Homo erectus (meaning "upright man", from the Latin
erigere, "to put up, set upright") is an extinct
species of
hominid that lived throughout most of the
Pleistocene geological epoch. Its earliest fossil evidence dates to 1.9 million years ago and the most recent to 70,000 years ago. It is generally thought that
H. erectus originated in
Africa and spread from there, migrating throughout Eurasia as far as
Georgia,
India,
Sri Lanka,
China and
Indonesia. But other scientists posit that the species rose first, or separately, in Asia.