Adaptive explanations for modern human foot anatomy have long fascinated evolutionary
biologists because of the dramatic differences between our feet and those of our closest …

In this review of the evidence for and against taxic diversity within the hominin clade, we
begin by looking at the logic and the history of simple “ladder‐like” interpretations of the …

Sterkfontein is the most prolific single source of Australopithecus fossils, the vast majority of
which were recovered from Member 4, a cave breccia now exposed by erosion and …

The stiff human foot enables an efficient push-off when walking or running, and was critical
for the evolution of bipedalism,,,,–. The uniquely arched morphology of the human midfoot is …

Australopithecus fossils were regularly interpreted during the late 20th century in a
framework that used living African apes, especially chimpanzees, as proxies for the …

The naming of Australopithecus africanus in 1925, based on the Taung Child, heralded a
new era in human evolutionary studies and turned the attention of the then Eurasian-centric …

The discovery of a relatively complete Australopithecus sediba adult female skeleton permits
a detailed locomotor analysis in which joint systems can be integrated to form a …

Modern humans are characterized by a highly specialized foot that reflects our obligate
bipedalism. Our understanding of hominin foot evolution is, although, hindered by a paucity …

Middle Pliocene hominin species diversity has been a subject of debate over the past two
decades, particularly after the naming of Australopithecus bahrelghazali and Kenyanthropus …

Bipedal trackways discovered in 1978 at Laetoli site G, Tanzania and dated to 3.66 million
years ago are widely accepted as the oldest unequivocal evidence of obligate bipedalism in …