Were the Homo erectus the first people on earth?

Homo erectus were the predecessors of our own species, Homo sapiens, so they certainly lived on earth before us. However, the predecessors to Homo erectus were a species known as Homo habilis (2.4 to 1.5 million years ago).

Then, depending on your definition of 'people', there were people even before Homo habilis - members of theAustralopithecus genus, going back more than 4 million years.