CARTA: The Upright Ape: Bipedalism and Human Origins - Running, Walking and Evolution

[boreopithecus]

@Craigipedia "where do we find the calories?" That was his argument; they got the calories from persistence hunting (18:34). Humans could hunt during the warmest hours of the day when dangerous predators like lions aren't active and prey animals overheat quicker.

[warrenmiller]

Re: Dr. Leiberman's ascertations about horses/ponies sweating and trot speed.
Not to be critical, I enjoyed your lecture tremendously, however your editor must have been a city boy because horses do sweat. They sweat a lot. Just like we do. A dog does pant and what you said does apply to them. Horses have hair and they sweat. Their guts do weigh 60-90 lbs. and when they do any working gait the movement of their gut acts as a piston to help collapse their lungs and is timed with their front feet landing and their pelvis rotating to allow their hind legs to more fully move underneath them. Their diaphragm is connected to both their lungs and their spine to facilitate the rhythm of the gait. Your comparison of a race between a horse and RIDER(weighing at least 125lbs or 12 percent of the horse's weight) and a human is not fair even if the the running human did carry an equal 12 percent weight on his back because the rider himself is constantly annoying or distracting the horse via the bit.and his imbalanced body movements. Essentially the horse is like a chained slave that you are asking to endurance run. A healthy free horse will outpace a human at the trot or canter. Your zebra video showed the canter, not the gallop. Their gallop is what our sprint would be. A racehorse gallops with all four hooves off the ground. An Arab horse and RIDER can do 100 miles at the trot, and often uphill. in an endurance race. The vet stations are because they love the horse and the horse cannot speak for itself, not due to weakness. Horses have the slow twitch predominant muscles, flared nostrils, and a lot of veins. A horse that does not want to be caught by a man on foot, in an open area, never will. Once again, I want to say, you have good, , perhaps valid, theory, but don't base it on inaccurate examples. Great lecture otherwise.

[Kylenordio]

I think it would be responsible to also say that it was in a particular epoch in which our species was naturally selected to run as running would benefit propagation and survival. We are no longer subject to the same pressures therefore not all of us can just start running daily as a physical outlet, certain people have certain morphological differences that don't allow them to run comfortably. I do believe we have some residual benefits though, because as a species were are demonstrably capable of producing exceptional endurance runners by any animals standard.

[Reziac]

I'd look at another factor for hairlessness: thyroid function, and its effects on other hormones and fat and protein metabolism. Human thyroid function is generally lower per kg of body mass than in other persistence predators.

[mcsoustenfrugal]

3:54 "sure there is debate about what sort of walking these early hominids did.." I believe he is talking about 2 million on and Austral. afarensis is 3.9-2.9 mya. I never heard where he says "millions of years ago, " but regardless the main idea is that around 2 mya humans started to rely heavily on long distance running, not just walking.

[artovangrondelle]

At the beginning, he says running away from predators was a strong selective force. That is entirely mistaken. Surviving lion predation has NOTHING to do with running away. Humans avoiding lion predation has to do with, primarily, avoiding dangerous situations. And understanding lion behavior. Apes don't stupidly just walk around or stand around where there are lions hunting and the faster humans survive... to reproduce later. Running away from hunting lions is NOT part of defense strategies. That's a mistaken and not well thought-out notion.

[DavidLionofjudah]

This makes excellent points on how running played an essential part in the evolution of bipedalim.

[vfxforge]

are there any studies on swimming in human evolution? Lots of studies on gait from the looks of it.

[kuryenlaindia]

the part about the body fat is really impressive, a fantastic lecture really, fascinating

[marcverhaegen]

This lecture is outdated IMO. We have to discern between "bipedal" & "upright": these are 2 very different things, e.g.
-Penguins on land & humans are both bipedal & upright.
-Ostriches & kangaroos are bipedal but run with horizontal spines.
-Gibbons & tarsiers are upright, but usually not for running, but for walking over branches, for hanging from branches or for jumping.
Humans can run (slower than chimps), but we're not made to run: no cursorial animal is plantigrade.
We know biologically why human ancestros became bipedal as well as upright, google "coastal dispersal 2019 Verhaegen".

[markpogi]

I believe that bipedalism is brought about by many factors (multifactorial). There is no single causation into it. As soon as bipedalism becomes habitual, running eventually becomes consequential.

[rich]

Does anyone know where on youtube there is the detailed lecture on running barefoot that he mentions here?: 22:00

[kevincasey]

Be gentle with me 'cos I'm about to ask maybe a stupid question but i wonder if you have the answer. Before 2.6 mya Africa was quite wet so maybe after coming down from the trees where we were branch walkers at 4.5 mya (?) we gathered food from the margins of rivers and lakes were the food was quite plentiful. This could also be the time we lost our fur, made all the adjustments to living in or around water. Then the water dried up and our ancestors made the transition to eating meat on the hoof so to speak. Is this a credible hypothesis?

[christopherneelyakagoattmo]

Bless her heart: I had to quit watching at 58:40 because Leslie Aiello's stutter was becoming intolerable. She has my sympathy, because I stuttered as a child. I had a dear friend that was teased mercilessly and bullied because of his speech impediment. It grates on my nerves. I still stutter if I get very angry or scared, I'm sure there is a cumulative stage fright component. Very frustrated, because I love the topic. I just can;t. Hopefully, I can come back later. It literally gives me a headache. I'm rather sorry; I know that she is brilliant.

[carrollhoagland]

Thanks all, good discussions, even in the comments which is really interesting and astonishing (few exceptions) ... But I am working on Dr. Wrangham's time machine so I can go see for myself ...
70 Going On 100 … the Centenarian Diet … maybe 70 Going On 128 … the Hayflick Limit … or if a fan of Ray Kurzweil … then this is all a Moot Point.

[JR-sjhv]

Isnt 6 meters per second the equivalent to running like 13 mph? What human on this planet has that pace in a marathon? Did I hear that wrong?

[Craigipedia]

@banestyrelsen right but that method of hunting is not necessarily entirely efficient. I guess we were surviving on a razor's edge in terms of caloric intake until we invented ranged weapons 300, 000 years ago. it's a very interesting hypothesis. though i find it interesting that even after thousands of years of highly sedentary lifestyle we still had these traits for running in our dna such that marathoning could take off as a leisure sport in the modern era. great video

[allistairneil]

Why is the invention of the shoe/boot never discussed?

[christinestill]

Really unfortunate that light pointers don’t show up on phones or i-pads.

[Craigipedia]

it is an interesting argument to say that we developed the ability to run long distances as an evolutionary advantage. however, where do we find the calories? a runner can run 20k daily because they easily have access to 4000 calories per day. where do those calories come from in africa? even after switching to meat you aren't getting calories for a 20k run every day