Anthropology.net

I don’t know how I missed this paper, “Stand and shuffle: When does it make energetic sense?” It was published last month in the Journal of Physical Anthropology. I’m sharing it with you now because the bipedalism is heavily studied in anthropology. Bipedal locomotion is perhaps one of only traits that is predominately ‘human.’

The two authors, Patricia Kramer and Adam Sylvester, are well versed in the origin of hominid bipedalism and locomotor energetics. In this new paper they test the hypothesis that shuffling emerged as a precursor to walking as a way of saving metabolic energy.

They developed a mathematical model that calculated the energetics and metabolic efficiencies of locomition based upon body plan. For a chimp to bipedally move about distances greater than about 50 feet, it was found that it would not be metabolically efficient. But it shuffling distances less than 30 feet was for the chimp. They used the chimp model because they say that a chimp’s body plan is very much like that of our last common shared ancestor.

This conclusion is in line with three posts I shared last year on the energetics of bipedalism, especially the latter two where I tackled a common question asked by people, “If upright walking is so energetically favorable, why do apes still “knuckle-walk”?” and “Chimpanzees Gait Energetics & The Origin of Human Bipedalism.”

Sylvester, A.D., Kramer, P.A. (2008). Stand and shuffle: When does it make energetic sense?. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 135(4), 484-488. DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.20752

Survival International, the non-profit organization that helps tribal peoples defend their lives, protect their lands and determine their own futures has released new aerial photos of uncontacted peoples at the border of Brazil and Peru. The photographs are remarkable, the people are depicted shooting at the aircraft with arrows and throwing stones. You may have also noticed that they appear to have body paint, which is not Photoshopped — the males are painted in a redish-orange color and the female(s) are painted in black.

I don’t really appreciate how the press is handling this news. There’s a lot of conjecture being spun, such as absurd captions that read, “The tribespeople are likely to think the plane that took this photograph is a spirit or large bird.” Really? How do you know for sure that they think the plane is a bird or a spirit, Michael Hanlon? Perhaps they are just scared out of their minds that there are people in the air? I think it is pretty pitiful that outsiders really belittle tribal peoples, especially in scenarios like this where we know little to nothing about them!

Anyways, it is pretty phenomenal news. The irony is that last year, almost to the date, another previously uncontacted tribe in the Amazon was discovered — the Metyktire.