Primate Bipedalism
Andrez Guillen
Anthropology 301-02

No other form of locomotion has been as dominant over the years as bipedalism. We humans take this form of stance for granted, not fully understanding its importance. Compared to other stances, such as quadrupedalism, bipedalism serves us a better in many areas. Here we will look at the the advantages of walking upright Many theories have been said about how early hominids began evolving their stance from quadrupedal to bipedal. Charles Darwin, for example, claimed that we stood up to free our hands for tool making (Douglas 2012). Others say that our evolution began up in the trees where we see other primates, such as orangutans, walk bipedal to get fruit. Another is the idea of “carrying,” here we see other primates go from a qudrapedal position to a bipedal position when carrying something of importance (offspring, food, tool). All of these theories have something in common, each shows how advantageous it is to be bipedal and it could be said that these advantages helped our ancestors survive. One possible explanation for the development of bipedalism, is our search for food. Here the argument is that 5 million years ago, fruit trees in Africa were spreading further and further apart from one another. Hominids would have to walk with their young to find fruit trees, this caused a great deal of discomfort for the females, so the solution was to have the monogamous male do the travel while the female stayed put taking care of the young (Lovejoy 1984). By gathering food in a bipedal position our ancestors carried it over to walking on the ground. Living millions of years ago in constant awareness of your surroundings is what could have led us to adopt bipedalism permanently. When it comes to being aware of predators, there is not better defense than a proficient line of sight. When speaking about the early hominids in Africa, there is no doubt that they must have come across high grassland at some point. Here is where being bipedal plays a major advantage because if you are a hominoid without dominant hearing or odor senses then you are easy dinner. By contrast our ancestors could see above the grass (depending on height) and see if there were predators approaching and avoid the danger (Ravey 1978).
Great apes are known for having patriarchal societies where males will battle one another to raise their own social status or for mating purposes. When two great apes go at it, we notice they strike with their fore and hand limbs in the bipedal position instead of staying in the quadrupedal position. They are in the bipedal position because it allows the forelimbs to strike with a better range of motion and maximum power. (David 2011). This usage of a more sophisticated style of fighting does have an impact in reproduction selection, and thus plays a factor in bipedalism evolution.

References
David R., C. (2011). The Advantage of Standing Up to Fight and the Evolution of Habitual Bipedalism in Hominins. Plos ONE, 6(5), 1-9. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0019630
Douglas, K. (2012). Why did we become bipedal?. New Scientist, 213(2857), 36-27.
Lovejoy, C. (1984). The natural detective. Natural History, 93, 24
Ravey, M. (1978). Bipedalism; an early warning system for miocene hominoids. Science, 199(4327), 372.