Topic: The monkey behind the machine

[jp2ykz]

Just as a side note there is a pretty strong theory that bipedalism was actually developed in swamp like conditions based on dating and conditions that existed when early bipedal bones were found. The other evidence that supports this is primates that are currently developing more bipedal characteristics are found in a swamp like area.

check this out:
http://compuball.com/Inquisition/hominids.htm

If you look at mammals with little hair they are all found in aquatic environments.

Just an interesting tid bit...

There is no doubt that hominids had to survive in a wide range of environments after the bipedal adaptation and this is not even the most prevalent theory I just think it makes allot of sense as to why a silly adaptation would come to be. Quadrupedal "knuckle walking" is far more efficient and faster in natural terrains for apes than bipedal locomotion is/was for hominids/humans from what I understand. 

Dose this mean we should run quadrupedally?? Probably not most of the time. Our hips make it difficult.

After that adaptation hominids spent thousands of years in all types of terrains having to adapt both physically and intellectually. My challenge here is to discover and learn new ways to move based on our evolutionary background. Are there things that we are well adapted to that we are overlooking in parkour as methods of movement?   

[Jack Kendall]

Humans, from an evolutionary standpoint, are highly efficient long distance runners. That's how we would capture and subdue our prey; we would simply chase them until they overheated. As for the "swamp like" conditions, idk... from what I've heard and studied, central Africa's plains is where we got our start.

[M2.]

This gave me an interesting thought that I have nothing scientific to back it with -

Wouldn't creatures with centrally located musculature be more efficient over long distances?

What I mean is that most of our locomotive muscle mass is located in places that move quite a bit when we move (glutes, hamstrings, quads) as compared to say a horse, dog, or antelope whose legs carry relatively very little muscle, the prime movers are located more centrally to their body.

I have seen a TV show where one tribe hunts an animal and follows it until it is exhausted - but this seems pretty inefficient vs trapping and killing - is this really indicative of all primitive hunting methods?

[jp2ykz]

I think you are right with the hunting but since the adaptation of habitual bipedal locomotion only the last few hominid species were intelligent enough to trap. I forget now exactly how long but that = many thousands of years that hominids had to chase or scavenge. I think the later is more plausible. Ever tried to chase a deer. lol

So long distance is one adaptation. What other attributes do we have?   


PS.
As for the water theory it's just an alternate theory that seems very plausible.   

[GoldenSlumbers]

"The initial and most extensive publication [White, et al, 1994] concerning Ardipithecus. ramidus specified that 17 hominid fossils had been located by the end of 1993. These specimens were retrieved from a cluster of localities West of the Awash River, within the Afar Depression, Aramis, Ethiopia.

Hominid and associated fossil faunas, including wood, seed and vertebrate specimens, were found entirely within a single interval overlying the basal Gaala Tuff complex, and beneath the Daam Aatu Basaltic Tuff (these volcanic strata have produced dates of 4.389 and 4.388 million years, respectively) [Renne, et al, 1999]. This definitively places all Ardipithecine specimens just shy of 4.4 million years ago.

Additionally, the associated strata were most likely produced within the context of a heavily forested, flood plain environment. Evidence for this conclusion was derived from representative non-human fossil remains, particularly from those species whose present-day analogues are environment-specific. " Quoted http://www.archaeologyinfo.com/ardipithecusramidus.htm.

This specimen offers a new view on how scientists believe modern humans developed bipedalism.  They think it may have benefited males looking for mates to be able to use their hands to carry food back to their family, thus limiting them to their legs for locomotion.

[Muse_of_Fire]

My challenge here is to discover and learn new ways to move based on our evolutionary background. Are there things that we are well adapted to that we are overlooking in parkour as methods of movement?   

This is an excellent question. A few things related to this that I have often toyed with in thought experiments, but have never really taken the time to delve into, are:

1. Primates can grab with their feet as well as their hands. Our feet have obviously changed to be less suited to this, but with training there is still quite a bit of articulation available in the feet. I experiment with this often when I train. Would I be able to grasp with my toes and hang upside-down, like I can grasp with my hands and hang freely? Probably not. But how can I use my feet and toes to reach, balance, and "touch down" at the start of a landing? I imagine climbers have lots of practice/experience with this?

2. Given the differing stresses on males vs. females during our evolutionary history (assuming the basic hunter-gatherer model which seems to be the most popular/most widely accepted...), are there ways of moving that women haven't yet fully explored in parkour, given the relatively low representation of women in the discipline? This is, admittedly, a potentially "dangerous" or divisive question and I don't mean for it to be so. But it is something that has crossed my mind beyond the obvious discrepancies in upper vs. lower body strength/power between the sexes.

Great... now you'll be keeping me up all night pondering these things.

Awesome question.

[Tom Coppola]

Quadrupedal "knuckle walking" is far more efficient and faster in natural terrains for apes than bipedal locomotion is/was for hominids/humans from what I understand. 

Dose this mean we should run quadrupedally?? Probably not most of the time. Our hips make it difficult.

While our anatomy still allows us to move quadrupedally, it is actually much more efficient overall to move bipedally.  There are a lot of theories on how bipedalism developed and many of them fit together pretty well.  From what I've studied, bipedalism was extremely beneficial to moving between sparse patches of forest that came about through changing climatic conditions.  It also freed up the hominids' hands, allowing them to carry food that they foraged and make tools. The evolutionary forces were stronger for developing bipedalism than for the potential disadvantageous aspects of walking on two feet, such as injury to the foot making it extremely difficult to move around.

We were not designed by evolution to run quadrupedally (though we still can), our anatomy suggests that we run on two legs for optimal performance.  Its interesting that our anatomy also allows us to brachiate and we do as children and in parkour.  The ability to lift our arms over our heads is something only apes and hominins can do, not even monkeys (monkey bars = misnomer).

I have seen a TV show where one tribe hunts an animal and follows it until it is exhausted - but this seems pretty inefficient vs trapping and killing - is this really indicative of all primitive hunting methods?

The Bushmen of the Kalahari desert are the only tribal society that I know of that still do the persistence hunt.  I'm pretty sure they hunt that way because their environment, being a desert, doesn't really allow for sneaking and surrounding prey or even allow them to get close enough for long distance weaponry to work, but don't quote me on that.  The way that humans hunt is largely influenced by the environment they live in and the organisms that live there.

[M2.]

Great stuff everyone, thanks!!! Where's phytolith in a time like this?

[jp2ykz]

bipedalism was extremely beneficial to moving between sparse patches of forest that came about through changing climatic conditions.

Why?? I don't see a connection. Why couldn't they knuckle walk? Seems like they would be much more visible to predators.

It also freed up the hominids' hands, allowing them to carry food that they foraged and make tools.

The bipedal adaptation happened in Australopithecus afarensis, or possibly/likely in A. ramidus like the above article linked to by GoldenSlumbers suggests. Neither of which were smarter than a chimp and there is no reason to believe that they made and kept tools. It was much much later that hominids made quality tools and kept them. Larger brains happened far after bipedalism. Also chimps can walk on two feet carrying things just fine. It looks silly because of their hip angle but it's hard for me to see that this would over ride the benefits of knuckle walking. Just imagine if they did spot a predator. The chimp would just drop the crap he was carrying and be able to have a chance at escape where as a slow sprinting hominid would be screwed. Remember were talking like the 3 foot range for height (not a very long stride)

I have no doubt that after that hominids had to run long distances to catch prey (they were too stupid to make traps) and habitual meat eating was eventually what allowed for the metabolic adaptations that were necessary for dramatic brain size increases. 

If we go back though our history, what other environments other than open plains did hominids or apes adapt to and which of those adaptations do we still have?

The adaptation of the free moving shoulders is probably our coolest trait. It developed in apes but I remember learning about that years ago and going directly to the trees behind my house and swinging by my arms for hours!!!

If we look at how chimps can swing, I think we as traceurs can add allot of style and dynamic new movement to moving in trees as well as scaffolding!!!

I wonder what other urban environments have good stuff to swing from?? 

[Tom Coppola]

Why?? I don't see a connection. Why couldn't they knuckle walk? Seems like they would be much more visible to predators.

The bipedal adaptation happened in Australopithecus afarensis, or possibly/likely in A. ramidus like the above article linked to by GoldenSlumbers suggests. Neither of which were smarter than a chimp and there is no reason to believe that they made and kept tools. It was much much later that hominids made quality tools and kept them. Larger brains happened far after bipedalism. Also chimps can walk on two feet carrying things just fine. It looks silly because of their hip angle but it's hard for me to see that this would over ride the benefits of knuckle walking. Just imagine if they did spot a predator. The chimp would just drop the crap he was carrying and be able to have a chance at escape where as a slow sprinting hominid would be screwed. Remember were talking like the 3 foot range for height (not a very long stride)

I have no doubt that after that hominids had to run long distances to catch prey (they were too stupid to make traps) and habitual meat eating was eventually what allowed for the metabolic adaptations that were necessary for dramatic brain size increases. 

If we go back though our history, what other environments other than open plains did hominids or apes adapt to and which of those adaptations do we still have?

The adaptation of the free moving shoulders is probably our coolest trait. It developed in apes but I remember learning about that years ago and going directly to the trees behind my house and swinging by my arms for hours!!!

If we look at how chimps can swing, I think we as traceurs can add allot of style and dynamic new movement to moving in trees as well as scaffolding!!!

I wonder what other urban environments have good stuff to swing from?? 

Knuckle walking long distances between sparsely located patches of forest isn't plausible.  Its not energy efficient.  Which is why humans can run/travel long distances and chimps cannot.  While it might have exposed them to predators, the evolutionary pressure to move between environments was greater than the disadvantages.

Tool use and increased brain size probably did evolve after bipedalism, but when faced with a situation of moving between patches of environment, foraging became more important and freeing the hands was adaptive.  Chimps can walk for short distances bipedally, but they aren't nearly as efficient, not to mention carrying things for longer distances is pretty much out of the question.

Ardipithecus is a relatively new discovery in the fossil record and is still being sorted out.  They're suggesting that it was arboreal and a "facultative biped" meaning that ardipithecus walked upright for some distance, but spent most of its time in trees. 

Early hominids probably didn't eat very much meat and thus didn't really hunt.  Extant apes are all herbivorous with the exception of chimps who occasionally hunt small monkeys and eat infant chimps.  Meat eating in hominids probably arose through scavenging for food and primitive tool use probably came with it to process the carcasses.  Remember that tool use isn't totally unique to humans, other primates use tools to crack nuts, chimps manipulate sticks to pull termites from their mounds, etc.

[Phytolith]

Neat stuff to think about! I have a couple of comments to share and I apologize if I end up sounding like a teacher or something.  It's because I just got my PhD in physical anthropology and am really immersed in this topic.

Lots of people study the origins of human locomotion, how/when/where it evolved, how efficient it is, and so on. Just last week in Nature there was an article that showed that running barefoot is more efficient than running with shoes, because you land on the balls of your feet and use your calf muscles to better advantage.

There are a lot of theories out there about the origin of bipedalism.  Like Tom said, the consensus is that bipedalism evolved as a way of getting quickly from one small forested area to another, in a time period when the environment was getting less uniform and more "patchy".  This was happening well before A. ramidus or  A. africanus since those guys already had biology that was pretty well adapted to bipedalism (they probably had a different kind of bipedalism from ours - just like there are different kinds of quadrupedalism: compare, say, a horse, which runs on just the middle toe (the others have disappeared over time) and a bear, which walks on the flat of its foot, like we do).

JP is right that bipedalism evolved well before we were using tools. Walking bipedally would have allowed hominins to travel through areas of thick grass and see over the tops of the grass (and thus able to better see the predators), to travel longer distances (bipedal walking is more efficient than chimp's knucklewalking), and possibly to better thermoregulate (because, if you're standing upright in an open, grassy environment, less of your body is hit by direct rays of the sun).    

GoldenSlumbers mentions a recent theory about A. ramidus, that bipedalism evolved as a mechanism for males to provision females.  This, unfortunately, is the result of one guy's theory becoming really popular, but it's not backed up by any real evidence. The excavator of the A. ramidus fossils, Owen Lovejoy, suggested that because the male and female A. ramidus had similarly-sized canines, this indicated there was no competition between males for mates. In his mind, this lack of competition led to everything from increased female breast size to nuclear families and male provisioning, even though there's NO EVIDENCE at all for this kind of social organization. Many people in the field think that this is terrible science and are shocked that it got published in Nature, and several, including people in my department, are writing a response to Nature.

As for the environment in which this change occurred, many of the early hominin fossils are found in riverine/forested environments, that are usually surrounded by dry, grassy plains. I'm pretty sure that bipedalism didn't evolve for navigating the wetlands and swamps, especially because rivers and water-sources would have been dangerous places for hominins to be - crocodiles being common, and other predators using water holes as hunting grounds. Instead, the forests around the rivers would have been the preferred habitat, and getting across the plains from one forested area to another was where bipedalism gave an advantage.  

Our more ancient ancestors evolved to move around in the complex, 3-D environments of forests, which gives us a lot of benefits, not the least of which is 3d vision! We do have fantastically mobile shoulders - not as much as apes do, for sure, but gibbons and orangs spend more of their time in the trees than chimps - they are amazing to watch.  While we're more distantly related, we also share in common some traits with baboons (especially things like finger, hand and foot length ratios). Some baboon species spend a lot of time climbing and sleeping in cliffs. You might say that our morphology, while perhaps not evolved specifically to cliff-climbing, does allow us to climb things other than trees, at least much better than our long-fingered and -toed ancestors did.

Finally, I was intrigued by your comment about meat-eating and the evolution of brain size. That is another area of huge debate, and one near and dear to my heart. There's some new evidence that it's not just eating meat, but eating cooked foods in general (meat AND vegetable) that would have allowed this brain size increase. But that's a bit off topic for here.

yeesh, sorry to ramble on so much! I'm really excited that there are people out there who are thinking of how our body can move outside of how we "usually" do.

[jp2ykz]

Not at all thanks for the info it's been years since I was in a class on this stuff. It's good to here what has been going on. I knew this would end up being somewhat of a more technical discussion. Almost barely on topic for parkour. Lol

Our more ancient ancestors evolved to move around in the complex, 3-D environments of forests, which gives us a lot of benefits, not the least of which is 3d vision!

Yeah this is a way cool adaptation!!!

We couldn't do parkour worth crap without it.

Good point about the crocodiles though.

[Tom Coppola]

Thanks Phytolith.  Congrats on your PhD.  May I ask what specifically you're researching?

You touched on a lot that I left out/couldn't put into words/didn't know at all.  Really informative!

Also, I agree that the Lovejoy hypothesis is bogus, but oddly enough it was also presented in my physical anthropology book as a generally accepted idea.  My professor remained quite skeptical.

As for the eating of cooked foods, is the hypothesis for increased intelligence suggesting that the foods were softened and required less processing in the mouth, resulting in smaller masticatory  muscles, thereby allowing for a larger braincase?  I recently watched a documentary about genetics and it mentioned decreased size of masticatory muscles may have allowed an increase in brain size and therefore intelligence, but it didn't discuss why that might have happened.  Cooking and processing food externally would probably go along with that idea.

[jp2ykz]

I agree on allot of stuff and think that the explanations given are solid. However I wouldn't personally go as far as saying that the Lovejoy hypothesis bogus. It is just a hypothesis and science is about finding the truth. I mean it's not like the hypothesis that is the "consensus" has a whole lot of proof either. Both have their holes and the only real advantage to the generally accepted theory, is that it is generally accepted from what I have seen.

I mean to see over grass. A chimp can do that just fine.

The over heating thing is a point but these weren't large creatures. Would it have played that big of a role? Also what percent of the body is shaded or revives less direct sun by walking upright? (I honestly don't recall). What are the body temperature difference estimates?

There were more predators on ground than in the swamps from what I understand from the time, and being accustom to an arboreal environment they at least have a chance where on land they seem totally screwed. Especially in a time where habitat was diminishing and predators were extra hungry.

Chimpanzee groups can travel up to 9 miles in a day while scavenging. How far was the distance between these "patches" of forest. If it was really far I could potentially see the benefit. There would be some energy conservation etc. But I'm willing to bet a chimp could go a good 20+ in a day if it had to.       

Standing quickly from sitting when bipedal can produce dizziness and even fainting because the cardiovascular system has many of thousands of years more of adaptation for a more horizontal body position.

Habitual bipedal locomotion is just such a silly adaptation. It is hard to really see where a survival force strong enough to change an already successful design would come from. I am not saying that the commonly accepted theory is wrong just that it is not completely ludicrous to consider the alternatives when the consensus thinking has allot of week points. This is my opinion based on what I know. If there is something that I am not aware of I am always willing to listen and re think. But I haven't heard or seen any strong proof as of yet one way or the other.

Off topic again.

What about later adaptations of hominids?

Could any of those be useful to parkour??

[Mr.WWII]

All the current barefoot running research is incredibly interesting, considering how much the importance of good shoes has been shoved down our throats our whole lives... and it might be BS

[DaveS]

There's a lot of good information in this thread. I think the number of possible explanations goes to show how interlinked all our abilities are, and I think this thread also shows how important versatility is to our species, as many of the evolutionary changes have been to broaden our capability rather than to specialise. Each ability that has developed and helped us survive has helped us in many ways.

JP, if bipedal movement developed in equatorial regions then with the sun more or less directly overhead walking upright would make a large difference in surface area directly facing the sun. You can make some estimate of the difference by observing how much of the human body is covered with dense hair, as with the ability to sweat the only real advantage of thick hair is to prevent direct sunlight from hitting bare skin.

I think the question of why humans came to rely on bipedal movement is a different one to asking how it evolved in the first place. From my understanding of evolution abilities are lost only when they are not used, and so that would suggest that the reliance on bipedal movement came as a result of humans spending much less time in varied environments and more time in environments where bipedal walking was an advantage, i.e. more open grassland. To me this suggests that  something in the environment changed to give us an advantage there through abilities we already had, as changes always happen for a reason.

Muse_of_fire, I've been trying to analyse the differences between male and female movement for much of the last year. I think there are all kinds of differences between the genders that necessitate different methods for getting past obstacles and I think it's certainly possible, likely even, that parkour hasn't yet fully explored them. I know several other coaches who have spent time on this issue recently, for this reason.
http://www.britishparkour.org/index.php?name=Content_6&pid=1&page=5 has some of the female perspectives that sparked my research, if you're interested.

[Phytolith]

Tom- Cooking did a lot that was a huge benefit, much much more than making food easier to chew (though that is certainly a benefit). Cooking gelatinizes the starches in plant foods, which are usually semi-crystalline and thus extremely difficult for our digestive enzymes to attack and break apart when they're raw. Cooking reduces toxins, bacteria and parasites that live in both animal and plant food, meaning that an individual can spend less time and less energy being sick, and using more of the energy from food to do other things.  There have been some interesting studies on people who eat only raw food that show, despite the fact that they have really advanced processing technologies (juicers, blenders, etc.), they lose dangerous amounts of weight and most of the women stop menstruating (which means that they can't reproduce, and become a genetic dead-end).  My research is on the use of plant foods by early humans - I find evidence of starch grains and phytoliths (another kind of plant microfossil) on their teeth and tools, and can tell in some cases if it was cooked or not, and can often identify the plant species itself based on the shape and size of the starch grain or phytolith. If you're curious: http://home.gwu.edu/~ahenry.

Dave- What kind of research are you doing? I'd be very curious to see what you find. The article you linked to is interesting and I've certainly seen similar patterns among the students I teach parkour to.

Jp- The grassland that would have separated one woody patch from another would have been somewhere more like 2-3 feet tall, interspersed with brushy patches, and would have been increasingly dense towards the ground.  Chimps would have not only have had a hard time seeing over, but would have had a hard time moving through (they tend to move arms and face first through most environments, but a biped can move feet first - putting the feet out in front) . Another problem, of course, is that we're assuming that the common ancestor from which both humans and chimps evolved was mostly identical to modern chimps.  We can't really know this, though - we have a couple of chimp-like teeth but other than that there are no fossils of ancient chimp ancestors.  So maybe the ancestors of chimps was also shorter, or particularly poorly adapted to dealing with grassy, patchy environments. While chimps can travel long distances, it is likely that bipeds could do the same distance more efficiently than ancient chimp ancestors.  You're right that there are a lot of problems that have come about because of bipedality, but they just mean that there was a very strong evolutionary force that made being bipedal much more advantageous.  It wouldn't have appeared otherwise!

About the term consensus - I used it poorly. What I meant was that the majority of the evidence, not necessarily the majority of the people, supports the suggestion that bipedality evolved as a response to increasing aridity and patchiness of woodland environments. Lovejoy's hypothesis is pretty bogus because there he has only the barest sliver of evidence to support it. I applaud the idea of creating new hypotheses, but the point of a hypothesis is to test it by going out to see if the data support it. Unfortunately, many of the "bigger" conclusions of Lovejoy's work can't be tested. There's no good way of looking in the fossil/archaeological record to see if there was male provisioning, or larger female breast size, or nuclear families. So while he's no doubt correct about the similarity in canine size, and probably correct about the reduction of male-male aggression (since this is a pattern seen over and over again in other modern primate species), the rest of his theory is more like speculation than actual scientific hypotheses. 

[DaveS]

I'm concentrating on trying to identify possible differences in thought processes rather than the physical differences as the mechanical differences involved in movement are fairly straightforward and not all that significant for parkour.

It's a difficult subject to research as the philosophy and training method of parkour has essentially been created and maintained by young adult males, meaning that there isn't anything in the parkour community free from male gender bias. The only way to discover natural differences therefore is to involve yourself with people free from that influence, so either non-practitioners or absolute beginners.

It's difficult to find the opportunity to speak in depth to non-practitioners on these kinds of subjects, so most of the information I get is from the beginners I see who already have some strength of mind and self-awareness. With them, the best way to discover how they think is to present them with different ideas and approaches and see which ones they enjoy and stick with, as we all find it easiest to think in ways we're already familiar with. The best learning experience I had was towards the end of last year when I ran an adult introductory parkour class that by chance was attended entirely by women, and I was free to experiment a bit more with the session to explore the areas they identified with most easily.
It's a long learning process though.

Some time in the future we will be able to research this subject more actively, as the differences will become more obvious and we'll all have a better idea of what questions to ask to learn the reasons behind the differences, but for now I think it's still simply a case of observing those differences to give ourselves a starting point.

[max eisenberg]

Humans, from an evolutionary standpoint, are highly efficient long distance runners. That's how we would capture and subdue our prey; we would simply chase them until they overheated. As for the "swamp like" conditions, idk... from what I've heard and studied, central Africa's plains is where we got our start.

actually we are not quite sure, we recently discovered a fossil that has similar hip structure and bone structure to our human bodies.

the fossil was of a lemur type of creature, it was on the discovery channel quite some time ago, a year or more or something.