Posted on 09/11/2007 7:51:26 AM PDT by blam
This ancient human certainly struggles to run. Interesting article.
GGG Ping.
I still don’t understand how we could have evolved.
A University of Manchester study - presented to the British Association for the Advancement of Science Festival of Science in York- proposes that if early humans lacked an Achilles tendon, as modern chimps and gorillas do, then their ability to run would have been severely compromised... "How we evolved from our common ancestor with chimpanzees six million years ago is a fundamental question," said Dr Bill Sellers.No, the interpretation of fossil forms in the study as being ancestral is a fundamental question. The question of whether we 23 chromosome pair humans have an ancestor in common with 24 chromosome pair chimps, gorillas, gibbons, and orangutans is a fundamental question.
Big deal. So do I.
How could we not evolve? The slower runners got eaten, the faster runners got to be parents.
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When a critter such as a bear is chasing you, you better learn to run or get eaten...Run Forest, Run!
Better yet, learn that you can't out run the bear but you don't really have to...just out run the people in your party.
It ain't that hard................
Fine, that is micro-evolution, the survival of the fittest within the given parameters of the species.
So how did we develop an Achilles Tendon if ape chromosomes don't produce it?
I walk, and I struggle to run.
Ours is just longer and ‘springier’.
If a critter spends most of its time in the trees running isn’t much needed. Therefore apes and monkeys don’t need to be spring loaded.
It becomes important on open savannas. Our ancestors needed to outrun predators and chase down prey. They needed the energy recovery/efficiency that a springy tendon provided. The ones that had that edge were more likely to live long enough to reproduce.
I would think that the controlled use of fire would have been the essential key to allow our ancestors to move from a largely herbivorous diet to the much more familiar hunting activities. Long distance running was probably a latter development associated with adapting to life on long narrow outer banks islands with only limbless palm trees to climb and wide channels to swim across.
Take a google map look at the east coast of Africa between South Africa and Ethiopia (where all earliest evidence of modern humans is found). Think of a lifestyle based on daily running to the end of a 20+ mile long beach and herding the flightless birds back to the waiting campers. Add to the mix ocean side diving for lobster & seaweed, bayside wading for shellfish & flounder gigging, climbing limbless palm trees for coconuts (and safety from predators), and then swimming to the next island when the protein supply gets sparse. The long term result is quite an evolutionary leap from bipedal apemen scavenging the savanna.
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