Did Bipedalism Develop From Knuckle-Walking?
Recently researchers working in the collections of ape skeletons at the Smithsonian were studying a ridge on the wrist end of a forearm bone (radius) found in knuckle-walking apes. On a whim, they decided to see if this ridge was present in the ‘Lucy’ skeleton. To their surprise, Lucy and other australopithecine fossils had the ridge, suggesting that we may be descended from a knuckle-walking ancestor. Other scholars, however, argue that the knuckles on Lucy’s hand-bones are not broad for weight-bearing like the knuckles of apes, making it unlikely that australopithecines actually used this form of locomotion. This study helps to reconcile evidence from anatomy with the strong DNA evidence that chimpanzees are more closely related to humans than to gorillas. It also raises the question of why upright walking would evolve from an ancestor that was already adapted to life on the ground. “Always Something New Out of Africa” (Ancient Greek Proverb cited by Pliny the Elder and C. Darwin, 18
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- How did bipedalism develop?
