Our "lazy" Ancestor: Homo erectus?

"They really don't seem to have been pushing themselves," Dr Shipton said.
"I don't get the sense they were explorers looking over the horizon. They didn't have that same sense of wonder that we have."
If only H. erectus had had the Protestant work ethic! Will social Darwinism never cease? What is the subtext of Australian scientists making such comments, and Europeans, or any dominant ethnic group living on territory taken from others? It is that we are here on your land because we are explorers who pushed ourselves over the horizon and you were "lazy." As far as the "lazy" Homo erectus is concerned, these ancestors of ours invented the first major stone tool innovation -- the hand ax -- looked over the horizon and emigrated from Africa to Asia and Europe -- cared for their sick and elderly (perhaps more compassionately than we do considering their circumstances) and evolved into us -- perhaps "our sense of wonder" even came from them.

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Laziness helped lead to extinction of Homo erectus

New archaeological research has found that Homo erectus, an extinct species of primitive humans, went extinct in part because they were 'lazy'.