Early Apes Walked Upright 15 Million Years Earlier Than Previously Thought, Evolutionary Biologist Argues

(Credit: Courtesy of Aaron Filler, MD, PhD)

An extraordinary advance in human origins research reveals evidence of the emergence of the upright human body plan over 15 million years earlier than most experts have believed. More dramatically, the study confirms preliminary evidence that many early hominoid apes were most likely upright bipedal walkers sharing the basic body form of modern humans.

Research from Harvard University¹s Museum of Comparative Zoology and from the Cedars Sinai Institute for Spinal Disorders connects several recent fossil discoveries to older fossils finds that have eluded adequate explanation in the past. The report deals with the "homeotic" genetic mechanisms that encode anatomical assembly in the embryo, and their relevance to a series of discoveries of hominoid fossil vertebrae.

The report analyses changes in homeotic embryological assembly of the spine in more than 200 mammalian species across a 250 million year time scale. It identifies a series of modular changes in genetic assembly program that have taken place at the origin point of several major groups of mammals including the newly designated 'hominiform' hominoids that share the modern human body plan.

Read full story at sciencedaily.