Journal ArticleDOI
The Great Divides: Ardipithecus ramidus Reveals the Postcrania of Our Last Common Ancestors with African Apes
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TLDR
Evidence from Ardipithecus ramidus now suggests that the last common ancestor lacked the hand, foot, pelvic, vertebral, and limb structures and proportions specialized for suspension, vertical climbing, and knuckle-walking among extant African apes.Abstract:
Genomic comparisons have established the chimpanzee and bonobo as our closest living relatives. However, the intricacies of gene regulation and expression caution against the use of these extant apes in deducing the anatomical structure of the last common ancestor that we shared with them. Evidence for this structure must therefore be sought from the fossil record. Until now, that record has provided few relevant data because available fossils were too recent or too incomplete. Evidence from Ardipithecus ramidus now suggests that the last common ancestor lacked the hand, foot, pelvic, vertebral, and limb structures and proportions specialized for suspension, vertical climbing, and knuckle-walking among extant African apes. If this hypothesis is correct, each extant African ape genus must have independently acquired these specializations from more generalized ancestors who still practiced careful arboreal climbing and bridging. African apes and hominids acquired advanced orthogrady in parallel. Hominoid spinal invagination is an embryogenetic mechanism that reoriented the shoulder girdle more laterally. It was unaccompanied by substantial lumbar spine abbreviation, an adaptation restricted to vertical climbing and/or suspension. The specialized locomotor anatomies and behaviors of chimpanzees and gorillas therefore constitute poor models for the origin and evolution of human bipedality.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Ardipithecus ramidus and the Paleobiology of Early Hominids
Tim D. White,Berhane Asfaw,Yonas Beyene,Yohannes Haile-Selassie,C. Owen Lovejoy,Gen Suwa,Giday WoldeGabriel +6 more
TL;DR: Ardipithecus ramidus indicates that despite the genetic similarities of living humans and chimpanzees, the ancestor the authors last shared probably differed substantially from any extant African ape.
Journal ArticleDOI
Reexamining Human Origins in Light of Ardipithecus ramidus
TL;DR: A proposed adaptive suite for the emergence of Ardipithecus from the last common ancestor that the authors shared with chimpanzees accounts for these principal ape/human differences, as well as the marked demographic success and cognitive efflorescence of later Plio-Pleistocene hominids.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Pelvis and Femur of Ardipithecus ramidus: The Emergence of Upright Walking
TL;DR: The femur and pelvis of Ardipithecus ramidus have characters indicative of both upright bipedal walking and movement in trees, and they therefore bear little or no functional relationship to the highly derived suspension, vertical climbing, knuckle-walking and facultative bipedality of extant African apes.
Journal ArticleDOI
Careful Climbing in the Miocene: The Forelimbs of Ardipithecus ramidus and Humans Are Primitive
TL;DR: The Ardipithecus ramidus hand and wrist exhibit none of the derived mechanisms that restrict motion in extant great apes and are reminiscent of those of Miocene apes, such as Proconsul.
Journal ArticleDOI
An early Australopithecus afarensis postcranium from Woranso-Mille, Ethiopia
Yohannes Haile-Selassie,Bruce Latimer,Mulugeta Alene,Alan L. Deino,Luis Gibert,Stephanie M. Melillo,Beverly Z. Saylor,Gary R. Scott,C. Owen Lovejoy +8 more
TL;DR: A large-bodied specimen is described that is well within the range of living Homo and substantially antedates A.L. 288–1, establishing that bipedality in Australopithecus was highly evolved and that thoracic form differed substantially from that of either extant African ape.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
A new hominid from the Upper Miocene of Chad, Central Africa
Michel Brunet,Franck Guy,Franck Guy,David Pilbeam,Hassane Taïsso Mackaye,Andossa Likius,Andossa Likius,Djimdoumalbaye Ahounta,Alain Beauvilain,Cécile Blondel,Hervé Bocherens,Jean-Renaud Boisserie,Louis de Bonis,Yves Coppens,Jean Dejax,Christiane Denys,Philippe Duringer,Véra Eisenmann,Gongdibé Fanone,Pierre Fronty,Denis Geraads,Thomas Lehmann,Fabrice Lihoreau,Antoine Louchart,Adoum Mahamat,Gildas Merceron,Guy Mouchelin,Olga Otero,Pablo Pelaez Campomanes,Marcia S. Ponce de León,Jean-Claude Rage,Michel Sapanet,Mathieu Schuster,Jean Sudre,Pascal Tassy,Xavier Valentin,Patrick Vignaud,Laurent Viriot,Antoine Zazzo,Christoph P. E. Zollikofer +39 more
TL;DR: The discovery of six hominid specimens from Chad, central Africa, 2,500 km from the East African Rift Valley, suggest that the earliest members of the hominids clade were more widely distributed than has been thought, and that the divergence between the human and chimpanzee lineages was earlier than indicated by most molecular studies.
Journal ArticleDOI
The locomotor anatomy of Australopithecus afarensis.
Jack T. Stern,Randall L. Susman +1 more
TL;DR: It is demonstrated that A. afarensis possessed anatomic characteristics that indicate a significant adaptation for movement in the trees, and it is speculated that earlier representatives of the A.Afarensis lineage will present not a combination of arboreal and bipedal traits, but rather the anatomy of a generalized ape.
Journal ArticleDOI
Genomic Divergences between Humans and Other Hominoids and the Effective Population Size of the Common Ancestor of Humans and Chimpanzees
Feng Chi Chen,Wen-Hsiung Li +1 more
TL;DR: The human lineage apparently had experienced a large reduction in effective population size after its separation from the chimpanzee lineage, suggesting that the gorilla lineage branched off 1.6 to 2.2 million years earlier than did the human-chimpanzee divergence.
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