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Seven Million Years Ago, the Oldest Known Early Human Was Already Walking
Smithsonian Magazine ^ | August 24, 2022 | Brian Handwerk

Posted on 08/28/2022 5:13:37 PM PDT by SunkenCiv

A blackened, broken leg bone from Earth’s prehistoric past may hold the answer to when early humans diverged from apes and started their own evolutionary path.

The fossilized find, first uncovered two decades ago, suggests that early humans regularly walked on two feet some seven million years ago... Since many consider bipedalism the major milestone that put our own lineage on a different evolutionary path than the apes, Sahelanthropus could be the very oldest known hominin—the group consisting of modern humans, extinct human species and all of our immediate ancestors.

The species could even be our oldest non-ape ancestor, if its lineage led to Homo sapiens instead of dying out. But while the fossil femur appears to have supported the demands of habitual upright walking, Sahelanthropus’s chimp-like forearms show that it still spent plenty of time in the trees. Two surviving arm bones reveal that the species used a grasping climbing technique to support a type of hybrid lifestyle that could have persisted among early hominins for some three million years...

Boisserie and colleagues, some of whom originally described Sahelanthropus in 2002, compared more than 20 traits of the femur and forearm bones with a large sample of living chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans, fossil Miocene apes, early hominin bipeds like Orrorin tugenensis and Ardipithecus Ramidus, and remains of prehistoric Homo and Homo sapiens. They compared external shapes, curves, internal structures and thicknesses to learn if the bone had the same characteristics as those known to be well-suited to the demands of force, balance and other requirements of upright walking. The femur of S. tchadensis showed many similarities with other hominin species, while no traits of the femur were also found exclusively in apes.

(Excerpt) Read more at smithsonianmag.com ...


TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: 300manyearsoflabor; africa; apeancestor; ardipithecusramidus; carbon14fail; chad; evolushun; evolution; fakenews; fauxiantroll; fauxiantrolls; godsgravesglyphs; miocene; noahsmalarkey; nothuman; orrorintugenensis; sahelanthropus; stoplookinginafrica; tchadensis; wasntafrica; youngearthdelusion; youngearthdelusions
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These 3-D models of the bones of Sahelanthropus show the femur in posterior and medial view (left) and the right and left ulnae in anterior and lateral view (right).
Franck Guy / PALEVOPRIM / CNRS – University of Poitiers
Franck Guy / PALEVOPRIM / CNRS – University of Poitiers

1 posted on 08/28/2022 5:13:37 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
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To: StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 1ofmanyfree; 21twelve; 24Karet; 2ndDivisionVet; 31R1O; ...

2 posted on 08/28/2022 5:14:58 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: SunkenCiv

Helen Thomas was walking that long ago?


3 posted on 08/28/2022 5:15:29 PM PDT by EvilCapitalist (81 million votes my ass.)
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To: EvilCapitalist

Nah, they found Alley Oop’s shin bone. Dr Wonmug lost track of him when he didn’t pay the power bill on his time machine.


4 posted on 08/28/2022 5:21:06 PM PDT by OldWarBaby
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To: SunkenCiv

Do you credit as true the theory that humans evolved from apes?


5 posted on 08/28/2022 5:26:48 PM PDT by one guy in new jersey
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To: SunkenCiv

Future Rat voters.


6 posted on 08/28/2022 5:28:46 PM PDT by HighSierra5 (The only way you know a commie is lying is when they open their pieholes.)
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To: one guy in new jersey

They had a common ancestor. Study ToE a bit more closely.


7 posted on 08/28/2022 5:31:03 PM PDT by bwest
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To: SunkenCiv

Seven million years ago there were plenty of reasons
for early man to be quickly able to get up in a tree...


8 posted on 08/28/2022 5:33:04 PM PDT by tet68 ( " We would not die in that man's company, that fears his fellowship to die with us...." Henry V.)
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To: SunkenCiv

Human history extends into deep time. Make no mistake, most evidence of ancient human civilization is under 350 feet of ocean.


9 posted on 08/28/2022 5:35:54 PM PDT by WMarshal (Neocons and leftards are the same species of vicious rat.)
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To: SunkenCiv

“Seven Million Years Ago, the Oldest Known Early Human Was Already Walking”

...and Nasty Nanzi Peelousy can personally attest to that fact!


10 posted on 08/28/2022 5:37:22 PM PDT by A Formerly Proud Canadian ( Ceterum autem censeo Justinius True-dope-us esse delendam)
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To: SunkenCiv

I feel like him when I get out of bed in the morning


11 posted on 08/28/2022 5:37:49 PM PDT by TheCipher ( RINO politicians in DC are the only reptiles in the world with no backbone)
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To: bwest
They had a common ancestor.

As in Adam made in the image of God.

12 posted on 08/28/2022 5:38:32 PM PDT by BipolarBob (Vote NOW!! to repeal the Second Law of Thermodynamics like your life depends on it.)
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To: WMarshal
Human history extends into deep time. Make no mistake, most evidence of ancient human civilization is under 350 feet of ocean.

That's what happens when you have a flood 6000 years ago.

13 posted on 08/28/2022 5:39:20 PM PDT by BipolarBob (Vote NOW!! to repeal the Second Law of Thermodynamics like your life depends on it.)
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To: SunkenCiv
Sahelanthropus tchadensis was presumably discovered in the modern country of Chad.

I'm looking forward to when they announce the discovery of Sahelanthropus jeremyensis.

14 posted on 08/28/2022 5:41:10 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: SunkenCiv

There’s an image of what the monkey was said to look like here.

https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2022/08/24/15/61686509-11142015-image-a-230_1661350956872.jpg

...from this article.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-11142015/Ancient-human-species-Sahelanthropus-bipedal-7-MILLION-years-ago-study-reveals.html

Did sometimes walking on two legs make it human?


15 posted on 08/28/2022 5:44:06 PM PDT by familyop ("For they that sleep with dogs, shall rise with fleas" (John Webster, "The White Devil" 1612).)
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To: EvilCapitalist
She wasn't just walking. She killed that cheetah with her bare hands.
16 posted on 08/28/2022 5:46:09 PM PDT by Beowulf9
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To: BipolarBob

Different theory.


17 posted on 08/28/2022 5:49:19 PM PDT by gundog ( It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. )
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To: SunkenCiv

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c8O2n1Gfto

No use waiting to learn how to do it.

Aerosmith.


18 posted on 08/28/2022 5:56:28 PM PDT by frank ballenger (You have summoned up a thundercloud. You're gonna hear from me. Anthem by Leonard Cohen)
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To: SunkenCiv

If one where to do a man on the street type question we would discover that quite a number of people do not know the difference between a monkey and an ape.


19 posted on 08/28/2022 5:57:26 PM PDT by Inyo-Mono
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To: Beowulf9

Photo caption of Helen Thomas and that certain look across the room....

Strangers in the night
Exchanging glances
Wandering in the night
What were the chances
We’d be sharing love
Before the night was through?

Something in your eyes
Was so inviting
Something in your smile
Was so exciting
Something in my heart told me I must have you

Strangers in the night, two lonely people
We were strangers in the night
Up to the moment when we said our first hello
Little did we know
Love was just a glance away, a warm embracing dance away


20 posted on 08/28/2022 5:58:30 PM PDT by frank ballenger (You have summoned up a thundercloud. You're gonna hear from me. Anthem by Leonard Cohen)
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