Hostname: page-component-6b989bf9dc-jks4b Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-14T04:52:55.677Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Complex topography and human evolution: the missing link

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Isabelle C. Winder ,
Geoffrey C.P. King ,
Maud Devès  and
Geoff N. Bailey
Isabelle C. Winder*
Affiliation:
1Department of Archaeology, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP, UK (Email: isabelle.winder@york.ac.uk; geoff.bailey@york.ac.uk)
Geoffrey C.P. King
Affiliation:
2Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Univ Paris Diderot, CNRS, Paris, France (Email: king@ipgp.fr; deves@ipgp.fr) 1Department of Archaeology, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP, UK (Email: isabelle.winder@york.ac.uk; geoff.bailey@york.ac.uk)
Maud Devès
Affiliation:
2Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Univ Paris Diderot, CNRS, Paris, France (Email: king@ipgp.fr; deves@ipgp.fr)
Geoff N. Bailey
Affiliation:
1Department of Archaeology, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP, UK (Email: isabelle.winder@york.ac.uk; geoff.bailey@york.ac.uk)
*
*Author for correspondence
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Why did humans walk upright? Previous models based on adaptations to forest or savannah are challenged here in favour of physical incentives presented by steep rugged terrain—the kind of tectonically varied landscape that has produced early hominin remains. “Scrambler man” pursued his prey up hill and down dale and in so doing became that agile, sprinting, enduring, grasping, jumping two-legged athlete that we know today.

Keywords

AfricaKenyaSouth Africahomininsbipedalismterrestrialisationtectonic landscaperift valleys
Type
Research article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 87 , Issue 336 , 1 June 2013 , pp. 333 - 349
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2013

References

Aiello, L.C. & Wheeler, P.. 1994. The expensive tissue hypothesis: the brain and the digestive system in human and primate evolution. Current Anthropology 36: 199–221.Google Scholar
Bailey, G.N. & King, G.C.P.. 2011. Dynamic landscapes and human evolution: tectonics, coastlines and the reconstruction of human habitats. Quaternary Science Reviews 30: 1533-53.Google Scholar
Bailey, G.N., Reynolds, S.C. & King, G.C.P.. 2011. Landscapes of human evolution: models and methods of tectonic geomorphology and the reconstruction of hominin landscapes. Journal of Human Evolution 60: 257-80.Google Scholar
Blumenschine, R.J., Bunn, H.T., Geist, V., Ikawa-Smith, F., Marean, C.W., Payne, A.G., Tooby, J. & Van Der Merwe, N.J.. 1987. Characteristics of an early hominid scavenging niche. Current Anthropology 28: 383–407.Google Scholar
Brown, F.H. & Mcdougall, I.. 2011. Geochronology of the Turkana depression of northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia. Evolutionary Anthropology 20: 217-27.Google Scholar
Burke, K. 1996. The 24th Alex L. Du Toit memorial lecture: the African Plate. South African Journal of Geology 99: 339–409.Google Scholar
Cerling, T.E., Wynn, J.G., Andanje, S.A., Bird, M.I., Korir, D.K., Levin, N.E., Mace, W., Macharia, A.N., Quade, J. & Remien, C.H.. 2011. Woody cover and hominin environments in the past 6 million years. Science 476: 51–56.Google Scholar
Crompton, R.H., Vereecke, E.E. & Thorpe, S.K.S.. 2008. Locomotion and posture from the common hominoid ancestor to fully modern hominins, with special reference to the last common panin/hominin ancestor. Journal of Anatomy 212: 501-43.Google Scholar
Crouch, D.P. 2004. Geology and settlement: Greco-Roman patterns. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dainton, M. & Macho, G.A.. 1999. Did knuckle-walking evolve twice? Journal of Human Evolution 36: 171-94.Google Scholar
Dart, R.A. 1925. Australopithecus africanus: the man-ape of South Africa. Nature 115: 195-99.Google Scholar
Dirks, P.H.G.M., Kibii, J.M., Kuhn, B.F., Steininger, C., Churchill, S.E., Kramers, J.D., Pickering, R., Farber, D.L., Meriaux, A.-S., Herries, A.I.R., King, G.C.P & Berger, L.R.. 2010. Geological setting and age of Australopithecus sediba from southern Africa. Science 328: 205–208.Google Scholar
Feibel, C.S. 2011a. Shades of the savannah. Nature 476: 39–40.Google Scholar
Feibel, C.S. 2011b. A geological history of the Turkana Basin. Evolutionary Anthropology 20: 206-16.Google Scholar
Foley, R.A. 1987. Another unique species: patterns in human evolutionary ecology. New York: Longman Scientific and Technical.Google Scholar
Grön, K.J. 2008. Primate factsheets: gelada baboon (Theropithecus gelada) taxonomy, morphology and ecology. Available at: http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/factsheets/entry/gelada baboon (accessed December 2011).Google Scholar
Harcourt-Smith, W.E.H. 2007. The origins of bipedal locomotion, in Henke, W. & Tattersall, I. (ed.) Handbook of paleoanthropology: 1483-518. Heidelberg: Springer.Google Scholar
Harcourt-Smith, W.E.H. & Aiello, L.C.. 2004. Fossils, feet and the evolution of human bipedal locomotion. Journal of Anatomy 204: 403-16.Google Scholar
Isaac, G. & Isaac, B. (ed.) 1997. Koobi Fora research project. Vol. 5, Plio-Pleistocene archaeology. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Kelly, R.E. 2001. Tripedal knuckle-walking: a proposal for the evolution of human locomotion and handedness. Journal of Theoretical Biology 213: 333-58.Google Scholar
King, G.C.P. & Bailey, G.N.. 2006. Tectonics and human evolution. Antiquity 80: 1–22.Google Scholar
King, G.C.P., Bailey, G.N. & Sturdy, D.A.. 1994. Active tectonics and human survival strategies. Journal of Geophysical Research 99: 20063-78.Google Scholar
Kullmer, O. 2007. Geological background of early hominid sites in Africa, in Henke, W. & Tattersall, I. (ed.) Handbook of paleoanthropology: 339-56. Heidelberg: Springer.Google Scholar
Morgan, E. 1972. The aquatic ape: a theory of human evolution. London: Souvenir.Google Scholar
O’higgins, P. & Elton, S.. 2007. Walking on trees. Science 316: 1292-94.Google Scholar
Pickford, M. & Senut, B.. 2001. The geological and faunal context of Late Miocene hominid remains from Lukeino, Kenya. Comptes Rendus de l’Academie des Sciences IIA 332: 145-52.Google Scholar
Potts, R. 1998a. Environmental hypotheses of hominin evolution. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 41: 93–136.Google Scholar
Potts, R. 1998b. Variability selection in hominid evolution. Evolutionary Anthropology 7: 81–96.Google Scholar
Potts, R. 2007. Environmental hypotheses of Pliocene human evolution, in Bobe, R., Alemseged, Z. & Behrensmeyer, A.K. (ed.) Hominin environments in the East African Pliocene: an assessment of the faunal evidence: 25–49. Heidelberg: Springer.Google Scholar
Reynolds, S.C., Bailey, G.N. & King, G.C.P.. 2011. Landscapes and their relation to hominin habitats: case studies from Australopithecus sites in eastern and southern Africa. Journal of Human Evolution 60(3): 281-98.Google Scholar
Richmond, B.G. & Strait, D.S.. 2000. Evidence that humans evolved from a knuckle-walking ancestor. Nature 404: 382-85.Google Scholar
Richmond, B.G., Begun, D.R. & STRAIT, D.S.. 2001. Origin of human bipedalism: the knuckle-walking hypothesis revisited. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 116: 70–105.Google Scholar
Romano, M. 2006. Hominid dual type of gait and its ecosystem implications. Human Evolution 21: 101-39.Google Scholar
Stanford, C.B. 2006. Arboreal bipedalism in wild chimpanzees: implications for the evolution of hominin posture and locomotion. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 129: 225-31.Google Scholar
Stewart, J.R. & Stringer, C.S.. 2012. Human evolution out of Africa: the role of refugia and climate change. Science 335: 1317-21.Google Scholar
Thorpe, S.K.S., Holder, R.L. & Crompton, R.H.. 2007. Origin of human bipedalism as an adaptation for locomotion on flexible branches. Science 316: 1328-31.Google Scholar
Vignaud, P., Duringer, P., Mackaye, H.T., Likius, A., Blondel, C., Boisserie, J.-R., De Bonis, L., Eisenmann, V., Etienne, M.-E., Geraads, D., Guy, F., Lehmann, T., Lihoreau, F., Lopez-Martinez, N., Mourer-Chauviré, C., Otero, O., Rage, J.-C., Schuster, M., Viriot, L., Zazzo, A. & Brunet, M.. 2002. Geology and palaeontology of the Upper Miocene Toros-Menalla hominid locality, Chad. Nature 418: 152-55.Google Scholar
Wang, W.J. & Crompton, R.H.. 2004. The role of load-carrying in the evolution of modern body proportions. Journal of Anatomy 204: 417–30.Google Scholar
White, T.D., Ambrose, S.H., Suwa, G., Su, D.F., Degusta, D., Bernor, R.L., Boisserie, J.-R., Brunet, M., Delson, E., Frost, S., Garcia, N., Giaourtsakis, I.X., Haile-Selassie, Y., Howell, F.C., Lehmann, T., Likius, A., Pehlevan, C., Saegusa, H., Semprebon, G., Teaford, M. & Vrba, E.. 2009. Macrovertebrate paleontology and the Pliocene habitat of Ardipithecus ramidus . Science 326: 67–93.Google Scholar
Winder, I.C. 2012. Looking for problems: a systems approach to hominin palaeocommunities from Plio-Pleistocene Africa. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 22: 460-93.Google Scholar