discovered in Kenya, 1975
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Primates
Family:	Hominidae
Genus:	Homo
Species:	H. ergaster
Binomial name
†Homo ergaster Groves and Mazák, 1975

There is still disagreement on the subject of the classification and ancestry of H. ergaster. However, it is now widely accepted as the direct ancestor of Asian Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis, Homo heidelbergensis, and hence Homo sapiens.

It is one of the earliest members of the genus Homo, possibly ancestral to, or sharing a common ancestor with, Homo erectus. Some paleoanthropologists consider H. ergaster is just the African variety of H. erectus. There are Asian fossils of H. erectus, which was the first human species to spread from Africa.

The name ergaster means "workman", in reference to the Acheulean hand axe industry developed by the species. The species' period in eastern and southern Africa coincided with the first part of the Pleistocene, the cooling of the global climate and the start of the ice ages. These events would have shrunk the rainforests in Africa, and expanded the savannahs and open forests to which ergaster was well suited.

• Turkana boy

Homo Ergaster Media

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  Spreading of Homo sapiens

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  Reconstruction of Turkana boy by Adrie and Alfons Kennis at the Neanderthal Museum

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  Homo erectus trackways. Schematic maps of excavated footprint surfaces at sites FE3 and FwJj14E.*Map of the Ileret area (lower left) shows the locations of sites FE3 and FwJj14E, marked by black stars.

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  A cordiform hand axe as commonly found in the Acheulean (replica)

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  Drawing of a hand holding a hand axe