- Project title
- Reconstructing behaviour in the past from the internal bone structure of the foot
- Description of the project
- Terrestrial bipedal locomotion is one of the defining features of the human lineage. Although we know that early human ancestors were bipedal, whether they walked in a biomechanically similar way to modern humans or how much time they spent climbing in trees, remains unknown. The human foot is uniquely specialised in its adaptations to striding, terrestrial bipedalism in having a shock-absorbing heel, a stiff mid-foot, and short, straight toes that are bent upwards during toe-off, when the foot leaves the ground. The morphological correlates of striding bipedalism vary in their presence among hominin taxa.
To answer these longstanding questions, this project focuses on the external shape of foot bones and their internal bone structure, which adapts during an individual’s lifetime in response to their behaviour. This research will use high-resolution micro-CT scans and novel methods of external and internal bone structural analysis to compare foot morphology among extant non-human apes and a broad sample of humans from a range of populations, including pre-industrial groups. These results will be used to reconstruct the mode of bipedalism and potential presence of arboreal behaviour across several fossil hominin species, including the La Ferrassie 1 and 2 Neanderthals (La Ferrassie 2 is already scanned).
Works done by the platform AST-RX