Fossil spine suggests ancient human relative walked like us, but climbed like an ape
s ago an ancient human relative, Australopithecus sediba, lived in what is today South Africa, near a cave called Malapa that’s a part of the Cradle of Humankind. Until recently, it was not clear how much the species spent climbing in trees and walking on two legs on the ground.
Grantee Spotlight: Marianne Brasil
The timing, location, and circumstances of the origin of modern humans has long been of interest, and ongoing studies continue to refine our understanding of early modern human evolution. Leakey Foundation grantee Marianne Brasil is a PhD candidate from the University of California at Berkeley who is studying the skeletal morphology of early Homo sapiens from Middle Awash, Ethiopia.
Grantee Spotlight: Gabrielle Russo
The next spring 2015 Leakey Foundation grantee we would like to introduce you to is Gabrielle Russo from Stony Brook University. Her project is entitled “Elucidating the evolutionary pathways of hominin basicranial morphology using a formal phylogenetic comparative primate approach.”
Gabrielle Russo (R) and collaborator Jeroen B. Smaers
The morphology of the basicranium (base of the skull) in modern humans
Origin Stories Episode 01: On Two Feet with Carol Ward
Every good story starts at the beginning. In the first episode of Origin Stories we talk with Carol Ward about one of the first things that distinguished our ancestors from the other primates, the weird way we walk around.
Carol Ward is Curator’s Professor and Director of Anatomical Sciences in the integrative anatomy program at the University of Missouri, where
Grantee Spotlight: Lauren Gonzales
Lauren Gonzales is a PhD candidate from Duke University. She was awarded a Leakey Foundation research grant in the fall of 2013 for her project entitled “Intraspecific variation in semicircular canal morphology in platyrrhine monkeys.”
Lauren Gonzales
Understanding the functional relationship between locomotion and the morphology of the semicircular canals is an important adjunct for the reconstruction of locomotor adaptations