Origins of human bipedalism
Research Topics
As bipedalism was arguably the first important step in the road to becoming Homo sapiens, the reason that made our ancestors start to stand erect is widely considered crucial to the whole process of human evolution. I proposed that human bipedalism was directly connected to the aposematic survival strategy used by our distant ancestors. Standing upright in order to seem taller, together with their noisy behaviour - rhythmically united singing and dancing, use of body painting and masks, body odour, and fearless behaviour - was the central defence mechanism, that gradually made our ancestors relatively safe from predators, and is what also turned them into superb aggressive scavengers. (I would also suggest reading about the phenomenon of the “Battle trance”)
- “'The taller the better' or the origins of human bipedalism": Excerpt from the 2014 book Tigers, Lions and Humans.