Harcourt-Smith W E H, Throckmorton Z, Congdon K A, Zipfel B, Deane A S, Drapeau M S M, Churchill S E, Berger L R, DeSilva J M
Department of Anthropology, Lehman College CUNY, 250 Bedford Park Boulevard W, Bronx, New York 10468, USA.
Division of Paleontology, American Museum of Natural History, CPW @ W. 79th Street, New York, New York 10024, USA.
Nat Commun. 2015 Oct 6;6:8432. doi: 10.1038/ncomms9432.
Modern humans are characterized by a highly specialized foot that reflects our obligate bipedalism. Our understanding of hominin foot evolution is, although, hindered by a paucity of well-associated remains. Here we describe the foot of Homo naledi from Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa, using 107 pedal elements, including one nearly-complete adult foot. The H. naledi foot is predominantly modern human-like in morphology and inferred function, with an adducted hallux, an elongated tarsus, and derived ankle and calcaneocuboid joints. In combination, these features indicate a foot well adapted for striding bipedalism. However, the H. naledi foot differs from modern humans in having more curved proximal pedal phalanges, and features suggestive of a reduced medial longitudinal arch. Within the context of primitive features found elsewhere in the skeleton, these findings suggest a unique locomotor repertoire for H. naledi, thus providing further evidence of locomotor diversity within both the hominin clade and the genus Homo.
现代人类的特征是拥有高度特化的足部，这反映了我们的 obligate 两足行走方式。然而，我们对古人类足部进化的理解受到了关联良好的遗骸稀少的阻碍。在这里，我们利用 107 块足部骨骼元素，包括一只近乎完整的成年足部，描述了来自南非迪纳莱迪洞穴的纳莱迪人的足部。纳莱迪人的足部在形态和推断功能上主要类似现代人类，具有内收的拇趾、拉长的跗骨以及特化的踝关节和跟骰关节。综合起来，这些特征表明其足部非常适合大步两足行走。然而，纳莱迪人的足部与现代人类不同，其近端趾骨更弯曲，并且有迹象表明内侧纵弓降低。在骨骼其他部位发现的原始特征的背景下，这些发现表明纳莱迪人有独特的运动方式，从而为古人类分支和人属内的运动多样性提供了进一步的证据。
