542 FOSSIL VERTEBRATES/Hominids Figure Reconstruction by the late Maurice Wilson of Australopithecus afarensis, based on the 3.2 Ma specimens of ‘Lucy’ and other individuals from Ethiopia The invention of roasting food by fire appears to have been developed by about 1.6 Ma However, it was the successor of habilis which made much greater impact This was Homo erectus (earlier versions of which are sometimes termed H ergaster), which was relatively slim-waisted and, in some cases, just as tall as modern humans (Figure 3) It had a relatively larger cranium, but still had an extensive brow ridge The brain case size had much increased; however, its average size at about 900 c.c was only that of a one-year-old human child today All these changes much improved mobility, and it was this species that expanded widely from the ancestral areas of East and South Africa for the first time It has been postulated that these migrations would have been facilitated by climate changes related to the Plio-Pleistocene glaciation (see Tertiary To Present: Pleistocene and The Ice Age) near the Poles, which would have led to the expansion of more easily-traversed savannah grasslands and a reduction in the areas of tropical jungles H erectus existed from about 2.0 million to as recently as about 100 000 (100 Ka) years ago, and some of the best-known early material is from Koobi Fora and Lake Turkana, Kenya By about 1.8 Ma the species (site names in brackets) had reached Georgia (Dmanisi) in Central Asia, soon afterwards Indonesia (Java) and subsequently China (‘Peking’ Man), and by 800 Ka it had spread over southern Europe to Italy (Ceprana) and Spain (Atapuerca) By 500 Ka years ago a descendant species, H heidelbergensis (Figure 4), which lived from 800 to 300 Ka, had reached southern England (Boxgrove, Sussex) A later species was H neanderthalensis, commonly known as Neanderthal Man, which lived from around 400 000 years ago to as recently as about 30 000 years ago in Croatia (Figure 5) Neanderthals (named after their first-known nineteenth-century site in the Neander Valley in Germany), were relatively large-brained, big-faced but with a low skull and little chin, and most of their dietary protein was from animals Homo sapiens lived in Europe together with Neanderthals between 40 and 30 thousand years ago: it is uncertain whether the latter became extinct through competition with humans or by a reduction of their habitats It is also uncertain whether or not Neanderthals and modern humans could or did interbreed