Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Bipedalism at 6 Million Years Ago

Bill Jungers and Brian Richmond write that the femur from the 6 my old Orrorin tugenensis reflects bipedality. In a story in Science Daily, Jungers is quoted as saying:

Our study confirms that as early as six million years ago, basal hominins in Africa were already similar to later australopithecines in their anatomy and inferred locomotor biomechanics.

At the same time, by way of the analysis, we see no special phylogenetic connection between Orrorin and our own genus, Homo.”

So we wait to see if anything comes of the digs out at the Sahel River to see is Sahelanthropus might have been bipedal. This is a coup for Orrorin, though.

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