BACKGROUND Ever since the writings of Darwin and Huxley, humans' place in nature
relative to apes (nonhuman hominoids) and the geographic origins of the human lineage …

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 …

Hominid fossils predating the emergence of Australopithecus have been sparse and
fragmentary. The evolution of our lineage after the last common ancestor we shared with …

Referential models based on extant African apes have dominated reconstructions of early
human evolution since Darwin's time. These models visualize fundamental human …

Many ideas have been proposed to explain the origin of bipedalism in hominins and
suspension in great apes (hominids); however, fossil evidence has been lacking. It has been …

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

Body size directly influences an animal's place in the natural world, including its energy
requirements, home range size, relative brain size, locomotion, diet, life history, and …

The femur and pelvis of Ardipithecus ramidus have characters indicative of both upright
bipedal walking and movement in trees. Consequently, bipedality in Ar. ramidus was more …

Only one partial skeleton that includes both forelimb and hindlimb elements has been
reported for Australopithecus afarensis. The diminutive size of this specimen (AL 288-1 [" …

Several elements of the Ardipithecus ramidus foot are preserved, primarily in the ARA-VP-
6/500 partial skeleton. The foot has a widely abducent hallux, which was not propulsive …