Why do we walk upright?

spidergoat said:
More to the point, can we run down a deer? The answer is yes.
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A white-tailed deer, maybe, but that's only because they don't jump or run, but akwardly amble along.

Two legs do not make you faster. Nearly every four-legged medium to large
mammal can run faster than man.

two legs does allow you to carry stuff, as has been well explained already. Apes already *do* walk upright, just not all the time. Chimps and gorillas, etc, walk upright for various reasons, most often, because thier hands are full. Being able to carry food/tools/babies/etc long distances across open ground is thought to have been vital to survival in areas where the trees had been reduced to small pockets surrounded by open savannah. those who could walk father while encumbered were more likely to survive - they wouldn't have to re-forage or re-create tools once they arrived at thier next forest oasis.
 
The chimp walk on 4 legs is not faster than 2 longer legs specialized for running. Remember that's what we started with. We could not become 4 legged runners and still retain the ability to throw a rock or spear. We cannot run faster than a deer, but we can follow it's tracks until it's too tired to escape, we have greater endurance.
 
river-wind said:
A white-tailed deer, maybe, but that's only because they don't jump or run, but akwardly amble along.
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It's not about out sprinting it, it's about running until the thing can run no more, while hucking spears at it. There are very few animals with more endurance than a human.
 
spidergoat said:
We cannot run faster than a deer, but we can follow it's tracks until it's too tired to escape, we have greater endurance.
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Most humans don't have anywhere near that level of endurance. Our bodies have that capacity and some individuals have trained themselves to use it. Mesolithic hunters presumably had to all develop it but I doubt that the members of the tribe who weren't hunters could track a deer until it was exhausted. I work out and keep in good shape, and I understand about pacing, and I could probably walk more than ten miles if I had to, but I could not run further than a quarter mile.

Many species of bovines are apparently capable of stampeding for long distances. But most prey animals are sprinters because that's what the predators are. They don't chase their prey for miles. For one thing it would use up too much energy and they'd just have to catch more prey. For another, they catch more prey with stealth and patience than by outrunning them. Herbivores don't have much reason to develop their long-distance running abilities.

Yet I wonder if it could be developed, just as some humans develop theirs.

Cheetahs are famous for being able to run 70mph, but only for barely half a minute. Yet they're also capable of "loping" along at 30-40mph for half an hour.
 
Fraggle Rocker said:
Most humans don't have anywhere near that level of endurance. Our bodies have that capacity and some individuals have trained themselves to use it. Mesolithic hunters presumably had to all develop it but I doubt that the members of the tribe who weren't hunters could track a deer until it was exhausted. I work out and keep in good shape, and I understand about pacing, and I could probably walk more than ten miles if I had to, but I could not run further than a quarter mile.
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It's possible to walk 600 miles in a month, unsupported. That's starting with what you end with (except food, tp, and bug dope), and following trails more established than game.

Since we've become sedentary, there are many, many humans that would be far to weak to survive a paleolithic existance.

Many species of bovines are apparently capable of stampeding for long distances. But most prey animals are sprinters because that's what the predators are. They don't chase their prey for miles. For one thing it would use up too much energy and they'd just have to catch more prey. For another, they catch more prey with stealth and patience than by outrunning them. Herbivores don't have much reason to develop their long-distance running abilities.
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There are African hunters, still around today, that hunt lion and elephants with iron spears. They wound the animal, and it takes off. They then pursue it for up to two weeks, without sleep or food, until it's too injured to continue. Then they finish it off.

That's their manhood ritual.
 
Oniw17 said:
I believe we are the only great apes with long legs and short arms. I am told this is because we walk upright. So why do we walk upright?
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When I saw this post I almost LOL. What would drive a man to one day wake up in the morning and ask this question?
 
Eventually well just end up sitting down again.

evolution.jpg
 
Roman said:
There are African hunters, still around today, that hunt lion and elephants with iron spears. They wound the animal, and it takes off. They then pursue it for up to two weeks, without sleep or food, until it's too injured to continue. Then they finish it off.
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Quite so. If you want to see something similar with your own eyes get 'Life of Mammals' by David Attenborough. I think it is on the last DVD how african hunters run after their prey in the heat of the African savanna. The key is that the physiology of the human body is actually better adapted at keeping the body temperature below the critical temperature then the prey.

This hunt takes a very long time and once the hunter catches up the prey animal is heat exhausted. It can't go anywhere. The hunter simply has to finish it.
 
Oniw17 said:
So why do we walk upright?
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Several million years ago, the trees in and around eastern Africa were dying off, creating what is now the Afar desert. A species of intelligent, tree-dwelling, chimp-lie primates, called Australopithecus, lived in this region; its environment was changing drastically, and in order to find more food and shelter, it had to cross grassy plains and desert sands. To facilitate its survival, it began to walk on the ground, and cross distances on foot. In order to see better and give it more stability when walking, early Australopithecines stood nearly upright. This creature, through slight genetic changes and mutations, developed into newer species of hominid, eventually evolving into Homo habilis, the first tool-using hominid & one the first hominids of the genus Homo), which in turn evolved into Homo erectus, the first fully upright hominid.
 
I have my own theory (or is it :confused: ) that at some stage during our evolution, we stood (and perhaps walked) upright in order to see better (remember, we were always highly visal animals during daylight). This is in much the same way as meerkats do today. However, being more intelligent than meerkats, we eventually found this stance to be useful for using tools and discovering the world around us.
 
Spurious has it right by saying it was a change in our environment: a climate change. I read a National Geographic article a longtime ago that showed the heat dissipation from a human body on all fours compared to standing upright. We evolved out of Africa. Standing upright was an advantageous adaptation favored by natural selection in a hot environment, like out in the Serengeti Plains of Africa. When you stand upright, there's a lot less direct body surface exposure to the sun than when on all fours: the sun only beats down on your head. If we stayed on all fours, we would have been cooked alive. We had already lost most of our thick fur or hide compared to the other mammal wildlife in Africa, so we had no other direct protection from the sun's rays.
 
Don't forget the benefit of being higher up from the ground to see farther for danger and food sign.
 
Because we're not giraffes. We're humans.

Ever heard of a slippery slope, Valich? You've just slid down a huge one.
 
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