Studying early hominins can help us understand modern human biology. Early hominins showed signs of bipedal locomotion. A bipedal locomotion is a type of locomotion where an organism walks in an upright position using two legs. It differs from quadrupedal locomotion on the fact that a quadrupedal organism uses four legs. The evidence of bipedal locomotion in an organism is usually the location of the foramen magnum underneath the skull that indicates that the body of the organism is beneath the skull. In the case of Lucy, it was hard for anthropologists to determine if she was bipedal due to her large arms and shorter legs. However, the footprints of afarensis species like Laetoli depicts bipedal locomotion. The footprints are identical to human’s footprints. They help us understand the origins of our own trait. Some hominis like Orrorin tugenensis had legs that were shaped like ours to carry the weight of the body on one leg at once. Orrorin tugenensis has aided in understanding the concept of bipedal locomotion in modern humans. Another hominin trait is large brains. Early hominins had somewhat smaller brains and the brain size increased as in modern humans. A more interesting hominin trait is teeth. Larger canines are used for fighting and defense. They are used by quadrupedal organisms as they are more significant to their body type. While, bipedal organisms have small canines. Humans have small canines. In species Ardipithecus ramidus, a reduction in canine size had been seen. Their teeth became more similar to humans. Ardipithecus ramidus can give more insight into modern human’s traits.
The video, “Survivors of Changing Environment” talks about how early humans adapted to climate change and survived. Environmental changes caused the humans to evolve. Afarensis species are also influenced by the environment. At the site where Laetoli was found, afarensis lived in marshy lake bed environment. The environmental variability indicates the adaptability of Afarensis. Early hominins and humans both evolved and varying environments played a factor. Evidence like bipedalism and broad pelvis shows that Lucy was also adapted at the time. Studying climate changes in earlier times can help us understand the evolution of humans.
The fossil remains of early human ancestors can provide some evidence on the evolution of humans. They can help us understand how humans were adapted to their environment like if they were living in a hot or cold environment. They can provide more insight into how upright position was used to walk. They can also help us understand the differences in body size between males and females. Today, we wonder how is it that we have physical characteristic differences between men and women and where did they originate from. The fossils can also help us study different early hominins which will give us a better understanding of modern humans.
To deviate from your mentioning of differences between males and females, I did not understand the mechanics behind our differences until I read “The Downside of Upright” article. Originally, I thought that pointing out the physical differences was a form of sexist ridicule, but it’s not. Women can’t run as fast as men because of our differing pelvic bone structure. This was a cost we endured as a species for the sake of the evolutionary development of bipedalism. Studying the fossils of our hominin ancestors has helped us to understand this difference in the athletic performance of modern-day humans. I would be really interested in looking into this topic further because this modern research can all be connected back to the evolution of our species.
I also found this weeks lectures extremely interesting as it took a look into defining features and traits that we obtained through our early hominin cousins. I also liked how you talked about fossils and how they are a snapshot of our past. It allows us to see what humans were like in ancient times. I enjoyed how you touched on the and related the bipedalism of early hominins which proves our evolutionary origins from apes. I also thought it was interesting how someone touched on the brain structure with the foramen magnum which would indicate whether or not the mammal would have bipedal capabilities. Additionally enjoyed how you compared leg lengths. I too found it cool that as we evolved we can see the trait of height becoming much more prevalent. It was said in our lectures that the taller the animal/mammal the more efficient its strides and footsteps are. But at a certain height might become much more innefficient. I believe that humans currently could be at one if its most peak efficiencies of height and stride length.
Hey! Your description of Bipedal and Quadrupedal organisms got me a bit interested in the term for organisms with other numbers of legs. like is a three legged organism tripedal? It also makes me wonder why tripedalism doesn’t appear in nature? is it largely unstable?
I was also very interested in how our changing environment may have effected our evolution. I was largely interested in how variability in our environmental fitness could arise. Along with this, was this variability equal or different from the variability that we find in humans now? Like I’ve heard that this variability is helped largely by culture now a days. is this what made us capable of being fitted to multiple environments back then?
Hi Shrishti!
I found it extremely interesting that you chose to dive deeper into the topic of Lucy, the skeleton/fossils that helped us learn more about our hominid ancestors and how we evolved from our primate ancestors. I like that you said “the footprints of afarensis species like Laetoli depicts bipedal locomotion.” I didn’t think to look at the footprints, and it just proves that each and every physical aspect of Lucy needs to be studied. I wonder where we would be without skeletons such as Lucy and the fossils that were touched by her.
Hi Shrishti. “Survivors of changing environment” and the topic of how our ancestors evolved, especially to be bipedal, because of changing environments was interesting. It makes you wonder how humans will continue to evolve through things like climate change and how far evolution can push us before extinction. Many of the traits that we currently have evolved out of necessity and to keep our species alive. However some traits went away, like large canines, because they were NOT necessary anymore. It makes you wonder how humans will change throughout time. It also surprised me to learn one piece of evidence for something being bipedal was because of a bone that wasn’t even in the legs. Learning about the physical differences between men and women was also neat, because while some differences are obvious, others aren’t.