The movement towards a more ecologically intense, cognitively reliant, and behaviorally malleable adaptive pattern set the stage for the evolutionary change that followed in the Pleistocene, up to and including the present.
Homo erectus represents a significant transformation from previous hominins, like the australopiths, to a species much more similar to modern humans. Relative to their australopith forebears, Homo erectus was bigger, smarter, and more able to occupy and survive in differing landscapes in a changing world. The movement towards a more ecologically intense, cognitively reliant, and behaviorally malleable adaptive pattern set the stage for the evolutionary change that followed in the Pleistocene, up to and including the present. In many ways, modern humans are just an updated version of our H. erectus ancestors.