How many separate species have branched from Homo Erectus?

Question

I know that humans are not descendants of the so called "Neanderthals", and I also know of the "dwarves" that lived on an island in Oceania (can't remember which though). I know that they were quite advanced technologically, for they had created tools of stone and wood (as far as my knowledge goes). I'd like feedback on any information about these "dwarves", and any other descendants of Homo Erectus (aside from humans) and also, possibly how similar they are to Homo Sapiens.

Answer 1

I suspect you are referring to the Hobbit found on Flores?  To my knowledge Homo Neanderthal & Homo Sapien are the only 2 branches that  Homo Erectus produced.  The Hobbit may be a Homo Erectus that experienced dwarfism due to being confined on a island with limited food resources.  As for Neanderthal... Bruce Lahn & his team of genetic researchers ( U of Chicago) recently found a 1.1 million year old gene that Homo Sapien (a 200K yr old species) picked up in the ME about 37,000 yrs ago.  Neanderthal is the most likely source of this introgressed gene.

Gene counters & bone diggers are currently at odds on a number of finds... with the genetic scientists haveing far better evidence to support their hypothesis than just the shape of bones... human deviation is so wide that it can encompass many fossiles said to be a differing species. Expect the fight to get nastier before it is over.

Answer 2

What you are questioning here is the Pylogeny of Homo between Homo erectus and anatomically modern Homo sapiens.  The contemporary evidence predicts that Homo erectus migrated around the globe and eventually evolved into antecessor, which went extinct, and into heidelbergensis.  Heidelbergensis then possibly went on to evolve into Homo neanderthalensis and anatomically modern Homo sapiens.  I believe that the oceanic population that you are refering too are Homo floresiensis which under this phylogeny are also attributed with having evolved from Homo erectus independently and were able to remain successful in their environment until the arrival of Homo sapiens.  Here is a pylogeny that shows this relationship of evolution over time and between the different geographic regions:

http://users.static.freeblog.hu/c/r/i/cr...

Other pylogenies tell similar stories, but not as well as the first in a geographic sense:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v42...

http://www.archaeologyinfo.com/images/ph...

http://www.antiquityofman.com/images/mod...

http://www.accessexcellence.org/BF/bf02/...

And some even rearrange it a bit, or create different classifications for some fossil findings.  This example replaces heidlebergensis with African archaics and Eurasian archaics:

http://content.answers.com/main/content/...

And yet others overgeneralize and skip some offshoots and evolutionary steps all together.  This example does not just skip the frequently overlooked Homo antecessor, but also completely ignores the existence of Homo heidelbergensis and its significance all together and actually makes the model look a bit funny with the large gap inbetween Homo erectus and the introduction of neanderthal and sapiens:

http://www.micro.utexas.edu/courses/levi...

Here is some information about Homo floresiensis on wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_flores...

and here is a facial reconstruction of floresiensis:

http://3quarksdaily.blogs.com/3quarksdai...

Answer 3

A recent issue of Scientific American addresses this issue.

Answer 4

oh you are so cuuuute!!!!!!

Answer 5

I thought those H. floreiensis ones were considered a mistake and it was a child or something...I think it was in Indonesia??? not sure but I remember hearing about the mistake....

But H.erectus is thought to lead ( now the EXACT linking is still up for debate) to H. antecessor, H.heidlebergensis, H.neadterthanesis and H.sapiens....obviously not are all in a DIRECT order, but these species are at present thought to come after H.erectus and therefore, at the moment, would consider "coming from" it.