Human ancestors were 'grounded,' new analysis shows - The Archaeology News Network
African apes adapted to living on the ground, a finding that indicates human evolved from an ancestor not limited to tree or other elevated habitats. The analysis adds a new chapter to evolution, shedding additional light on what preceded human bipedalism.
"Our unique form of human locomotion evolved from an ancestor that moved in similar ways to the living African apes--chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas," explains Thomas Prang, a doctoral candidate in New York University's Department of Anthropology and the author of the study, which appears in the journal eLife. "In other words, the common ancestor we share with chimpanzees and bonobos was an African ape that probably had adaptations to living on the ground in some form and frequency."
The way that humans walk--striding bipedalism--is unique among all living mammals, an attribute resulting from myriad changes over time.
"The human body has been dramatically modified by evolutionary processes over the last several million years in ways that happened to make us better walkers and runners," notes Prang.
Much of this change is evident in the human foot, which has evolved to be a propulsive organ, with a big toe incapable of ape-like grasping and a spring-like, energy-saving arch that runs from front to back.
These traits raise a long-studied, but not definitively answered, question: From what kind of ancestor did the human foot evolve?
In the eLife work, Prang, a researcher in NYU's Center for the Study of Human Origins, focused on the fossil species Ardipithecus ramidus ('Ardi'), a 4.4 million-years-old human ancestor from Ethiopia--more than a million years older than the well-known 'Lucy' fossil. Ardi's bones were first publicly revealed in 2009 and have been the subject of debate since then.
Read more at https://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2019/04/human-ancestors-were-grounded-new.html#8RG5JlSyfGBth5Yz.99
https://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2019/04/human-ancestors-were-grounded-new.html
African apes adapted to living on the ground, a finding that indicates human evolved from an ancestor not limited to tree or other elevated habitats. The analysis adds a new chapter to evolution, shedding additional light on what preceded human bipedalism.
image: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJC83WgfOEb9paZ1xkixclqp7x9_JVxfw1yZK1g4bmLO0ewaGfsJbEN0Fb_zn5syQrmD8DKjGRXRowAix6ZSZnm_-jnpGXNrKiCCQZln_hQ3SSOZGHKvzvIXWUV8aRbdocQXDwID4HZuX4/s640/human-ancestors.jpg  |
| An evolutionary tree depicting the relationships among living apes, Ardi, and modern humans. Each branch on the tree represents a species and their intersections represent their common ancestors. The dots represent hypothetical evolutionary changes associated with the evolution of ground-living adaptations in the common ancestor of African apes and humans as well as the evolution of bipedalism, which is supported by the analysis. This shows that human bipedalism evolved from an ancestral form similar to the living African apes [Credit: Thomas Prang] |
The way that humans walk--striding bipedalism--is unique among all living mammals, an attribute resulting from myriad changes over time.
"The human body has been dramatically modified by evolutionary processes over the last several million years in ways that happened to make us better walkers and runners," notes Prang.
Much of this change is evident in the human foot, which has evolved to be a propulsive organ, with a big toe incapable of ape-like grasping and a spring-like, energy-saving arch that runs from front to back.
These traits raise a long-studied, but not definitively answered, question: From what kind of ancestor did the human foot evolve?
In the eLife work, Prang, a researcher in NYU's Center for the Study of Human Origins, focused on the fossil species Ardipithecus ramidus ('Ardi'), a 4.4 million-years-old human ancestor from Ethiopia--more than a million years older than the well-known 'Lucy' fossil. Ardi's bones were first publicly revealed in 2009 and have been the subject of debate since then.
Read more at https://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2019/04/human-ancestors-were-grounded-new.html#8RG5JlSyfGBth5Yz.99
https://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2019/04/human-ancestors-were-grounded-new.html
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