Download or read book From Biped to Strider written by Jeff Meldrum and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2004-03-31 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The inspiration for this volume of contributed papers stemmed from conversations between the editors in front of Chuck Hilton's poster on the determinants of hominid walking speed, presented at thel998 meetings of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists (AAPA). Earlier at those meetings, Jeff Meldrum (with Roshna Wunderlich) had presented an alternate interpretation of the Laetoli footprints based on evidence of midfoot flexibility. As the discussion ensued we found convergence on a number of ideas about the nature of the evolution of modem human walking. From the continuation of that dialogue grew the proposal for a symposium which we called From Biped to Strider: the Emergence of Modem Human Walking. The symposium was held as a session of the 69th annual meeting of the AAPA, held in San Antonio, Texas in 2000. It seemed to us that the study of human bipedalism had become overshadowed by theoften polarized debates over whether australo pithecines were wholly terrestrial in habit, or retained a significant degree of arboreality.
Download or read book First Steps written by Jeremy DeSilva and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the W.W. Howells Book Prize from the American Anthropological Association and named one of the best science books of 2021 by Science News “DeSilva takes us on a brilliant, fun, and scientifically deep stroll through history, anatomy, and evolution, in order to illustrate the powerful story of how a particular mode of movement helped make us one of the most wonderful, dangerous and fascinating species on Earth.”—Agustín Fuentes, Professor of Anthropology, Princeton University and author of Why We Believe: Evolution and the Human Way of Being “Breezy popular science at its best. . . . Makes a compelling case overall.”—Science News Blending history, science, and culture, a stunning and highly engaging evolutionary story exploring how walking on two legs allowed humans to become the planet’s dominant species. Humans are the only mammals to walk on two, rather than four legs—a locomotion known as bipedalism. We strive to be upstanding citizens, honor those who stand tall and proud, and take a stand against injustices. We follow in each other’s footsteps and celebrate a child’s beginning to walk. But why, and how, exactly, did we take our first steps? And at what cost? Bipedalism has its drawbacks: giving birth is more difficult and dangerous; our running speed is much slower than other animals; and we suffer a variety of ailments, from hernias to sinus problems. In First Steps, paleoanthropologist Jeremy DeSilva explores how unusual and extraordinary this seemingly ordinary ability is. A seven-million-year journey to the very origins of the human lineage, First Steps shows how upright walking was a gateway to many of the other attributes that make us human—from our technological abilities, our thirst for exploration, our use of language–and may have laid the foundation for our species’ traits of compassion, empathy, and altruism. Moving from developmental psychology labs to ancient fossil sites throughout Africa and Eurasia, DeSilva brings to life our adventure walking on two legs. Delving deeply into the story of our past and the new discoveries rewriting our understanding of human evolution, First Steps examines how walking upright helped us rise above all over species on this planet. First Steps includes an eight-page color photo insert.
Download or read book The vocal origin of bipedalism written by Albert Roca and published by Falcons. This book was released on 2024-07-03 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We walk because we talk. This is the surprising and compelling conclusion of this essay, which provides an answer to the origin of bipedalism, one of anthropology's most persistent enigmas. By identifying evolutionary parallels with species that currently exhibit this faculty, the author traces the acquisition of vocal learning in the human lineage and proposes a reasoned sequence of events, implying the vocal origin of language, that led to the adoption of bipedalism. Within the fascinating narrative of human evolution, the mystery of bipedalism finds a natural and revealing explanation in an ancestral link with the capacity for speech.
Download or read book The Evolution of Bipedalism written by Boni M. Forrest and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Primate Morphophysiology Locomotor Analyses and Human Bipedalism written by 近藤四郎 and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Handbook of Paleoanthropology written by Winfried Henke and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-05-10 with total page 2057 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 3-volume handbook brings together contributions by the world ́s leading specialists that reflect the broad spectrum of modern palaeoanthropology, thus presenting an indispensable resource for professionals and students alike. Vol. 1 reviews principles, methods, and approaches, recounting recent advances and state-of-the-art knowledge in phylogenetic analysis, palaeoecology and evolutionary theory and philosophy. Vol. 2 examines primate origins, evolution, behaviour, and adaptive variety, emphasizing integration of fossil data with contemporary knowledge of the behaviour and ecology of living primates in natural environments. Vol. 3 deals with fossil and molecular evidence for the evolution of Homo sapiens and its fossil relatives.
Download or read book Early Hominin Evoluion and the Transition to Bipedalism in Humans written by Sarah Elizabeth Sodemann and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The transition to bipedal locomotion in humans has been the source of much research and debate over the years, in particular, the question of why it occurred. Many hypotheses have been put forward to explain what the selection pressure for this shift in locomotion was, but more than just one is likely responsible for such a dramatic change. For this study, the bone morphology of modern primate species is examined and compared to that of early hominin fossils in an attempt to determine which particular selection pressures had the largest impact on the transition from an arboreal lifestyle to the bipedal one seen in modern humans. Specifically, the talus of the foot is analyzed resulting in support of the vertical climbing, postural feeding and hand-use models.
Download or read book Upright written by Craig Britton Stanford and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2003 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A distinguished anthropologist explores the complex mysteries of human evolution in a study that examines how human ancestors learned to walk upright, arguing that bipedalism--even more than a large brain or a facility with language--played a pivotal role in the development of humankind.
Download or read book Life on Two Legs Thoughts on Our Precarious Bipedalism written by Christine Ackers and published by Moshpit Publishing. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contrary to current anthropological theory that the human spine is inherently weak, this book argues that the basic design of our four-legged mammalian body has evolved perfectly for life on our hind legs - both for standing and for sitting, which has become almost a lifetime's occupation for many of us. Sadly too many sedentary lifetimes come with a long list of aches and pains that we treat with an equally long list of remedies; from massage to remedial exercise, to prosthetics, to ergonomically designed furniture, with no long-term satisfactory results. There is now more recognition that our way of sitting - our posture - is a contributory factor to the development of our ailments. But how to improve it has defeated us for centuries, until F M Alexander, in his attempt to correct his own crippling complaint, discovered an entirely new way of looking at this. Instead of looking outside himself for the remedy - that is, looking for the 'right' chair, or the 10 minutes-a-day exercise, or trying to pull his head in, or drop his shoulders - he examined what he was doing all over, all at once. Essentially, how all the parts of himself related in a perfectly balanced whole. The word holistic rather than piecemeal is crucial to understanding how good posture is comfortably and safely maintained in the complex mix of biological matter densely threaded through with more electrical wiring than Alan Turing's computer, that is us. Alexander looked at himself as a whole organism that balanced perfectly and held itself in the poised shape of childhood when he learned how to avoid the damaging habits he'd acquired in adulthood. With the technique he developed for conveying the lost experience of lightness and balance, we can all learn from a teacher trained in his work how to regain pleasure in activities as natural as standing and sitting - and to enjoy injury-free walking, running, jumping and climbing, dancing and singing and a myriad of other movements we can make with the marvellous range possible since we arrived on two legs. Alexander's unique use of his hands in teaching developed over many years, was critical to conveying the experience of his revolutionary ideas: in the main we learn and understand from experience. Words can only be an adjunct to the knowledge that embeds within our bones. But sometimes a bit of thinking can help learning along. These essays were all 'organic' and pertinent in that they were engendered by the questions posed by pupils - eg. the FAQ of the century: 'Could you just show me how to bend?' To which the answer is found in F M Alexander's teaching us to experience, think and learn. This book is part-memoir of an Alexander teacher's fifty years' experience in both learning to deal with her own poor-use afflictions of body and spirit, and part explication of Alexander's teaching to help others gradually address self-injury by a comprehensively different approach to posture and co-ordination in one's use.
Download or read book Lowly Origin written by Jonathan Kingdon and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2004-10-04 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The evolution of bipedalism - the story of why our ancestors stood up - is examined in this text, which presents an entirely new account of how four legged apes became two legged hominids. Kingdon also addresses the problems caused by the proliferation of hominid fossil species, of which up to 20 have been listed.
Download or read book The Evolutionary Origins of Hominid Bipedalism written by Stephen Lon Hopkins and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Origin of Hominid Bipedalism written by Sharon Elizabeth Reck and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Feedback Control of Dynamic Bipedal Robot Locomotion written by Eric R. Westervelt and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2018-10-03 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bipedal locomotion is among the most difficult challenges in control engineering. Most books treat the subject from a quasi-static perspective, overlooking the hybrid nature of bipedal mechanics. Feedback Control of Dynamic Bipedal Robot Locomotion is the first book to present a comprehensive and mathematically sound treatment of feedback design for achieving stable, agile, and efficient locomotion in bipedal robots. In this unique and groundbreaking treatise, expert authors lead you systematically through every step of the process, including: Mathematical modeling of walking and running gaits in planar robots Analysis of periodic orbits in hybrid systems Design and analysis of feedback systems for achieving stable periodic motions Algorithms for synthesizing feedback controllers Detailed simulation examples Experimental implementations on two bipedal test beds The elegance of the authors' approach is evident in the marriage of control theory and mechanics, uniting control-based presentation and mathematical custom with a mechanics-based approach to the problem and computational rendering. Concrete examples and numerous illustrations complement and clarify the mathematical discussion. A supporting Web site offers links to videos of several experiments along with MATLAB® code for several of the models. This one-of-a-kind book builds a solid understanding of the theoretical and practical aspects of truly dynamic locomotion in planar bipedal robots.
Download or read book Understanding Climate s Influence on Human Evolution written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2010-04-17 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The hominin fossil record documents a history of critical evolutionary events that have ultimately shaped and defined what it means to be human, including the origins of bipedalism; the emergence of our genus Homo; the first use of stone tools; increases in brain size; and the emergence of Homo sapiens, tools, and culture. The Earth's geological record suggests that some evolutionary events were coincident with substantial changes in African and Eurasian climate, raising the possibility that critical junctures in human evolution and behavioral development may have been affected by the environmental characteristics of the areas where hominins evolved. Understanding Climate's Change on Human Evolution explores the opportunities of using scientific research to improve our understanding of how climate may have helped shape our species. Improved climate records for specific regions will be required before it is possible to evaluate how critical resources for hominins, especially water and vegetation, would have been distributed on the landscape during key intervals of hominin history. Existing records contain substantial temporal gaps. The book's initiatives are presented in two major research themes: first, determining the impacts of climate change and climate variability on human evolution and dispersal; and second, integrating climate modeling, environmental records, and biotic responses. Understanding Climate's Change on Human Evolution suggests a new scientific program for international climate and human evolution studies that involve an exploration initiative to locate new fossil sites and to broaden the geographic and temporal sampling of the fossil and archeological record; a comprehensive and integrative scientific drilling program in lakes, lake bed outcrops, and ocean basins surrounding the regions where hominins evolved and a major investment in climate modeling experiments for key time intervals and regions that are critical to understanding human evolution.
Download or read book First Steps How Walking Upright Made Us Human written by Jeremy DeSilva and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humans are the only mammals to walk on two, rather than four, legs. From an evolutionary perspective, this is an illogical development, as it slows us down. But here we are, suggesting there must have been something tremendous to gain from bipedalism.
Download or read book Bones Stones and Molecules written by David W. Cameron and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2004-06-03 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bones, Stones and Molecules provides some of the best evidence for resolving the debate between the two hypotheses of human origins. The debate between the 'Out of Africa' model and the 'Multiregional' hypothesis is examined through the functional and developmental processes associated with the evolution of the human skull and face and focuses on the significance of the Australian record. The book analyzes important new discoveries that have occurred recently and examines evidence that is not available elsewhere. Cameron and Groves argue that the existing evidence supports a recent origin for modern humans from Africa. They also specifically relate these two theories to interpretations of the origins of the first Australians. The book provides an up-to-date interpretation of the fossil, archaeological and the molecular evidence, specifically as it relates to Asia, and Australia in particular. Readily accessible to the layperson and professional Provides concise coverage of current scientific evidence Presents a robust computer-generated model of human speciation over the last 7 million years Well illustrated with figures and photographs of important fossil specimens Presents a synthesis of great ape and human evolution
Download or read book The Story of the Human Body written by Daniel Lieberman and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2014-07-01 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A landmark book of popular science that gives us a lucid and engaging account of how the human body evolved over millions of years—with charts and line drawings throughout. “Fascinating.... A readable introduction to the whole field and great on the making of our physicality.”—Nature In this book, Daniel E. Lieberman illuminates the major transformations that contributed to key adaptations to the body: the rise of bipedalism; the shift to a non-fruit-based diet; the advent of hunting and gathering; and how cultural changes like the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions have impacted us physically. He shows how the increasing disparity between the jumble of adaptations in our Stone Age bodies and advancements in the modern world is occasioning a paradox: greater longevity but increased chronic disease. And finally—provocatively—he advocates the use of evolutionary information to help nudge, push, and sometimes even compel us to create a more salubrious environment and pursue better lifestyles.
