直立人（学名Homo erectus，又称猿人、直立原人）。其生存年代为更新世早期至中期。直立人已经能够直立行走并且制造石器，是旧石器时代早期的人类。北京人、蓝田人、元谋人、巫山人等都属于直立人。它仍带有猿类特征，如头盖骨低平，眉骨粗壮，吻部前伸。但也有现代人特征，如可双足直立和脑容量比猿类大。欧仁·杜布瓦于1891年在爪哇岛梭罗河附近发现的爪哇人化石，裴文中于1923年在中国北京附近的周口店所发现的北京人化石，还有蓝田人、巫山人和元谋人等，都是直立人的例子。

Homo erectus (meaning "upright man", from the Latin ērigere, "to put up, set upright") is an extinct species of hominid that lived throughout most of the Pleistocene geological epoch. Its earliest fossil evidence dates to 1.9 million years ago and the most recent to 70,000 years ago. It is generally thought that H. erectus originated in Africa and spread from there, migrating throughout Eurasia as far as Georgia, India, Sri Lanka, China and Indonesia.