Deciphering how the ancestors of the human species moved around

28 November, 2024

One of the most fascinating periods in the evolution of the human lineage is the appearance of the first ancestors capable of bipedalism. Knowing the type of locomotion used by many fossil species — walking upright on the ground or climbing from branch to branch with the strength of their arms — has been one of the most classic questions in the study of the process of hominization. Now, a paper published in the American Journal of Primatology provides new insights into how and when bipedal locomotion appeared during human evolution.

Professor Josep M. Potau, from the Human Anatomy and Embryology Unit of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences and the Institute of Archaeology of the University of Barcelona (IAUB), leads this study. Neus Ciurana, from the Gimbernat University School, is the first author of the article, which includes the participation of teams of the University of Valladolid.

The study helps to infer how some fossil hominin species moved through an innovative technique that analyses and compares muscle insertion sites characteristic of locomotor behavior in Hominidae primates (chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, orangutans and humans).

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