Actually, we always knew that – look at the wide range of body types you see today. What’s interesting about the latest study is how early the variety appeared. This study, using tiny fragments to estimate body masses of homo erectus and other early homo species, points to a variety of heights living around the same times. It was previously believed that homo erectus developed longer legs and greater body mass, and this pushed the species to spread into Eurasia. But if there was a variety of heights and body masses, that could not have been why the species began to move into new continents.
The study looked around 2.5 and 1.5 million years ago, when homo species shared the earth with mammoths and sabre-toothed tigers. Comparing measurements of fossils from sites in Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, and Georgia, the researchers found that there was significant regional variation in the size of early humans during the Pleistocene. And they found that there were a great variety in “average” heights of populations. This suggested local conditions, versus species’ overall evolution, dictated body size. In short, there was great diversity among early homos. According to one of the researchers, “It’s possible to interpret our findings as showing that there were either multiple species of early human, such as Homo habilis, Homo ergaster and Homo rudolfensis, or one highly diverse species. This fits well with recent cranial evidence for tremendous diversity among early members of the genus Homo.“
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