Bramble Dennis M, Lieberman Daniel E
Department of Biology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA.
Nature. 2004 Nov 18;432(7015):345-52. doi: 10.1038/nature03052.
Striding bipedalism is a key derived behaviour of hominids that possibly originated soon after the divergence of the chimpanzee and human lineages. Although bipedal gaits include walking and running, running is generally considered to have played no major role in human evolution because humans, like apes, are poor sprinters compared to most quadrupeds. Here we assess how well humans perform at sustained long-distance running, and review the physiological and anatomical bases of endurance running capabilities in humans and other mammals. Judged by several criteria, humans perform remarkably well at endurance running, thanks to a diverse array of features, many of which leave traces in the skeleton. The fossil evidence of these features suggests that endurance running is a derived capability of the genus Homo, originating about 2 million years ago, and may have been instrumental in the evolution of the human body form.
大步双足行走是原始人类的一种关键衍生行为，可能在黑猩猩和人类谱系分化后不久就出现了。虽然双足步态包括行走和奔跑，但奔跑通常被认为在人类进化中没有发挥主要作用，因为与大多数四足动物相比，人类（像猿类一样）短跑能力较差。在这里，我们评估人类在持续长跑中的表现，并回顾人类和其他哺乳动物耐力跑能力的生理和解剖学基础。从几个标准来看，人类在耐力跑方面表现出色，这得益于一系列多样的特征，其中许多在骨骼上留下了痕迹。这些特征的化石证据表明，耐力跑是智人的一种衍生能力，起源于约200万年前，并且可能在人类身体形态的进化中发挥了作用。
