Solo man in question: Convergent views to split Indonesian Homo erectus in two categories

Between the famous Man of Java and the new star of paleoanthropology id est the Man of Flores, embedded in the bank of the river Solo or in the shadow of the volcanoes of Sangiran, Homo erectus remains apart. Driven from evolved Homo erectus to archaic Homo sapiens, for a long time Solo man did not find a real place in taxonomy and in the scientific debate, whereas Neandertal is still famous for its cultural or biological struggle against the ancestors of modern humans. Are there two human evolutionary trends: one in Europe with its first inhabitants over 1.3 Ma that became Neandertals, and another one in Asia, where human fossils are assessed to be older than 1.5 Ma? In 1932, Oppenoorth described Homo (Javanthropus) soloensis from the skull series gathered from the deposits of the Solo River. Since that time, some authors followed the point of view that this series belong to archaic Homo sapiens, but most paleoanthropologists considered them as evolved Homo erectus. To take stock of the taxonomy of Indonesian Homo erectus, three independent approaches and the authors' research done using different techniques and methods were compared. Considering the studies separately undertaken on Homo erectus (Brain structure analyses, 3D morphometry study, cladistic analysis performed from a biometric and morphological database), two categories existed. As far as a chronological gap splits these two categories, this reappraisal of Homo erectus poses the question of the possible occurrence of two different species. This question is still debated among the authors, but the convergent point of view brings new light on the multi-regionalism hypothesis within Homo. This Asian point of view sheds light on the older European evidence of human inhabitants. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved.