Cameras and Guns may just be the one reason we can't see more of them

[norseman]

53 minutes ago, Marty said:

Very much so, ain't doubting our intelligence we were smart as Hell and there's a reason we came out as top dog. My thing is that, because we are the victors the survivors of those wars must've carried a deep sense of sorrow and fear of us and thus continues to this day.

This sounds silly, because there are connations attached to it, but I really am beginning to think they are a kind of peoples that we left in the past. Not saying they're humans, they're not...I mean we often think how close the known Apes are to us, speech really is the only barrier that seperates us from them....food for thought I guess.

Until a type specimen is produced? It’s fun to speculate but we just don’t know what lineage it is. Or just how closely related it is to us. Did bipedalism rise only once or did it happen multiple times? Convergent evolution makes it a possibility that it may have happened numerous times.

[hiflier]

As long as this thread has strayed this far I have had a gnawing question to present. Did the Homo skeleton evolve/mutate a more bipedal structure out of Homo's need to walk upright? Or did bipedalism occur because the Homo skeleton had evolved/mutated in a way that facilitated Homo walking upright? i.e. did Humans find out one day that their "new" body shape allowed them to run on two legs and have their hands free for weapons?

 

It's easy to say that early Humans were bipedal, it's another to say early Humans force bipedalism into subsequent generations of skeletal evolution. Simply put, which came first, the need to walk upright? Or the Human skeleton's ability to allow bipedalism to become ubiquitous in all Human branches? Because bipedalism as a main means of efficient locomotion required a bone frame that would more easily facilitate that mode of travel.

 

So, chicken? Or the egg?

 

Edited February 11, 2023 by hiflier

[iacozizzle]

 

[Doodler]

On 2/11/2023 at 9:02 AM, hiflier said:

As long as this thread has strayed this far I have had a gnawing question to present. Did the Homo skeleton evolve/mutate a more bipedal structure out of Homo's need to walk upright? Or did bipedalism occur because the Homo skeleton had evolved/mutated in a way that facilitated Homo walking upright? i.e. did Humans find out one day that their "new" body shape allowed them to run on two legs and have their hands free for weapons?

 

It's easy to say that early Humans were bipedal, it's another to say early Humans force bipedalism into subsequent generations of skeletal evolution. Simply put, which came first, the need to walk upright? Or the Human skeleton's ability to allow bipedalism to become ubiquitous in all Human branches? Because bipedalism as a main means of efficient locomotion required a bone frame that would more easily facilitate that mode of travel.

 

So, chicken? Or the egg?

 

 

A string of random mutations built up over millions of years, each allowing a minor advantage to some human ancestors over others resulting in bipedalism. Could be a mutation that moved a toe, or a mutation that moved an ankle. Thousands of these.

[Madison5716]

The need to look for bigger predators over tall savanah grasses?

[norseman]

58 minutes ago, Madison5716 said:

The need to look for bigger predators over tall savanah grasses?

Another theory as well is the heat absorbed on the back of a quadruped versus the much smaller signature of a biped. Top of the head and shoulders.

 

And of course much less tree cover to climb.

 

It’s probably a combination of a bunch of factors.

[bipedalist]

Quote

This study provides evidence that modern humans evolved from an ancestor with an African ape-like foot associated with terrestrial plantigrady and vertical climbing. Hominin upright walking therefore likely emerged in the context of semi-terrestrial quadrupedalism. 

 

 

https://elifesciences.org/articles/44433

 

 

On 2/11/2023 at 6:02 AM, hiflier said:

As long as this thread has strayed this far I have had a gnawing question to present. Did the Homo skeleton evolve/mutate a more bipedal structure out of Homo's need to walk upright? Or did bipedalism occur because the Homo skeleton had evolved/mutated in a way that facilitated Homo walking upright? i.e. did Humans find out one day that their "new" body shape allowed them to run on two legs and have their hands free for weapons?

 

It's easy to say that early Humans were bipedal, it's another to say early Humans force bipedalism into subsequent generations of skeletal evolution. Simply put, which came first, the need to walk upright? Or the Human skeleton's ability to allow bipedalism to become ubiquitous in all Human branches? Because bipedalism as a main means of efficient locomotion required a bone frame that would more easily facilitate that mode of travel.

 

So, chicken? Or the egg?

 

 

Sort of like asking why the fingerprints of identical twins are different,  Eh?  

[guyzonthropus]

Well, there's obviously a good number of causes that lead to our bipedalism. But first off, while convergent evolution may have brought sharks, dolphins and ichthyosaurs to quite rather similar body configuration, you notice these examples are from highly disparate groups evolving at very different times. I find it less likely that bipedalism developed within a single closely related group multiple times within a relatively very short time. As always the short comings of an vastly incomplete fossil record, limits the certainty we can hold a theory with.....bottlenecks, hybridizations, high rate selective factors all propelled our rise to bipedalism. For example, it's in transitional forms that the danger lies, so moving from mostly quadrupedal locomotion to mostly bipedal must have hit one of not many turning points where overall evasion proficiency declines in the process of switching over, which in a predator rich context is certainly a selective factor. And it's at these points where the secondary beneficial aspects of an upright stance probably came into play, where while they might not be as fast at that stage, they had the advantage of earlier warning, therefore the more quadrupled forms were eaten more often leaving the more bipedal to breed. They may well have been subject to periods of climate change resulting in the reduction of trees/forest in favor of plains as thing dried out and a shift in available prey animals which may have favored the upright bipedalism in their capture. 

The article linked above speaks of the LCA(Last Common Ancestor) between us and the great apes(primarily chimps) and how our divergence resulted in the various form of both hominids and apes, and our differing forms of locomotion, and yet, once again, the holes in the fossil record deny us knowledge of the actual route and rate of our coming to walk on two feet. When evolutionary lines could develop, interact, and disappear in relative short order, unbeknownst to current science, we can't know if it was even a gradual process based of physiological efficientcy, or if it was somehow jump started through a dramatic environmental shift forcing new behavior that demanded higher function on our part. Such as a relatively quick shift in heat levels that made running down larger prey a more feasible option, thanks to our sweat glands allowing long range pursuit and a foot structure changing to allow it, while our prey was stuck sweat free with hooves.. .