Re: "great distance runners" (was Re: chimps stronger than humans)



"The Turkana boy tells us that early H. erectus, besides being a
tall biped,
had arms and legs proportioned like a modern human's. For his height,
his
arms were not as long as those of Lucy, Lucy's Child or so far as we
know,
any other prior hominid. He lacked the apish details that, in earlier
bipeds,
suggest occasional tree climbing. The legs and hip bones of Homo
erectus
were buttressed by tremendous thickness and bulges, which denotes a
body geared toward endurance walking and running. An exclusive pact
had
been made with the terrestrial realm, and the boy's legs were
equipped to
cover ground in strides protracted in both length and hours."
Richard Potts from Humanity's Descent

W.-J. Wang and R. H. Crompton 2004
The role of load-carrying in the evolution of modern body
proportions
J. Anat. 204 pp417–430

"Our hypothesis
that there is a direct relationship between the acquisition
of modern postcranial proportions and increased
ranging/transport distances at around 1.8–1.5 Ma appears
to be borne out, although other selective factors, such
as thermoregulatory influences (see Ruff, 1991; Wheeler,
1992) and adaptations for throwing (see Dunsworth
et al. 2003), are likely to have played an important
(although probably interdependent) role."

Holger Preuschoft

Mechanisms for the acquisition of habitual bipedality:
are there biomechanical reasons for the acquisition of
upright bipedal posture?
J. Anat. 204 pp363–384

"Once bipedality has been acquired, development of typical human
morphology can readily be explained as adaptations for energy saving
over long distances. A paper in this volume
shows that load-carrying ability was enhanced from australopithecines
to Homo ergaster
(early African H. erectus),supporting an earlier proposition that load-
carrying
was an essential factor in human evolution."

http://tinyurl.com/2n8y2n
Carl Zimmer, Science Novemer 19, 2004
"It may come as a surprise to hear that humans excel in running.
Obviously,
a leopard can leave us in the dust in a short sprint. But over longer
distances
leopards and most other mammals flag. "Most mammals can't sustain a
gallop
over 10 to 15 minutes," says Lieberman. Humans, on the other hand,
can
continue running for hours while using relatively little energy.
"Humans are
phenomenal endurance runners, in terms of speed, cost, and
distance,"
says Lieberman. You can actually outrun a pony easily." And yet, he
points
out, "no other primates out there endurance run."

Message-ID: <C2C244F6.4940%m_verhaegen@xxxxxxxxx>
Yes, eg, savanna imaginations: there is no evidence whatsoever
(fossil, archeol. & certainly physiol.)
that any hominid species ever lived in waterpoor conditions as
typical savanna dwellers do.
The few Homo fossils & tools that are found in "savanna environments"
were found there in riverbeds,
alluvial plains, deltas, coasts etc., eg, Gona: riverbank butchering
of bovids (probably drowned during
the trek when crossing rivers at rel.shallow places).

Isaac, Glynn L. 1977
Olorgesailie: Archeological Studies of a Middle Pleistocene Lake
Basin in Kenya.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Page 84: "Where the relationship of sites to laterally equivalent
lacustrine deposits
can be traced, the indications are that the sites were a considerable
distance from
the standing waters (see table 6). There are goods reasons for camping
some distance
from standing fresh water. The mosquitoes are so prodigiously dense
the any Masai and
Sonjo camps within a mile of the swamps are furnished with sleeping
platforms raised
10 to 15 ft, in order to reduce the sleepers discomfort."
Table 6 lists 18 sites, none of which were determined to be waterside
(1 to 3 km from stable lake waters).

O'Connell et al.
Male strategies and Plio-Pleistocene
archaeology

Journal of Human Evolution (2002) 43, 831–872

Page 851: "The common presence of large predators, especially in the
late dry season,
makes them dangerous places, especially at night, even for hunters in
thorn-walled
blinds. Women and children rarely visit these locations after dark.
Among the
Hadza, base camps are almost always established in other settings, 10–
20 minutes
walk from permanent water, generally outside riparian habitats,
especially in the
dry season."


On Apr 1, 11:20 am, Marc Verhaegen <m_verhae...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Did you need some evidence from a real anthropologist?

  Tobias 1995    ³We were all profoundly and unutterably wrong! Š All the
former savannah supporters (including myself) must now swallow our earlier
words Š²  
  Wood 1996   ³the Œsavannah¹ hypothesis of human origins, in which the
cooling begat the savannah and the savannah begat humanity, is now
discredited²  
  Stringer 1997   ³One of the strong points about the aquatic theory is in
explaining the origin of bipedality. If our ancestors did go into the water,
that would forced them to walk upright Š²
  Tobias 1998   ³Bamford identified fossil vines or lianas of Dichapetalum
in the same Member 4: such vines hang from forest trees and would not be
expected in open savannah. The team at Makapansgat found floral and faunal
evidence that the layers containing Australopithecus reflected forest or
forest margin conditions. From Hadar, in Ethiopia, where ŒLucy¹ was found,
and from Aramis in Ethiopia, where Tim White¹s team found Ardipithecus
ramidus Š well-wooded and even forested conditions were inferred from the
fauna accompanying the hominid fossils. All the fossil evidence adds up to
the small-brained, bipedal hominids of four to 2.5 Ma having lived in a
woodland or forest niche, not savannah.²  ³Š if ever our earliest ancestors
were savannah dwellers, we must have been the worst, the most profligate
urinators there²  
  Stringer 2001    ³In the past I have agreed that we lack plausible models
for the origins of bipedalism and have agreed that wading in water can
facilitate bipedal locomotion (as observed in other normally quadrupedal
primates). I have never said that this must have been the forcing mechanism
in hominids, but I do consider it plausible. As for coastal colonisation, I
argued in my Nature News & Views last year that this was an event in the
late Pleistocene that may have facilitated the spread of modern humans.²
  Groves & Cameron 2004   ³Nor can we exclude the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis.
Elaine Morgan has long argued that many aspects of human anatomy are best
explained as a legacy of a semiaquatic phase in the proto-human trajectory,
and this includes upright posture to cope with increased water depth as our
ancestors foraged farther and further from the lake or seashore.²
  Wrangham 2005   ³Here I follow the conventional assumption that hominins
began in the savanna.²  ³Š the composition of the Okavango as a network of
islands could favor the evolution of bipedalism. For those who envisage
bipedalism as facilitated by the need to traverse or exploit aquatic
environments, an inland delta that generates low islands termitogenically or
hydrodynamically offers rich scenarios.²
  Alemseged 2006   ³I believe we should just put the savannah theory aside.
I think they basically became biped while they were living in a wooded,
covered environment Š²
  Thorpe et al. 2007   ³Š early hominins occupied woodland environments, not
open or even bush-savannah environments (such as sites including Allia Bay,
Aramis, Assa Issie and now Laetoli) ... they retained long grasping
forelimbs, which are more obviously relevant in an arboreal contextŠ²

.

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