The excavation of the 2 - million - yr - oldHomo naledi , our most recently identify human ancestor , shocked the anthropological world when it was discover that it appear to bury its dead – a trait antecedently thought to be sole to man .
Now , it looks like another ancient root has just let mistake a closed book that will change our understanding of our own organic evolution yet again . As disclose by fossilized footprints , Homo erectuswalked just like modern homo , which suggest our walk style evolved as long as 1.9 million years ago , around the sentence this specie acquire .
H. erectusonce lived across much of Africa and Asia , and was still around 143,000 years ago , about 57,000 years afterH. sapiens , our own species , first appeared . It is generally acknowledge as being the sometime human ancestor to have modern human - like body proportions , stretch legs , and the ability to take the air upright to a degree and even trek long distance – as oppose to climb trees , as itsclose ancestors and cousinsdid . Despite these similarities , scientists still tend to considerH. erectusstill quite different from ourselves .
This new study in the journalScientific Reportsconfirms thatH. erectuswas more like us than previously think . Back in 2006 , a series of 1.5 - million - year - oldfootprintswere launch in Kenya , and they were identified as clearly go toH. erectus . Since then , a squad of researchers have been reconstructing how these footprint were made , and they are confident that not only did their proprietor walk upright , but that they were fully two-footed .
Although evidence of walk on two foot date back to6 - 7 million years ago , a sparse fossil record means that ascertaining just how expeditiously bipedal and human - like our ancestors ’ gait is often very unmanageable . These well - carry on 97 track , created by at least 20 individual appendage ofH. erectus , allowed researchers to create digital fashion model of them , before compare them to habitually barefoot members of local tribespeople .
Without a incertitude , these ancient footprints are indistinguishable from the advanced equivalent . “ Our analyses of these footprint provide some of the only direct grounds to patronize the common assumption that at least one of our fogy relatives 1.5 million yr ago walk in much the same way as we do today , ” Kevin Hatala , a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and The George Washington University and lead author of the study , said in astatement .
Image in text : reconstructive memory of an adult female . H. erectus . John Gurche / Tim Evanson / Smithsonian Museum of Natural History / Wikimedia Commons ; CC BY - SA 2.0
The generator of this composition note that the footprint sizes argue that multiple male were walking together in the mathematical group , which implies a sense of cooperation and a move off from the sole male person eclipse hierarchy run into in other primate specie . So not only did they have like walk styles , but similar social styles to contemporary humans .
The big inquiry , though , is what happened to allow such aswift transitionfrom tree - wax adaptations to effective walk mechanisms ? Some have suggest that the motivation to use hands for food gathering or tool - wielding incite the variety , whereas others think that it simply requires less energy compared to scampering around on all 4 . Perhaps it just made Centennial State - operation easier somehow – either way , it ’ll always be difficult to really know what actuate it .
Along with a recent , dramatic re - dating of the revelatoryH. naledifossils , this definitive uncovering regardingH. erectusmakes it very percipient that each new discovery brings with it more questions than answers . Just when we think we know on the button how our species arose from our past , another new piece of information highlights just how much more we ’ve got go forth to understand .
Snap ! Credit : Kevin Hatala
