Friday, September 14, 2007

Early Man Could Walk but not Run - No Achilles tendon

Finding: The earliest humans almost certainly walked upright on two legs but may have struggled to run at even half the speed of modern man.


A new study proposes that if early humans lacked an Achilles tendon, as modern chimps and gorillas do, then their ability to run would have been severely compromised.

Research supports the belief that the earliest humans used efficient bipedal walking rather than chimp-like 'Groucho' walking. But if, as seems likely, early humans lacked an Achilles tendon then whilst their ability to walk would be largely unaffected our work suggests running effectiveness would be greatly reduced with top speeds halved and energy costs more than doubled.

Efficient running would have been essential to allow our ancestors to move from a largely herbivorous diet to the much more familiar hunting activities associated with later humans. What we need to discover now is when in our evolution did we develop an Achilles tendon as knowing this will help unravel the mystery of our origins.

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