Journal ArticleDOI
Origin of Human Bipedalism As an Adaptation for Locomotion on Flexible Branches
Susannah K. S. Thorpe,Susannah K. S. Thorpe,R. L. Holder,R. L. Holder,Robin H. Crompton,Robin H. Crompton +5 more
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It is shown that the most arboreal great ape, the orangutan, is able to access supports too flexible to be negotiated otherwise, and is thus less an innovation than an exploitation of a locomotor behavior retained from the common great ape ancestor.Abstract:
Human bipedalism is commonly thought to have evolved from a quadrupedal terrestrial precursor, yet some recent paleontological evidence suggests that adaptations for bipedalism arose in an arboreal context. However, the adaptive benefit of arboreal bipedalism has been unknown. Here we show that it allows the most arboreal great ape, the orangutan, to access supports too flexible to be negotiated otherwise. Orangutans react to branch flexibility like humans running on springy tracks, by increasing knee and hip extension, whereas all other primatesdothe reverse. Human bipedalism is thus less an innovation than an exploitation of a locomotor behavior retained from the common great ape ancestor.read more
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Hominin life history: reconstruction and evolution
Shannen L. Robson,Bernard Wood +1 more
TL;DR: It is found that body mass is the best predictor of great ape life history events, while the body sizes, brain sizes, and dental development of Homo heidelbergensis and Homo neanderthalensis are consistent with a modern human life history but samples are too small to be certain that they have life histories within the modern human range.
Journal ArticleDOI
Arthroscopic Capsulotomy, Capsular Repair, and Capsular Plication of the Hip: Relation to Atraumatic Instability
TL;DR: As the capsuloligamentous stabilizers of the hip continue to be studied, and their role defined, arthroscopic hip surgeons should become facile with arthroScopic repair or plication techniques to restore proper capsular integrity and tension when indicated.
Journal ArticleDOI
Primate Vocalization, Gesture, and the Evolution of Human Language
TL;DR: It is argued that it was the coupling of gestural communication with enhanced capacities for imitation that made possible the emergence of protosign to provide essential scaffolding for protospeech in the evolution of protolanguage.
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Orrorin tugenensis Femoral Morphology and the Evolution of Hominin Bipedalism
TL;DR: Femoral morphology indicates that Orrorin tugenensis shared distinctive hip biomechanics with australopiths, suggesting that this complex evolved early in human evolution and persisted for almost 4 million years until modifications of the hip appeared in the late Pliocene in early Homo.
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Development and the evolvability of human limbs
TL;DR: It is demonstrated that both humans and apes exhibit significantly reduced integration between limbs when compared to quadrupedal monkeys, indicating that fossil hominins likely escaped constraints on independent limb variation via reductions to genetic pleiotropy in an ape-like last common ancestor (LCA).
References
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Book
Advanced mathematical methods for scientists and engineers
Carl M. Bender,Steven A. Orszag +1 more
TL;DR: A self-contained presentation of the methods of asymptotics and perturbation theory, methods useful for obtaining approximate analytical solutions to differential and difference equations is given in this paper.
Journal ArticleDOI
Genetic evidence for complex speciation of humans and chimpanzees
TL;DR: This analysis shows that human–chimpanzee speciation occurred less than 6.3 million years ago and probably more recently, conflicting with some interpretations of ancient fossils and most strikingly, chromosome X shows an extremely young genetic divergence time, close to the genome minimum along nearly its entire length.
Journal ArticleDOI
Late Miocene hominids from the Middle Awash, Ethiopia
TL;DR: New hominid specimens from the Middle Awash area of Ethiopia that date to 5.2–5.8 Myr and are associated with a wooded palaeoenvironment are reported, indicating that Ardipithecus was phylogenetically close to the common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans.
Journal ArticleDOI
Standardized descriptions of primate locomotor and postural modes
Kevin D. Hunt,John G. H. Cant,Daniel L. Gebo,Michael D. Rose,Suzanne E. Walker,Dionisios Youlatos +5 more
TL;DR: 32 primate positional modes are defined, divided more finely into 52 postural sub-modes and 74 locomotor sub-Modes, and a nomenclature is recommended that is not dedicated to or derived from any one taxonomic subset of the primates.