Summary of Daniel Lieberman's The Story of the Human Body

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 Humans are comparatively poor athletes on land. The world’s fastest humans can only sprint about 23 miles per hour for about half a minute. Humans almost always hunt with weapons because no person could ever match a chimp for speed, power, and agility.
#2 The first major transformation in human evolution was bipedalism, the ability to stand and walk on two feet. The human body is so thoroughly adapted to being habitually bipedal that we rarely give our unusual way of standing, walking, and running much thought.
#3 The term missing link is a frequently misused word that generally refers to key transitional species in the history of life. However, there is one particular species in the record of human evolution that is missing: the last common ancestor of humans and the other apes.
#4 The human evolutionary relationship with chimps was a surprise to scientists in the 1980s when the molecular evidence necessary to resolve it became available. The human evolutionary relationship with gorillas was already well-known, as they look similar to humans.

Sujets

• Science
• 454 Life Sciences
• Evolution
• Biology
• Sciences et techniques
• Life Sciences

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 24 juillet 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798822547766
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Daniel Lieberman's The Story of the Human Body
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Humans are comparatively poor athletes on land. The world’s fastest humans can only sprint about 23 miles per hour for about half a minute. Humans almost always hunt with weapons because no person could ever match a chimp for speed, power, and agility.

#2

The first major transformation in human evolution was bipedalism, the ability to stand and walk on two feet. The human body is so thoroughly adapted to being habitually bipedal that we rarely give our unusual way of standing, walking, and running much thought.

#3

The term missing link is a frequently misused word that generally refers to key transitional species in the history of life. However, there is one particular species in the record of human evolution that is missing: the last common ancestor of humans and the other apes.

#4

The human evolutionary relationship with chimps was a surprise to scientists in the 1980s when the molecular evidence necessary to resolve it became available. The human evolutionary relationship with gorillas was already well-known, as they look similar to humans.

#5

There have been four species of early hominins found so far. The oldest is Sahelanthropus tchadensis, which was discovered in Chad in 2001. It is at least 6 million years old, and may be as old as 7. 2 million years.

#6

The first hominin fossils were discovered in Ethiopia by an international team led by Tim White and colleagues from the University of California, Berkeley. They were assigned to two different species from yet another genus, Ardipithecus. The older species, Ardipithecus kadabba, is dated to between 5. 8 and 5. 2 million years ago.

#7

The first hominins were probably upright bipeds, similar to how apes are. However, they still had many ancestral features that were useful for climbing trees.

#8

The first adaptation that allowed humans to walk upright was the shape of the hips. The iliac bone, which forms the upper part of the pelvis, is shorter and faces sideways in humans than in apes, allowing the muscles on the side of the hips to stabilize the upper body over each leg when walking.

#9

The human spine has two pairs of curves. The lower, lumbar curve is made possible by having more lumbar vertebrae, which have a wedged shape in which the top and bottom surfaces are not parallel. The human chest and neck vertebrae create another, gentler curve at the top of the spine, which positions the upper neck downward rather than backward from the skull.

#10

The first hominins, the ancestors of humans, were not quadrupeds when they were on the ground, but they were occasional bipeds who stood and walked upright in a nonhuman manner when they were not climbing trees. They could not stride as efficiently as humans, but they were probably able to walk upright with more efficiency and stability than a chimp or a gorilla.

#11

The first hominins, like Toumaï and Ardi, had apelike faces and teeth, which suggested that they ate a rather apelike diet that was dominated by ripe fruit. They had wide front teeth that were well suited for biting into fruits.

#12

The first humans were probably bipedal because it allowed them to forage and obtain food more efficiently in the face of major climate change. Climate change is a significant factor in human evolution, and it is believed that humans are warming the earth by burning fossil fuel.

#13

Natural selection acts most strongly during times of stress and scarcity. If the LCA was a mostly fruit-eating ape that lived in a rain forest, then natural selection would have favored the two major transformations seen in very early hominins such as Toumaï and Ardi.

#14

The first advantage of bipedalism is that it made it easier for early hominins to forage for food. Walking on two legs may have also helped early hominins save energy when traveling.

#15

The shift to bipedalism was the first major transformation in human evolution. It allowed early hominins to acquire the fallback foods they needed to eat when fruit was not available.

#16

The first humans were probably not bipedal, but they were upright on the ground, which allowed them to free their hands from locomotion. This allowed natural selection to later favor additional capabilities, such as making and using tools.

#17

The first bipeds did not get up on two feet to free their hands, but instead they became upright to forage more efficiently and reduce the cost of walking. However, bipedalism also presented new challenges for the first hominins.

#18

The main disadvantage of being bipedal is coping with pregnancy. Pregnant mammals, four-legged or two-legged, have to carry a lot of extra weight not only from the fetus but also from the placenta and extra fluids.

#19

The advantages of walking and standing upright must have outweighed the costs at every evolutionary stage. But then another burst of evolution occurred around 4 million years ago, and led to a group of hominins known as the australopiths.

#20

The first humans, the australopiths, began eating foods other than fruit about 4 million years ago. Their diets changed what we are adapted for, and they were able to feed themselves far and wide because of it.

#21

The australopiths were a group of hominins that lived in Africa between about 4 and 1 million years ago. They were upright apes with small brains and apelike bodies. They had short legs, long arms, and powerful shoulders. They were well suited to climbing in trees.

#22

The first hominins were similar to the australopiths in that they were adapted for chewing hard foods. They had bigger teeth, jaws, and cheeks, and chew muscles the size of small steaks.

#23

The australopiths were the first hominins to live in Africa. They were bipeds, and some species walked with a more humanlike striding gait due to features they share with us, such as widely spaced hips, a stiff foot with a partial arch, and a short big toe in line with the other toes.

#24

The australopiths were the first humans, and they lived during the Pliocene epoch, when the earth became slightly cooler and Africa continued to become drier. The australopiths were pushed to forage regularly for lower quality foods, which they ate when preferred foods were unavailable.

#25

The australopiths were a species of hominins that lived in Africa. They were gatherers who ate a varied diet that included fruit, but some of them also benefited from digging frequently for tubers, bulbs, and roots. They probably foraged for other fallback plant foods as well.

#26

The teeth of the australopiths were very flat and wide, and they were much bigger than a chimp’s. They were also much tougher than chimp teeth, and had much thicker enamel crowns.

#27

The australopiths, especially the robust species, had giant teeth that were well adapted for grinding and pulverizing tough food under high pressure. If you had to chew uncooked, unprocessed tubers for half of each day for your entire life, you’d appreciate having these humongous teeth.

#28

The australopith jaws were massive, and their large faces were heavily reinforced with thick pillars and sheets of bone that allowed them to chew tough, hard foods all day long without breaking their faces.

#29

Australopiths, like chimps and gorillas, probably loved fruit, but they also ate whatever foods they could get their hands on. As climate change caused fruits to become rarer, tough fallback foods, such as USOs, became more important resources for these ancient relatives.

#30

The demands of traveling far to get enough food and water are evident in the many adaptations that evolved in several species of australopiths and are still evident in humans today.

#31

When apes walk, they are unable to stride like humans with relatively straight hips, knees, and ankles. Instead, they shuffle forward with these joints bent at an extreme angle. The gait that resembles the way Groucho Marx walked is amusing to watch, but it is also tiring and costly.

#32

The foot is another indicator that australopiths were similar to humans in how they walked. They had a partial longitudinal arch in the foot, which stiffened the middle of the foot while they walked.

#33

The first hominins, such as Au. afarensis, had several adaptations that allowed them to walk efficiently. They had femurs that were angled inward, knees that were positioned near the body’s midline, and hip and knee joints that were well buttressed.

#34

The ability to walk efficiently, which was inherited from the australopiths, played a key role in the evolution of humans by allowing us to travel long distances and hunt. It also made it easier for us to carry food, and we could spend less energy walking than quadrupeds.

#35

The australopiths were a key intermediate stage in human evolution. They were a species of early hominins that evolved in Africa, and they were very different from modern humans. They had small brains, and they spent their days foraging for an unimaginably tough and unpleasant diet.

#36

The first two major transformations in human evolution were triggered by the need to obtain food, and the first was when Africa became cooler and drier many millions of years ago, which favored those ancestors who were better able to forage.

#37

The first humans evolved a ingenious way of life that was based on hunting and gathering. This involved continuing to gather tubers and other plants, but it incorporated several new, transformative behaviors that included eating more meat, using tools to extract and process foods, and cooperating intensively to share foods and other tasks.

#38

H. erectus was the first species of Homo to evolve, and it was the progenitor of all la