The first man whose endocranial volume overlaps that of modern humans is Homo erectus. For many years the principal specimens of H. erectus were known from China and thought to be about half a million years old. But in 1976 Richard Leakey of the National Museums of Kenya reported a nearly complete skull of Homo erectus found in geological strata one and a half million years old. Since the Chinese specimens of Homo erectus are clearly associated with the remains of campfires, it is possible that our ancestors domesticated fire much more than one half million years ago—which
