Fossils, footprints, and the evolution of human locomotion

Bipedal locomotion is considered one of the defining features that “makes us human”. Hypotheses about the evolution of human bipedalism date back at least as far as Aristotle, and questions about locomotion remain fundamental to the study of human evolutionary biology. Over the past century, paleontological discoveries have shed light on the diverse anatomies and styles of locomotion that characterized our extinct relatives, and those findings have driven numerous hypotheses of when and how humans came to walk and run the way we do today. This talk will highlight my team’s recent fossil discoveries in Kenya, and our latest experimental research, which are together reshaping our understandings of human anatomical and locomotor evolution. Some of our discoveries also provide surprising insights into ancient human environments and behaviors, such as the co-existence of multiple ancient human species on the same landscapes (i.e., sympatry). These emerging lines of research show great potential for advancing our understandings of multiple facets of human evolution.

Speaker: Kevin Hatala, Chatham University