Walk This Way: Man's First Footprints

[Nikos]

http://abcnews.go.com/International/...6972238&page=1

Scientists have discovered footprints in northern Kenya that prove human beings have been walking our walk for at least 1.5 million years.

Nice find. It's interesting to see how we developed our bipedal locomotion.

[boofhead]

http://abcnews.go.com/International/...6972238&page=1

Nice find. It's interesting to see how we developed our bipedal locomotion.

I was reading about this the other day here

http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/549430/.

They are supposedly from a hominid but not a human.

[MrMofo]

The find is important not because it proves we walk upright, but because of the debate over WHY we walk upright, and HOW that came about.

One of the more hotly debated issues is whether we walked upright first, and then developed grasping hands and a big brain, or whether we developed the smarts and hands first and then pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps.

Being able to push the date of how long ago we walked upright and truly bipedally is important to pushing the answer one way or another.

Tbh tho, iirc, 1.5 mil years, while an amazing find, won't affect that debate too much. That's homo erectus territory (again iirc) and im pretty sure we knew we were all soccer players at that point anyway.


EDIT: and when i say Smart, i don't mean like Stephen Hawking smart, i mean like paris hilton smart.
EDIT EDIT: tho then again, PH is probably not the best example to use for an upright stance either.

[Helm]

They could walk the walk but could they talk the talk?