Bipedalism 2 million years older than thought?

[littlemissattitude]

According to National Geographic, bipedalism may have first appeared in hominids two million years earlier than paleontologists had thought:

Computer analysis of a fossil thigh bone indicates that a chimp-size human-like creature walked on two legs as early as six million years ago. Walking on two legs, known as bipedalism, is considered by scientists to be a distinguishing characteristic in what sets humans apart from apes.

Until now, the most widely accepted date for the advent of bipedalism was about four million years ago. That's when the hominids known as Australopithecus anamensis, lived. Hominids include humans and extinct near humans.

You can find the entire article here.

If this turns out to be true, it should go a long way toward solving the problem of whether hominids developed intelligence because they could walk upright or walked upright because they developed intelligence.

One thing that I found very interesting in this article is that one scientist, Owen Lovejoy, has proposed the idea that bipedalism evolved as a reproductive strategy in that it allowed cooperative care and a division of labor. I don't know that I buy his theory, but it is an interesting approach.

[I, Brian]

Nice article - now if only it would address the "Aquatic Ape" theory.