National Geographic asked leading scientists to name the most important fossilized species identified since Darwin's birth. The list includes one of our direct ancestors—Homo ergaster—and is a broad scale look at advances in evolution and well worth a peek.
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This story expands our awareness of evolutionary finds and gives us ammunition when creationists bring their tired arguments into discussions. Alas, being wrong never seems to make them take a fresh look at their beliefs.
Thank you for your work, and I look forward to learning more.
The exact relationship between Homo ergaster
and Homo erectus is still up in the air.
Ian Tattersall, who originally championed
Homo ergaster as a species distinct from
Homo erectus, now thinks that H. ergaster
may actually be 4 separate, reproductively
isolated species: one is the Turkhana
specimen; another is ER3733; another is 3883;
and another is the supposed type specimen;
ER992. At the other extreme, some of us
believe that all of the “H. ergaster”
specimens are only racial variants of Homo
erectus. Look at a Pug versus a Great Dane–
both belong to the species Canis familiaris
(or even according to some taxonomists, Canis
lupus familiaris)–the common dog. Yet someone
not familiar with dogs would, on the basis of
body size and head shape, put them in
different species and even different genera.
Fossils have been found which are intermediate
between the above mentioned specimens of Homo
ergaster and Asian Homo erectus, which leads
me to believe that all of the Homo ergaster
specimens are simply subspecies of Homo
erectus. The final verdict could be reached
if some DNA were available from each specimen,
but I am not sure this is available.