section_path: Early humans (before Homo sapiens)/Homo erectus
section_name: Homo erectus
paragraph_text: Homo erectus
  
  Between 2 and less than a million years ago, Homo spread throughout East Africa and to Southern Africa (Homo ergaster), but not yet to West Africa. Around 1.8 million years ago, Homo erectus migrated out of Africa via the Levantine corridor and Horn of Africa to Eurasia. This migration has been proposed as being related to the operation of the Saharan pump, around 1.9 million years ago. Homo erectus dispersed throughout most of the Old World, reaching as far as Southeast Asia. Its distribution is traced by the Oldowan lithic industry, by 1.3 million years ago extending as far north as the 40th parallel (Xiaochangliang).
  
  Key sites for this early migration out of Africa are Riwat in Pakistan (~2 Ma?), Ubeidiya in the Levant (1.5 Ma) and Dmanisi in the Caucasus (1.81 ± 0.03 Ma, p =0.05).
  
  China shows evidence of Homo erectus from 2.12 mya in Gongwangling, in Lantian county. Two Homo erectus incisors have been found near Yuanmou, southern China, and are dated to 1.7 mya, and a cranium from Lantian has been dated to 1.63 mya. Artefacts from Majuangou III and Shangshazui in the Nihewan basin, northern China, have been dated to 1.6–1.7 mya. The archaeological site of Xihoudu (西侯渡) in Shanxi province is the earliest recorded use of fire by Homo erectus, which is dated 1.27 million years ago.
  
  Southeast Asia (Java) was reached about 1.7 million years ago (Meganthropus). Western Europe was first populated around 1.2 million years ago (Atapuerca).
  
  Robert G. Bednarik has suggested that Homo erectus may have built rafts and sailed oceans, a theory that has raised some controversy.