Hands-free in the Pliocene

In the previous post we discovered the anatomical changes associated with bipedalism in early hominids and the relationship of the selection of this feature with climate change. Is bipedalism a trait that makes us human? What are the advantages over other quadruped animals?

WHAT IS THE PLIOCENE?

Since the origin of our planet, geologists have divided time into different divisions of millions of years: the eons (Archean, Proterozoic and Phanerozoic), which in turn are divided into different eras. The Phanerozoic (from 542 Ma to present) is divided into three eras, from oldest to newest: Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic. In this link you can see  the major biological milestones for each epoch.

Cenozoic detail. Full image

The Miocene is the time when the hominoids appear, (Proconsul is the most famous genus) and in the Pliocene appears, among others, Australopithecus. Homo sapiens do not appear until the Holocene, a blink in the planet’s history, as they say.

Usually the climate changes that have been happening throughout the history of Earth, represent extinction, diversification and new species, and so does our evolutionary branch: many authors relate climatic fluctuations with milestones of hominins. If you are interested in this interactive you can investigate this issue.

Position of the continents in the Miocene after the collision between the Eurasian and Indica plates. (Photo by The Burgess Shale)

One of these climatic changes (caused by the collision of the Eurasian and Indica tectonic plates,  giving rise to the Himalayas and changing wind currents) was responsible for the disappearance of large tracts of rainforest, giving way to a landscape shrub or savanna. Hominoids who stayed in the forest, led to the current nonhuman apes, while those who occupied the savanna–trees mosaic led to hominins, our lineage. What are the advantatges of bipedalism in that landscape?

ADVANTATGES OF BIPEDALISM

• Handsfree: the two free limbs can be used to transport food and offspring. You can reach fruit trees without stepping on them and later, will allow the manipulation of tools, hunting and cultural events.
• Less heat: without offering the entire back surface to the sun, and separating the body from the hot ground, it allows cope better with high temperatures and survive with less water.
• More energy: walking on two legs consumes less energy than walking on four. This allow walking longer distances with less food, which is important in an environment where you have to flee or find food constantly. We have a great strength to walk or run many kilometers compared with quadrupeds.
• Best visual field: the eyes have a higher position and can detect potential predators over shrubs or drive them away with stones if necessary. It is also easier to spot food sources.
• Intimidating appearance: upright posture appears to increase body size and can avoid confrontations with certain predators.
• Better communication: the insertion of the skull with the spine, leaving enough space for the vocal cords allow, over time, the appearance of articulate speech. Although other apes had the same brain capacity to talk, morphologically it is impossible because of the structure of their vocal apparatus.

Some advantatges of bipedalism. (Illustration by Karen Carr Studios)

DISADVANTAGES OF BIPEDALISM

• Low speed: for short distances, running on two legs is slower than four, in case of an unexpected attack by a predator, the chance to escape decreases.
• Back pain: the stress that suffers our spine and legs throughout life due to upright posture, is the most likely cause of back pain, knees, hips and feet that suffer a large part of the world population.
• Birth complications: our birth canal is narrower due to the structure of our pelvis, plus the large size of the skull of the young, it causes more pain and complications in human births compared to other mammalian quadrupeds.

Birth canal in a woman (left) and a chimpanzee (right). (Photo taken of Jose Mª Bermúdez de Castro)

Thus, despite the disadvantages, in a warm environment, rather arid and with few trees for shelter from predators, who survived were bipedal hominoids. We consider our bipedalism as a trait that makes us human, as it is unique among animals: only birds are fully bipedal -like some extinguished dinosaurs–, and except the penguin -with clumsy gait–, their spine is not perpendicular to the ground, like ours.

REFERENCES

• Turbón, Daniel. 2006. Ariel. La evolución humana.
• Cela Conde, Camilo José; Ayala, Francisco J. 2001. Alianza Editorial. Senderos de la evolución humana.
• Historia del bipedismo
• El precio de tener un cerebro grande
• Compromiso entre la bipedación y el parto. Implicaciones en el ciclo de vida de la mujer.
• Walking upright
• Front image

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Lucy in the ground with diamonds

Surely one of the responsibles that you’re reading this post was the climate change that took place about 6 million years ago. The lifting of the Rift Valley caused a cooling and drying of sub-Saharan Africa, which favored the extension of the savannah at the expense of forests and the evolution of the first hominans who already walked by two feet. The most famous of them is undoubtedly Lucy. We encourage you to meet Australopithecus afarensis and the anatomy associated with bipedalism.

¿WHO WAS LUCY?

Just over 40 years ago, Donald Johanson discovered a partial skeleton (AL-288-1) 3.2 million old in Hadar, Ethiopia. It was the oldest hominan discovered and the bones belonged to an unknown species. At night, while celebrating the discovery with his team, the Beatles song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was playing in the cassette, and nicknamed the fossil remains. They belong to the species Australopithecus afarensis (Afar southern monkey).

Cast of Lucy in the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris. (Photo: unknown author, Wikimedia)

Currently A. afarensis is one of the best known early hominans, as it have been found remains of hundreds of individuals, males, females and young ones.

ANATOMY

The average height and weight of A. afarensis was 1.05 m and 29 kg for females and 1.51 m and 42 kg for males, significantly smaller compared to us. Brain volume was also small, 387-550 cubic cm (similar to a current chimpanzee). The arms and fingers were longer than ours, which allowed them to climb easily in the trees, and the legs, though shorter, had characteristics that allowed bipedalism (walking on two feet) completely. The forehead was narrow and jaws were located forward (prognathism), with a large space for jaw muscles. Their diet was mainly herbivorous.

Reconstruction of Lucy by Elisabeth Daynès, with Laetoli footprint trails, in CosmoCaixa. (Photo: Mireia Querol)

ANATOMICAL FEATURES OF BIPEDALISM

A. afarensis already had the necessary adaptations to walk like us, though perhaps is not the older bipedal hominan: Orrorin tugenensis (6.2 to 5.6 million years) is aspiring to be one of the first members of the human race who walked upright .

Comparison between the skeletons of a current human (Homo sapiens), an A. afarensis and a chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes). (Photo: H. sapiens unknown author, A. afarensis John C. Phillips, chimpanzee Udo M. Savalli).

• Foramen magnum: the spinal cord goes through an opening in the skull, the foramen magnum. In the chimpanzee is located in the back of the skull, while afarensis has it in the base, which allows a vertical backbone settle.
• Backbone: lumbar and cervical area of the human backbone are more curved, we have a column with a “S” shape. The center of gravity is in the midline of the foot and allows spinal flexion during walking, therefore when chimpanzees walk on two feet, stagger for balance because they have a straight spine.
• Rib cage: A. afarensis still has a rather conical chest to accommodate a larger digestive system due to herviborous diet and better shoulder mobility to climb. H. sapiens have it shaped like a barrel, which facilitates the swing arm for better balance while walking and allows a better torso bending.
• Pelvis: human pelvis is shorter and wider than other primates, to allow better mobility with the base of the backbone, but the birth canal is narrow.
• Feet: A. afarensis toe, like ours, is aligned with the rest of the fingers, the sole is arched and a wide bead allows the foot to propel with the fingers and absorb shock when walking.
• Femur: due to bipedalism the joint surface is wide and the femur is angled toward the center of gravity. In the chimpanzee femurs are shorter, less inclined and with lower joints.

LAETOLI FOOTPRINT TRAILS

Laetoli footprint trails, Tanzania. (Photo: Sciencephoto Library)

2.000 kms further south where Lucy was found, in Laetoli (Tanzania), Mary Leakey discovered in 1978 the oldest known biped trail (3.6 million years) of probably 4 hominans who walked through the open savannah, with traces of other extinct animals like the horse Hipparion, a bird, a baboon and a centipede. The tracks are laid down in the ashes of the volcano Sadiman and are attributed to A. afarensis. There are 69 footprints, some overlapping others intentionally, perhaps as a strategy to leave no trace. The big toe is parallel to the rest of the fingers and a deep footprint and the bead is well marked, which confirms a completely bipedal stride.

But why has it been so important bipedalism in the process of humanization, towards the emergence of Homo sapiens? We’ll find out in the next article on human evolution.

Rreconstruction of A. afarensis by John Gurche. (Photo: Chip Clark)

 

REFERENCES

• Roberts, Alice. 2002. Akal. Evolución: historia de la humanidad.
• Turbón, Daniel. 2006. Ariel. La evolución humana.
• Cela Conde, Camilo José; Ayala, Francisco J. 2001. Alianza Editorial. Senderos de la evolución humana.
• Lucy, el fósil que reescribió la historia de la evolución humana
• Australophitecus afarensis (Smithsonian)
• Cambio climático motivó la evolución humana

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Who are the hominids?

Today’s article is dedicated to primates. We will talk about some of its key features, the classification of the living species and we will discover who the hominids and hominans are.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PRIMATES

Primates are an order of placental mammals that appeared about 65 million years ago in the tropical rainforest. There are currently over 400 living species, most of them arboreal. Since there are no single trait that defines them, they are difficult to classify; so we have to consider a set of features, which are:

• Complex visual system: with frontally placed eyes, their vision is stereoscopic, allowing them to perceive the distance and depth with great accuracy. Most species can see in color.
• High mobility of the shoulder: allows an easy arm movement in all directions. Hands and feet have five fingers and opposable thumb (at least in hands) allowing them to grasp and manipulate objects with precision. Although some have claws, most have flat nails and all (except some orangutans) have a flat nail on the big toe.
• Torso and tail: several primates rest and move with an erect torso. Except apes, in some cases they have a prehensile tail, and can use it as a fifth limb.
• Brain size: besides some species of toothed whales, some primates have, in relation to the body, the largest brain of all mammals.
• Social organization: only orangutans, some lemurs and galagos are solitary, other primates are organized in complex social groups.

Gorilla eating (Gorilla sp.) where whe can see some of the characteristics. Photo: pixabay.com

 

CLASSIFICATION

The relationships among the different groups of primates were not clearly understood until relatively recently, so the commonly used terms are somewhat confused (mokeys, apes…). Modern cladistic classifies primates in two suborders, Haplorrhini (“dry-nosed primates”) and Strepsirhini (“wet-nosed primates“). A possible classification would be:

Primates taxonomy. Clic to enlarge. Created by Mireia Querol based in an image taken of humanorigins.si.edu.

Traditionally primates are classified into three groups: prosimians, monkeys and apes.

PROSIMIANS

Prosimians are the oldest primate group. They are distributed throughout Southeast Asia and Africa marginal islands. Prosimians include lemurs, lorises, galagos, indris, the aye-aye and tarsiers. They share the following characteristics:

• Claws instead of nails (they have at least a fingernail)
• Long snout with wet nose. They have the best sense of smell among primates
• More lateral orientation of the eyes than other primates. These are big and have good nocturnal vision
• Mobile pinna
• Minor brain proportion than other primates

Aye-aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis). Photo: Frans Lanting

 

Philippines tarsier (Carlito syrichta). (Photo: Kok Leng Yeo)

OLD AND NEW WORLD MONKEYS

The New World monkeys are distributed throughout Central and South America. They have a long, often prehensile tail. The muzzle is flat and the nostrils are situated in the side. They are completely arboreal. The best known representatives are marmosets, spider monkeys, capuchins, and sakis.

Male of White-faced saki (Pithecia pithecia). Photo: Charles Miller

 

The Old World monkeys are distributed throughout Africa and Asia. Usually they are bigger than New World monkeys. The nostrils are directed downward or forward. The Old World monkeys cover a wide range of species, such as macaques, baboons, mandrills, mangabeis, drills, colobus, proboscis monkeys, langurs …

Gee’s golden langur (Trachypithecus geei). Photo: Wikimedia

 

APES

Apes are divided into two families: Hylobatidae (gibbons and siamangs) and Hominidae (orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees and humans). They are distributed throughout West and Central Africa and South and Southeast Asia, except humans: we are distributed all over the planet and habitats. Apes have a flat face, with the nostrils downwards and an anatomy that facilitates upright posture and materials handling, including the creation and use of tools in some species.

Bonobo (Pan paniscus). Photo: Pierre Fidenci

In conclusion, hominids are human beings (Homo sapiens) together with orangutans (two species: Pongo pymaeus and Pongo abelii), chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), bonobos (Pan paniscus) and gorillas (two species: Gorilla gorilla y Gorilla beringei), because we all belong to the family Hominidae. The term also refers to all fossil species of this family, and therefore our ancestors, that we will discuss in future articles on human evolution. However, to refer exclusively to our evolutionary branch (including H. sapiens) the used term is hominans or hominas, which refers to a tribe (Hominini) of the Hominidae family.

REFERENCES

• Clutton-Brock, Juliet et al.  2002. Animal. Pearson Educación
• Roberts, Alice. 2002. Akal. Evolución: historia de la humanidad.
• The Enciclopedy of Life
• The Smithsonian Institution’s Human Origins Program
• Cover photo by Miquel Llorente

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This publication is licensed under a Creative Commons:

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