Musculoskeletal and Ageing Science, The University of Liverpool, William Henry Duncan Building, West Derby Street, Liverpool L7 8TX, UK.
Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK.
J Biomech. 2023 Aug;157:111701. doi: 10.1016/j.jbiomech.2023.111701. Epub 2023 Jul 4.
Motion analysis, as applied to evolutionary biomechanics, has experienced its own evolution over the last 50 years. Here we review how an ever-increasing fossil record, together with continuing advancements in biomechanics techniques, have shaped our understanding of the origin of upright bipedal walking. The original, and long-established hypothesis held by Lamarck (1809), Darwin (1859) and Keith (1934), amongst others, maintained that bipedality originated in an arboreal context. However, the first field studies of gorilla and chimpanzees from the 1960's, highlighted their so-called 'knucklewalking' quadrupedalism, leading scientists to assume, semi-automatically, that knucklewalking must have been the precursor to bipedality. It would not be until the discovery of skeletons of early human relatives Australopithecus afarensis and Australopithecus prometheus, and the inclusion of methods of analysis from computer science, biomechanics, sports science and medicine, that the knucklewalking hypothesis would be most robustly challenged. Their short, but human-like lower limbs and human-like hand indicated that knucklewalking was not part of our ancestral locomotor repertoire. Rather, most current research in evolutionary biomechanics agrees it was a combination of climbing and bipedalism, both in an arboreal context, which facilitated upright, terrestrial, bipedal walking over short distances.
运动分析在进化生物力学中的应用在过去的 50 年里经历了自身的发展。在这里，我们回顾了不断增加的化石记录，以及生物力学技术的持续进步，是如何帮助我们理解直立双足行走起源的。拉马克（1809 年）、达尔文（1859 年）和基思（1934 年）等人提出的最初且长期确立的假设认为，双足行走起源于树栖环境。然而，20 世纪 60 年代对大猩猩和黑猩猩的首次野外研究强调了它们所谓的“指节行走”四足行走方式，这使科学家们自动假设指节行走一定是双足行走的前身。直到发现早期人类亲属南方古猿阿法种和南方古猿粗壮种的骨骼，并纳入来自计算机科学、生物力学、运动科学和医学的分析方法，指节行走假说才受到最有力的挑战。它们短而类似人类的下肢和类似人类的手表明，指节行走不是我们祖先运动方式的一部分。相反，进化生物力学领域的大多数当前研究都认为，正是攀爬和双足行走的结合，无论是在树栖环境中，都有助于我们在短距离内直立、在地面上、双足行走。
