BREAKING NEWS: We are descended from Homo Erectus, who had a brain

Some 540,000 years ago, an ancient ancestor of modern humans took a shark tooth and carefully carved a geometric engraving on a mollusk shell.

The engraving -- the oldest piece of art ever found by at least 300,000 years -- as well as a shell tool were found at a site in what is now Java, Indonesia.

The work strongly suggest that Homo erectus, aka "Upright Man," was far more sophisticated than previously thought, being capable of cognition and behavior only attributed before to our species.

[link to news.discovery.com]


"They no doubt spent much of their time on land gathering food, and we know they butchered large mammals, but their very heavy bones suggest they never moved far from water, and apparently regularly foraged in the water," he said.




The Aquatic Ape?



The possibilities concerning what happened to Homo erectus later are profound.

"It may have evolved into Homo sapiens and perhaps into multiple species," Joordens said. "All modern humans today may be distantly related to Homo erectus."


Huh?

"May be distantly related to Homo erectus"?
It's been accepted by mainstream science for decades that we are directly descended from Homo Erectus, who only ultimately disappeared about 30,000 years ago, the last survivors in Java.

What a strange thing to hear from a "post-doctoral researcher at Leiden University."