section_path: Early humans (before Homo sapiens)/After H. erectus
section_name: After H. erectus
paragraph_text: After H. erectus
  
  One million years after its dispersal, H. erectus was diverging into new species. H. erectus is a chronospecies and was never extinct, so its "late survival" is a matter of taxonomic convention. Late forms of H. erectus are thought to have survived until after about 0.5 million ago to 143,000 years ago at the latest, with derived forms classified as H. antecessor in Europe around 800,000 years ago and H. heidelbergensis in Africa around 600,000 years ago. H. heidelbergensis in its turn spread across East Africa (H. rhodesiensis) and to Eurasia, where it gave rise to Neanderthals and Denisovans.
  
  H. heidelbergensis, Neanderthals and Denisovans expanded north beyond the 50th parallel (Eartham Pit, Boxgrove 500kya, Swanscombe Heritage Park 400kya, Denisova Cave 50 kya). It has been suggested that late Neanderthals may even have reached the boundary of the Arctic, by c. 32,000 years ago, when they were being displaced from their earlier habitats by H. sapiens, based on 2011 excavations at the site of Byzovaya in the Urals (Komi Republic, 65°01′N 57°25′E / 65.02°N 57.42°E).
  
  Other archaic human species are assumed to have spread throughout Africa by this time, although the fossil record is sparse. Their presence is assumed based on traces of admixture with modern humans found in the genome of African populations. Homo naledi, discovered in South Africa in 2013 and tentatively dated to about 300,000 years ago, may represent fossil evidence of such an archaic human species.
  
  Neanderthals spread across the Near East and Europe, while Denisovans appear to have spread across Central and East Asia and to Southeast Asia and Oceania. There is evidence that Denisovans interbred with Neanderthals in Central Asia where their habitats overlapped. Neanderthal evidence has also been found quite late at 33,000 years ago at the 65th latitude of the Byzovaya site in the Ural Mountains. This is far outside of any otherwise known habitat, during a high ice cover period, and perhaps reflects a refugia of near extinction.