Journal
JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY INTERFACE
Volume 9, Issue 69, Pages 707-719Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2011.0258
Keywords
bipedalism; biomechanics; evolution; hominid; gait
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Funding
- Leverhulme Trust
- Natural Environment Research Council, UK
- NERC [NE/H004246/1, NE/H004211/1] Funding Source: UKRI
- Natural Environment Research Council [NE/H004246/1, NE/H004211/1] Funding Source: researchfish
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It is commonly held that the major functional features of the human foot (e. g. a functional longitudinal medial arch, lateral to medial force transfer and hallucal (big-toe) push-off) appear only in the last 2 Myr, but functional interpretations of footbones and footprints of early human ancestors (hominins) prior to 2 million years ago (Mya) remain contradictory. Pixel-wise topographical statistical analysis of Laetoli footprint morphology, compared with results from experimental studies of footprint formation; foot-pressure measurements in bipedalism of humans and non-human great apes; and computer simulation techniques, indicate that most of these functional features were already present, albeit less strongly expressed than in ourselves, in the maker of the Laetoli G-1 footprint trail, 3.66 Mya. This finding provides strong support to those previous studies which have interpreted the G-1 prints as generally modern in aspect.
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