Homo erectus (meaning "upright man," from the Latin ērigere, "to put up, set upright") is an extinct species of hominin that lives throughout most of the Pleistocene.

The earliest first fossil evidence dates to around 1.9 million years ago and the most recent to around one hundred and forty three thousand years ago.

It is assumed that the species originated in Africa and spread as far as Georgia, Sri Lanka, India, China and Java.

The classification, ancestry, and progeny of H. erectus, with two major alternative classifications, is not settled: erectus may be another name for Homo ergaster, and therefore the direct ancestor of later hominids such as Homo heidelbergensis, Homo neanderthalensis, and Homo sapiens; or it may be an Asian species distinct from African ergaster.

Some palaeoanthropologists consider H. ergaster to be simply the African variety of H. erectus.

This leads to the use of the term "Homo erectus sensu stricto" for the Asian H. erectus, and "Homo erectus sensu lato" for the larger species comprising both the early African populations (H. ergaster) and the Asian populations.A new debate appeared in 2013 in the paleontological community, with the publication of the Dmanisi skull 5 or D4500.

Considering the large morphological variation between all Dmanisi skulls, researchers suggests that many species of early human ancestor such as Homo ergaster or Homo heidelbergensis and even more Homo habilis were actually all Homo erectus.