Nature article: Distance running 'shaped human evolution'

[Fausto]

Interesting.

Long-distance running was crucial in creating our current upright body form, according to a new theory. Researchers have suggested that our early ancestors were good endurance runners, and that their habit has left its evolutionary mark on our bodies, from our leg joints right up to our heads.

Early humans may have taken up running around 2 million years ago, after our ancestors began standing upright on the African savannah, suggest Dennis Bramble of the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, and Daniel Lieberman of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As a result, evolution would have favoured certain body characteristics, such as wide, sturdy knee-joints.

The theory may explain why, thousands of years later, so many people are able to cover the full 42 kilometres of a marathon, the researchers add. And it may provide an answer to the question of why other primates do not share this ability.

I'll try to find the full text of the journal article if anyone's interested.

 

[z0mb13]

makes sense, we didn't have cars back then

 

[zzzz]

you said the "E" word.

 

[EvilYoda]

hehe, I think I heard about this on a talk show this morning on my way to class...this is the article that talks about how our abundant derrieres helped up run and thus evolve?

special post, since one of our work computers is randomly allowing access to AT!!!

 

[zzzz]

Striding bipedalism is a key derived behaviour of hominids that possibly originated soon after the divergence of the chimpanzee and human lineages. Although bipedal gaits include walking and running, running is generally considered to have played no major role in human evolution because humans, like apes, are poor sprinters compared to most quadrupeds. Here we assess how well humans perform at sustained long-distance running, and review the physiological and anatomical bases of endurance running capabilities in humans and other mammals. Judged by several criteria, humans perform remarkably well at endurance running, thanks to a diverse array of features, many of which leave traces in the skeleton. The fossil evidence of these features suggests that endurance running is a derived capability of the genus Homo, originating about 2 million years ago, and may have been instrumental in the evolution of the human body form.

Are you sure you want to read full text?

 

[Fausto]

Originally posted by: zzzz

Striding bipedalism is a key derived behaviour of hominids that possibly originated soon after the divergence of the chimpanzee and human lineages. Although bipedal gaits include walking and running, running is generally considered to have played no major role in human evolution because humans, like apes, are poor sprinters compared to most quadrupeds. Here we assess how well humans perform at sustained long-distance running, and review the physiological and anatomical bases of endurance running capabilities in humans and other mammals. Judged by several criteria, humans perform remarkably well at endurance running, thanks to a diverse array of features, many of which leave traces in the skeleton. The fossil evidence of these features suggests that endurance running is a derived capability of the genus Homo, originating about 2 million years ago, and may have been instrumental in the evolution of the human body form.

Are you sure you want to read full text?

Some of us are not intimidated by multi-syllable words.

 

[Fausto]

Looks like I won't be able to access the full text until next week (our internal journal-browser thingy only has the Nov 11 issue of Nature as of yet).

 

[maziwanka]

man. in some sciences you can make theories out of thin air with little real evidence to back them and still be accepted in society. these are all hypotheses....

try doing that in math or physics.

 

[Ogg]

Originally posted by: maziwanka
man. in some sciences you can make theories out of thin air with little real evidence to back them and still be accepted in society. these are all hypotheses....

try doing that in math or physics.

It begins!

 

[PingSpike]

Cool.

 

[maziwanka]

Originally posted by: Ogg

Originally posted by: maziwanka
man. in some sciences you can make theories out of thin air with little real evidence to back them and still be accepted in society. these are all hypotheses....

try doing that in math or physics.

It begins!

HAHAHAHA. i was waiting for this!

 

[Fausto]

Originally posted by: maziwanka
man. in some sciences you can make theories out of thin air with little real evidence to back them and still be accepted in society. these are all hypotheses....

try doing that in math or physics.

It's not quite that simple and you certainly don't get something published in Nature that was conjured "out of thin air", trust me.


Edit- I'm not saying this article won't be controversial within the scientific community, but the author definitely didn't just pull it out of his ass.

 

[maziwanka]

Originally posted by: Fausto

Originally posted by: maziwanka
man. in some sciences you can make theories out of thin air with little real evidence to back them and still be accepted in society. these are all hypotheses....

try doing that in math or physics.

It's not quite that simple and you certainly don't get something published in Nature that was conjured "out of thin air", trust me.

yes my post was a bit extreme but the general point was that sciences like biology (psychology, etc..) tend to use the term "theory" too liberally.

 

[Fausto]

Originally posted by: maziwanka

Originally posted by: Fausto

Originally posted by: maziwanka
man. in some sciences you can make theories out of thin air with little real evidence to back them and still be accepted in society. these are all hypotheses....

try doing that in math or physics.

It's not quite that simple and you certainly don't get something published in Nature that was conjured "out of thin air", trust me.

yes my post was a bit extreme but the general point was that sciences like biology (psychology, etc..) tend to use the term "theory" too liberally.

This is just one person's theory in a sea of others. I just posted it as it's though-provoking at the very least.

 

[Schadenfroh]

The theory may explain why, thousands of years later, so many people are able to cover the full 42 kilometres of a marathon, the researchers add.

i doubt that gradualism would have been that quick as to alter the entire human race away from being able to run such distances in less than 2500 years. Just about anyone today can do that if they get trained and worked out enough. People 2500 years ago also plowed and cultivated crops manually and much more physical labour was involved, thus everyone was generally more atheletic than now because of this. Get out and jog enough and you wil be able to jog a 24K, my dad did a 40K not too long ago, but he is also a hardcore runner, take it he did not run the entire thing (as in walked parts of it), but still..........

 

[Chadder007]

Scientists truely know NOTHING.

 

[Fausto]

Originally posted by: Chadder007
Scientists truely know NOTHING.

Uh.....okay. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Armitage]

I've read before somewhere that our ancestors used to hunt by literally running down animals. Not in a sprint, but rather long distance. With high endurance as this article suggests, the ability to fashion tools for carrying food, communicate to organize hunting parties, etc., they could literally run an animal to exhaustion. I think some guys tested this theory succesfully with whitetail deer.

 

[Fausto]

Originally posted by: Armitage
I've read before somewhere that our ancestors used to hunt by literally running down animals. Not in a sprint, but rather long distance. With high endurance as this article suggests, the ability to fashion tools for carrying food, communicate to organize hunting parties, etc., they could literally run an animal to exhaustion. I think some guys tested this theory succesfully with whitetail deer.

That's actually one of the ideas the author of this article floats.

 

[SWScorch]

DAMN STRAIGHT!!!!!!! see sig

 

[upsciLLion]

Originally posted by: Fausto

Originally posted by: maziwanka
man. in some sciences you can make theories out of thin air with little real evidence to back them and still be accepted in society. these are all hypotheses....

try doing that in math or physics.

It's not quite that simple and you certainly don't get something published in Nature that was conjured "out of thin air", trust me.


Edit- I'm not saying this article won't be controversial within the scientific community, but the author definitely didn't just pull it out of his ass.

You never know who's wearing assless chaps these days. It makes pulling stuff out of your ass just that much easier.

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: maziwanka
man. in some sciences you can make theories out of thin air with little real evidence to back them and still be accepted in society. these are all hypotheses....

try doing that in math or physics.

If it accurately explains a phenomenon, with no apparent contradictions and a logical set of principles from which it is derived, then you CAN make up theories out of thin air and have them be accepted in society. That's what science is all about.

 

[SP33Demon]

Lance Armstrong would disagree. He would say the evolution of the large gluteus maximus was for cycling, not running.

 

[zzzz]

Originally posted by: Fausto
Looks like I won't be able to access the full text until next week (our internal journal-browser thingy only has the Nov 11 issue of Nature as of yet).

I can email you the pdf if you want.