It is clear that the ancestors of mankind were poor at climbing trees, surprisingly they were not monkeys

A new research suggests that the ancestors of mankind inhabited several million years ago were not "monkey" as many experts thought about, and were also bad at climbing trees It is. Whether the early human race lived on the trees, or that I abandoned the life in the trees and started walking biped was long debate, but over 4 million years agoHuman familyIt seems that it became clear by examining the fossil ankle joint.

Details are as below.Human ancestors 'less ape-like' - Telegraph

Our Ancestors Were No Swingers - Balter 2009 (413): 2 - ScienceNOW

Including contemporary Homo sapiens, Beijing Hara and Neanderthals etcHuman genus(Homo)Same asHuman subfamily(Homininae)Human family(Hominini)Belongs toChimpanzee(Pan)Is thought to have differentiated from a common ancestor about 400 to 8 million years ago, but the fossils that were studied this time belong to the genus of the extinct human genus after differentiation.


Dr. Jeremy DeSilva, an anthropologist at the University of Michigan, photographed the wild chimpanzee in Kivari National Park in Uganda to work on trees and analyzed the video and found that the chimpanzee's ankle moved from a normal position 45 It turned out that it turns inward (towards extending the Achilles tendon). Contrary to this, modern people move the ankle up to 15 degrees to 20 degrees when walking, and bending it further leads to serious injury.

After that, Dr. DeSilva subsequently investigated the relationship between apes and human genital fossils from 4.12 million years ago to 1.53 million years agotibia(Keikotsu)WhenTalus(Kyoko)I compared them. As a result, it was revealed that the ankle joints of human genus extinct species are much closer to modern people than apes. In other words, at the very beginning of the evolution of mankind, the joint of the ankle became the current structure, and it is suggested that at about the same time as the biped walking started, human beings became poor at climbing trees and began to live on the ground It is being done.

This research result isBulletin of National Academy of SciencesDr. DeSilva said: "Early human genus could climb trees like we are today, sometimes climbed up, but this study has shown that in vertical life in their lives It is suggested that there were not many opportunities to do exercise such as climbing and behavior on trees ".