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The Paleobiology of Australopithecus pp 235–245Cite as

Postural and Locomotor Adaptations of Australopithecus Species

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Part of the book series: Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology ((VERT))

Abstract

This paper briefly reviews what is known about locomotor anatomy and behavior of Australopithecus. I argue that the evidence most strongly supports the hypothesis that Australopithecus species were fully upright, committed terrestrial bipeds that walked with a fundamentally human-like gait despite the fact that not all aspects of their morphology were identical to that of humans. Certainly, they retained some ape-like aspects of their morphology not seen in Homo. Whether selection was also acting to retain arboreal traits, and the extent to which they engaged in arboreal behaviors, is more difficult to test rigorously. Even if they did climb trees, it is apparent that selective pressures for doing so well were of considerably weaker than those on traveling bipedally. From what little fossil evidence is available, the various species of Australopithecus postcranial adaptations show only minor interspecific variation. Further research into determining the primitive condition on which selection acted to produce earliest hominins, plasticity of the skeleton, and on variation among Australopithecus species is needed to obtain a better understanding of the evolution of locomotor and postcranial anatomy in this genus.

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Acknowledgments

I thank The Turkana Basin Institute and Stony Brook University for inviting me to participate in the workshop and contribute to this volume, in particular Richard Leakey, John Fleagle, and Kaye Reed. I thank Lee Berger, Ron Clarke, Don Johanson, Bill Kimbel, Bruce Latimer, Meave Leakey, Steve Leigh, Brian Richmond, Philip Tobias, and the staffs of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, National Museums of Kenya, Transvaal Museum, National Museums of Ethiopia, University of the Witswatersrand, and Institute of Human Origins for access to fossil, comparative skeletal and cadaver specimens. I also thank Stephanie Child for help in assembling the manuscript. My research was supported by NSF SBR 9601025 and the University of Missouri Research Council and Research Board.

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  1. Department of Pathology and Anatomical Sciences, University of Missouri, M263 Medical Sciences Building, Columbia, MO, 65212, USA

    Carol V. Ward

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  1. Carol V. Ward
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Correspondence to Carol V. Ward .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Human Origins, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA

    Kaye E. Reed

  2. Department of Anatomical Sciences, Stony Brook University Medical Center, Stony Brook, New York, USA

    John G. Fleagle

  3. Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, USA

    Richard E. Leakey

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Ward, C.V. (2013). Postural and Locomotor Adaptations of Australopithecus Species. In: Reed, K., Fleagle, J., Leakey, R. (eds) The Paleobiology of Australopithecus. Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5919-0_16

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