Posted on 05/26/2013 8:51:35 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
A study suggests that rocky landscapes in East and South Africa could have pushed our apelike ancestors toward bipedalism.
Being four-legged has its perks. As a quadruped, your center of gravity is lower, there's less wind resistance when you're running, and, best of all, you can use your hind foot to scratch your ear.
All of this raises a big question: What were our apelike ancestors thinking when they started walking upright?
A prevailing hypothesis is that they were prompted by climate change. As African forests declined due to temperature fluctuations some 2.5 million years ago, the hypothesis goes, our australopithecine ancestors descended from the trees and ventured out into the open savanna, an environment thought to be friendlier for those standing on two feet.
The savanna hypothesis has its critics, however. There is some evidence that bipedal primates evolved before the biggest temperature swings kicked in, that some australopithecines ancestors lived in forests, and that they were adapted to both tree-climbing and upright walking.
Now a new study suggests that walking on two legs was a result of geology, not climate. In a study published in this month's issue of the archaeological journal Antiquity, a team of archaeologists makes the case that our forebears' transition to bipedalism was prompted by volcanoes and shifting tectonic plates in East and South Africa, which produced rocky outcroppings and steep gorges...
This development would have conferred benefits that extend far beyond locomotion. Walking on two legs frees up the hands, allowing for the use of tools and, eventually, bigger brains. And the complex landscape could have made our ancestors smarter, says Dr. Winder.
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
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Mine started walking upright in the Garden of Eden.
I don’t even know where to start with this.
Mine started somewhere around a year or two but their knuckles still drag the ground.
Because it hurts your back to walk hunched over.....
Because we looked ridiculously stupid on all fours and it was slowing us down.
And we’re lazy.
Wanna know why we created beer?
“Christian” Science Monitor?
To keep their hands clean.
“Why did our ancestors start walking upright?”
To catch the first chicken crossing the first road?
What a joke: they started walking upright from the start if one were to take serious one’s Christian tradition.
All speculation, no science.
I would feel guilty if I had a job like this.
If only they had Chevy Volts to drive instead of SUVs!
WE CAN'T MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE!!!!
Probably to be able to see farther to have a better chance of not being killed and eaten when on the ground.
bunch of BS...from a “christian” paper?? We never descended from apes or apelike creatures. T Here is plenty of evidence that we never did. More brainwashing from the mind controllers.
YOU may have ape-like ancestors. I don't have any and nobody I associate with has any.
Yes sir..this article is a mind control attempt probably from a writer who also has been brainwashed from his university...who, by the way, are chalk full of Communist agents.
Chicks always go for the taller guys.
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