Indonesia

At the end of the 19th century, it was in today's Indonesia, along the banks of the Solo River, at the Trinil site in Java, that remains were found that were first described as our (then) earliest erect ancestors and identified as Pithecanthropus erectus, where the name Homo erectus comes from - an upright man. 

Today we know that our first upright ancestors are several million years older than the remains from this site and that they belong to the genus Australopithecus. Other, older significant Homo erectus finds of different dates were subsequently found in the territory of Indonesia - Mojokerto and Sangiran, as well as later dated finds from the Sambungmacan site.