Homo erectus

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Rhombicuboctahedron by Leonardo da Vinci

Homo erectus (meaning "upright man," from the Latin ērĭgĕre, "to put up, set upright") is an extinct species of hominid that lived from the end of the Pliocene epoch to the later Pleistocene, with the earliest first fossil evidence dating to around 1.8 million years ago and the most recent to around 300,000 years ago. The species originated in Africa and spread as far as Spain, Georgia, India, China and Java.

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-It is not known when humans began wearing clothes. [[anthropology|Anthropologists]] logically presume that humans originally lived [[nudity|naked]], without [[clothing]], as their natural state. They postulate the adaptation of animal skins and vegetation into coverings to protect the wearer from cold, heat and rain, especially as humans migrated to new climates; alternatively, covering may have been invented first for other purposes, such as magic, decoration, cult, or prestige, and later found to be practical as well.
+'''''Homo erectus ''''' (meaning "upright man," from the Latin ''ērĭgĕre'', "to put up, set upright") is an extinct [[species]] of [[hominid]] that lived from the end of the [[Pliocene epoch]] to the later [[Pleistocene epoch|Pleistocene]], with the earliest first fossil evidence dating to around 1.8 million years ago and the most recent to around 300,000 years ago.  The species originated in [[Africa]] and spread as far as [[Spain]], [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]], [[India]], [[China]] and [[Java]].
-==Paleolithic History==
-Because animal skins and vegetable materials decompose readily there is no direct evidence of when and how clothing developed. However recent studies of human [[lice]] suggest that clothing may have become commonplace in human society around 72,000 years ago. Some anthropologists believe that ''[[Homo habilis]]'' and even ''[[Homo erectus]]'' may have used animal skins for protection placing the origins of clothing at perhaps a million years or more. It is not clear at what point modesty with respect to nudity became a part of human customs.
-==The Greeks==
-In antiquity even before the Classical era, e.g. on [[Minoan civilization|Minoan]] [[Crete]], athletic exercise played an important part in daily life. In fact, the [[Greece|Greeks]] credited several mythological figures with athletic accomplishments, and male [[Greek gods|gods]] (especially [[Apollo]] and [[Herakles]], patrons of sport) were commonly depicted as athletes.
-[[Nudity in sport]] however was not common. It was first introduced in the [[city-state]] of [[Sparta]], during the late archaic period. The custom of exercising [[naked]] was closely associated with [[pederasty in ancient Greece|pedagogic pederasty]] and with the practice of anointing the body with olive oil to accentuate its beauty and erotic appeal.
-In other various Ancient cultures nudity was held to be humiliating, as attested for Pharaonic Egypt and the Hebrews by the Old testament: "So shall the ''king of the Assyrians lead away the prisoners'' of Egypt, and the captivity of Ethiopia, young and old, ''naked and barefoot, with their buttocks uncovered to the shame of Egypt''". Similar images occur on many bas-reliefs, also from other empires.
-In some ancient Mediterranean cultures, even well past the hunter-gatherer stage, such as Minoan, athletic and/or cultist nudity of men and boys –and rarely, of women and girls– was a natural concept.
-The civilization of [[ancient Greece]] (Hellas), during the Archaic period, had an athletic and cultic aesthetic of nudity which typically included adult and teenage males, but at times also boys, women and girls.  The love for beauty had included also the human body, beyond the love for nature, philosophy, the arts etc. The [[Greek (language)|Greek]] word [[gymnasium (ancient Greece)|gymnasium]] means "a place to train naked". Male athletes competed nude, but most city-states of the time allowed no female participants or even spectators at those events, [[Sparta]] being a notable exception.
-In Greek culture, depictions of erotic nudity were considered normal, including sexual acts and [[Pederasty in ancient Greece|pederastic]] practices. The Greeks were conscious of the exceptional nature of their nudity, noting that "generally in countries which are subject to the barbarians, the custom is held to be dishonourable; loves of youths share the evil repute in which philosophy and naked sports are held, because they are inimical to tyranny;" In both ancient Greece and [[ancient Rome]], public nakedness was also accepted in the context of [[public bathing]]. It was also common for a person to be punished by being partially or completely stripped and lashed in public; in some legal systems judicial [[physical punishment|corporal punishment]]s on the bare buttocks persisted up to or even beyond the feudal age, either only for minors or also for adults, even till today but rarely still in public. In [[Biblical]] accounts of the [[Roman Empire|Roman Imperial]] era, [[prison]]ers were often stripped naked, as a form of [[humiliation]].
-[[Nudity in sport]] spread to the whole of Greece, Greater Greece and even its furthest colonies, and the athletes from all its parts, coming together for the [[Olympic Games]] and the other [[Panhellenic Games]], competed naked in almost all disciplines, such as [[boxing]], [[amateur wrestling|wrestling]], [[pankration]] (a free-style mix of boxing and wrestling, serious physical harm allowed) -in such martial arts equal chances in terms of grip and body protection require a non-restrictive uniform, as presently common, or the bare-, [[Stadion (ancient sports)|stadion]] and various other foot races including relay race, and the [[pentathlon]] (made up of wrestling, stadion, [[long jump]], [[javelin throw]] and [[discus throw]]). However, they did not perform in the nude during [[chariot racing|chariot races]].
-It is believed to be rooted in the religious notion that athletic excellence was an ‘esthetical’ offering to the gods (nearly all games fitted in religious festivals), and indeed at many games it was the privilege of the winner to be represented naked as a votive statue offered in a temple, or even to be immortalized as model for a god's statue. Performing in the nude certainly was also welcome as a measure to prevent foul play, which was punished publicly on the spot by the judges (often religious dignitaries) with a sound lashing, also endured in the bare.
-Evidence of Greek [[nudity in sport]] comes from the numerous surviving depictions of athletes (sculpture, mosaics and vase paintings). Famous athletes were honored by a statue erected for their commemoration (see [[Milo of Croton]]). A few writers have insisted that the athletic nudity in [[Greek art]] is just an artistic convention, finding it unbelievable that anybody would have run naked. This view could be ascribed to late-Victorian prudishness applied anachronistically to ancient times. Other cultures in antiquity did not practice athletic nudity and condemned the Greek practice. Their rejection of naked sports was in turn condemned by the Greeks as a token of tyranny and political repression.
-In [[Hellenistic period|Hellenistic]] times, Greek-speaking [[Jew]]s would sometimes take part in athletic exercises. They were then exposed to ridicule because they were [[male circumcision|circumcised]] - a national and religious custom which was unknown in the Greek tradition. In fact the Greek athletes, even though naked, seem to have made a point of avoiding exposure of their [[glans penis|glans]], for example by infibulation, or wearing of a [[kynodesme]].
-==Roman empire==
-The [[Roman Empire|Romans]], although they took over much of the Greek culture, had a somewhat different appreciation of nakedness. To appear nude in public was considered inappropriate except in certain places and contexts: the public baths (originally open to both sexes) and even public latrines were as popular meeting places for all as the forum.
-Athletic exercises by free citizens (no longer required to serve as soldiers since Marius' army reform) were partly replaced by gladiatorial games performed in [[amphitheatre]]s. The gladiators were mainly recruited among slaves, war captives and death row convicts &ndash; the very lowest, who had no choice &ndash; but occasionally a free man chose this fast lane to fame and riches.
-When fighting in the arena, against one another or against wild beasts, they would be armed with swords, shields etc., but would otherwise be partly or totally naked (see [[Gladiator]] for particulars).
-In Roman-occupied Jerusalem, Jews using the gymnasium would wear prosthetic foreskins made from sheep gut in order to avoid being ridiculed for being [[circumcision|circumcised]].
-Gladiatorial contests were one of many features, especially religious, that Rome inherited from its Etruscan neighbours. This ancient, alien (not Indo-European, possibly originating from Asia Minor) culture even depicts warriors fighting completely naked.
-==Western Christianity==
-When [[Christianity]] became the state religion of the Roman Empire in the [[fourth century]], gladiatorial games were soon abandoned, and the Christian view of post pubescent nudity as a [[sin]] took root. This view spread with the spread of Christianity, until it became [[Norm (sociology)|normative]].
-However, until the beginning of the [[8th century]], Christians in Western Europe were [[baptism|baptised]] naked, emerging from the water like Adam and Eve before the fall. "The disappearance of baptism by [[immersion]] in the Carolingian era gave nudity a sexual connotation that it has previously lacked for Christians" (Rouche 1987 p. 455). About the same time it became common to represent Christ on the Cross wearing a long tunic, the ''colobium''.
-In the [[6th century]], Saint [[Benedict of Nursia]] advised the monks in his [[Benedictine Rule|Rule]] to sleep fully dressed in the dormitory.
-European men wore long tunics until the [[15th century]], when [[codpiece]]s, [[tights]] and tight [[trousers]] gradually came into use; these all covered the male [[genitals]] but at the same time drew attention to them.
-==Japan==
-[[Sumo]] wrestling, practiced by men in ceremonial dress of loin cloth-size that exposes the buttocks like a jock strap, in general is considered sacred under [[Shintō]]. Public, communal bathing of mixed sexes also has a long history in Japan.
-==Recent history==
-During the [[Victorian era]], [[public nudity|public nakedness]] was considered [[obscene]]. In addition to [[beaches]] being [[Sex segregation|segregated]] by [[gender]], [[bathing machine]]s were also used to conceal the naked body. In the early [[20th century]], exposure of male [[nipple]]s was considered indecent at some [[beach]]es. This is in contrast to in the [[Middle Ages]], when the [[bathing suits]] worn by [[men]], while covering the genitals, often nonetheless made them quite obvious.
-Sport in the modern sense of the word became popular only in the [[19th century]]. Nudity in this context was most common in [[Germany]] and the Nordic countries, where [[Body culture]] was very much revered (and some say, copied) by [[Nazism|Nazi]] ideologues.
-In the Nordic countries, with their [[sauna]] culture, nude [[human swimming|swimming]] in rivers or lakes was a very popular tradition. In the summer, there would be wooden [[bathhouse]]s, often of considerable size accommodating numerous swimmers, built partly over the water; hoardings prevented the bathers from being seen from outside. Originally the bathhouses were for men only; today there are usually separate sections for men and women.
-<!--  Commented out because image was deleted: [[Image:Streaktracy1.jpg|thumb|275px|left|Tracy Seargent [[streaking]] the Indoor [[Bowls]] Championship [[Hopton-on-Sea]], [[Norfolk]], [[January 2000]].]] -->
-For the Olympic Games in [[Stockholm]] in 1912, the official poster was created by a distinguished artist. It depicted several naked male athletes (their genitals obscured) and was for that reason considered too daring for distribution in certain countries.  Posters for the 1920 Olympics in [[Antwerp]], the 1924 Olympics in [[Paris]], and the 1952 Olympics in [[Helsinki]] also featured nude male figures, evoking the classical origins of the games.  The poster for the 1948 [[London]] Olympics featured a classical nude sculpture of a discus thrower.
-An occasional—often illegal—naked sideshow is when a member of the public uses a sports venue to perform as a [[streaking|streaker]]. Streaking became more popular in the 1970s. It wasn't until the 1990s (and after) that nudity became expected at major public events, such as [[Bay to Breakers]] and [[World Naked Bike Ride]].
-==Biblical narrative – Adam and Eve==
-The [[Bible|biblical]] story of [[Adam and Eve]] describes how [[God]] created the first man and woman, who were both [[naked]], and felt no [[shame]]. (The Bible says that man and woman was created "[[in God's image]]".) It goes on to describe that after they ate the fruit of "the [[Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil]]", against God's [[commandment]], they "saw" that they were naked, and were ashamed for the first time. To cover their "shame" they made aprons of [[Fig leaf|fig leaves]]. (The story has been used to teach many moral lessons. For example, some people regard nudity itself to be the sin, using the story to explain the taboo against nudity, in private or in public.)
 ==See also==
-*[[Christian naturism]]
+* ''[[Homo ergaster]]''
-*[[Depictions of nudity]] - Also discusses depictions of nudity in general.
+* [[Java Man]]
-*[[List of social nudity places]] - Beaches, resorts, public parks and communities.
+* [[Kozarnika]]
-*[[Nudity and sexuality]]
-*[[Nudity in combat]]
-*[[Nudity in religion]]
-*[[Nudity in sport]]
-*[[Public nudity]]
+'''General:'''
+* [[List of fossil sites]] ''(with link directory)''
+* [[List of primate and hominin fossils]] ''(with images)''
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Homo erectus

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