First ape woman suggests human ancestors may have started walking in pursuit of sex

She lived at the dawn of a new era, when chimps and people began walking (or climbing) along their own evolutionary trails. This is Ardi - the oldest member of the human family tree we've found so far.
Short, hairy and with long arms, she roamed the forests of Africa 4.4million years ago.

Her discovery, reported in detail for the first time today, sheds light on a crucial period when we were just leaving the trees. Some scientists said she could provide evidence that our ancestors first started walking upright in the pursuit of sex.

Conventional wisdom says our earliest ancestors first stood up on two legs when they moved out of the forest and into the open savannas. But this does not explain why Ardi's species was bipedal (able to walk on two legs) while still living partly in the trees.
Owen Lovejoy from Kent State University said the answer could be as simple as food and sex.

He pointed out that throughout evolution males have fought with other males for the right to mate with fertile females. Therefore you would expect dominant males with big fierce canines to pass their genes down the generations.
But say a lesser male, with small stubby teeth realised he could entice a fertile female into mating by bringing her some food? Males would be far more successful food-providers if they had their hands free to carry home items like fruit and roots if they walked on two legs.
Mr Lovejoy said this could explain why males from Ardi's species had small canines and stood upright - it was all in the pursuit of sex.
He added that it could also suggest that monogamous relationships may be far older than was first thought.
Ardi - short for Ardipithecus ramidus or 'root of the ground ape' - stood 4ft tall and weighed 110lb.
She lived a million years before the famous Lucy, the previous earliest skeleton of a hominid who was dug up in 1974.
Experts believe Ardi is very, very close to the 'missing link' common ancestor of humans and chimps, thought to have lived five to seven million years ago.
'This is not that common ancestor, but it's the closest we have ever been able to come,' said Dr Tim White, director of the Human Evolution Research Centre at the University of California, Berkeley, who reports the discovery today in Science. The first fossilised and crushed bones of Ardi were found in 1994 in Ethiopia's Afar Rift.
But it has taken an international team of 47 scientists 17 years to piece together, analyse and describe the remains.
Ardi's skeleton had been trampled and scattered, while the skull was crushed to just two inches in height.

Despite this, Dr David Pilbeam, curator of palaeoanthropology at Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology said: 'This is one of the most important discoveries for the study of human evolution.
'It is relatively complete in that it preserves head, hands, feet, and some critical parts in between.'

Researchers have pieced together 125 fragments of bone - including much of her skull, hands, feet, arms, legs and pelvis - which were dated using the volcanic layers of soil above and below the find.

The results were surprising. Previously, scientists believed that our common ancestor would have been very chimp-like, and that ancient hominids such as Ardi would still have much in common with them.
But she was not suited like a modern- day chimp to swinging or hanging from trees or walking on her knuckles.
This suggests that chimps and gorillas developed those characteristics after the split with humans - challenging the idea that they are merely an 'unevolved' version of us.
Ardi's feet were rigid enough to allow her to walk upright some of the time, but she still had a grasping big toe for use in climbing trees.

And she had long arms but short palms and fingers which were flexible, allowing her to support her body weight on her palms.
Her upper canine teeth are more like the stubby teeth of modern people than the long, sharp ones of chimps. An analysis of her tooth enamel suggests she ate fruit, nuts and leaves.
Scientists believe she was a female because her skull is relatively small and lightly built. Her teeth were also smaller than other members of the same family that were found later.
Alan Walker, of Pennsylvania Sate University, told Science: 'These things were very odd creatures. You know what Tim (White) once said: 'If you wanted to find something that moved like these things you'd have to go to the bar in Star Wars'.'
Since the discovery, scientists have unearthed another 35 members of the Ardipithecus family.
Ardi was found in alongside crumbling fossils of 29 species of birds and 20 species of small mammals - including owls, parrots, shrews, bats and mice.

Lucy, also found in Africa, thrived a million years after Ardi and was of the more human-like genus Australopithecus.

'In Ardipithecus we have an unspecialized form that hasn't evolved very far in the direction of Australopithecus. So when you go from head to toe, you're seeing a mosaic creature that is neither chimpanzee, nor is it human. It is Ardipithecus,' said Dr White.

The article is a whole lot longer than the limit here will allow me to post.

My husband and I watched the special on Ardi last night. Walking makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint: Fella carries food back to the den, Lady says "thanks hon!" and is more open to mating.

The special was really interesting. Wish I caught all of it, but I was periodically nodding off.

But say a lesser male, with small stubby teeth realised he could entice a fertile female into mating by bringing her some food? Males would be far more successful food-providers if they had their hands free to carry home items like fruit and roots if they walked on two legs.

mmm, I'm not believing in the male getting sex part reasoning of that. I think the walking upright would have been more out of fighting. When animals fight, the one that can get over head of the other has the advantage and if you don't need your hands in order to move around you can hold a rock or club in them and BASH'EM IN THE HEAD!


And I'm pretty sure females didn't wander far from their pack. Would have probably had a head male in charge that wouldn't just let a lesser male waltz in with nuts in hand go breeding with his females. Being said to be smaller too, who's to say that the females didn't start walking on two legs in order to get their own food.

I started watching about thislast night until the bf got bored and changed.

Sounds like charm works on a girl every time!