Human ancestors walked on two feet but their children still had a backup plan | Hacker News Reader

Human ancestors walked on two feet but their children still had a backup plan

phys.org

81 pointsdnetesn19 comments

>Based on the skeletal structure of the child's foot, specifically, the base of the big toe, the kids probably spent more time in the trees than adults.

Fascinatingly, this is still true today! Kids love climbing trees. I used to love climbing trees. It's funny to think that the true reason for my disposition was a deep, ancestral fear of being eaten.

Also true of Bears. Cubs can climb trees while adults can't.

Adult bears definitely can climb trees. [0] So can adult humans, obviously.

[0] http://www.bearsmart.com/about-bears/dispelling-myths/

I'm curious if that is just a mutilation of "Cubs can climb trees that adults can't." Not that "Cubs can climb trees, adults can't."

That said, I thought it was common knowledge that bears are good climbers. There are some wonderful videos of bears climbing up to a hunter's tree stand. Would have to be a terrifying experience.

hehe, we used to climb a lot too, surprisingly high, unattended and completely improvised.

A new generation of kids from new neighbors is spending a lot of times in trees, to the despair of their parents (and mine since it involves a lot of loud voices)

Also, tree houses are fascinating for kids.

Natural selection likely favored kids that were good at climbing. Best strategy to stay away from some predators, until they were big enough to wield weapons (sticks, throw stones?) and come down from the trees.

I not only climbed trees as a kid, I opened doors with my feet well into my teens. I miss being in the kind of shape that would allow me to use a foot as a third hand while my arms are full or whatever. Sadly, I'm old, fat and ugly.

(I mean...um, old, fat, and less spry?)

If you find this interesting, I'd highly recommend watching the Cosmos series on Netflix. Once you get past the first few minutes of cringeworthy effects, it gets deep very quickly and presents the evolution of our species, planet and universe in very accessible terms.

The one from Carl Sagan or the new one?

The new one with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

To be fair, the effects end up helping once the series moves along. Visualizing 13.5 billion years is not easy, but the show does a remarkable job -- a few million years is but a blink of an eye.

I hate this (too common) stupid phrasing for science articles, as if a 1 year old rationally decided that he/she should climb trees more often. Does it bug anyone else?

Yes! It's shampoo science

Big cats do most hunting at night, so sleeping in the trees but wandering around on foot looking for food during the day seems like a good life strategy. Fending off the smaller daytime predators was probably within a walking ape's ability via sticks and stones.

I suspect they had to use sticks and stones for such, because they were otherwise physically wimpy creatures: relatively small jaw & teeth and no significant "claws". As they perfected defense with sticks & stones eventually they probably started using it for offense, and self-breeding for skill with tools, leading to modern humans. (Modern chimps even occasionally use tooth-sharpened sticks for hunting tree mammals.)

I remember wanting a tree house to feel safe and alone

Curious if those guys had discovered fire already, had furs or tools, 3 millions years ago.

From the article:

> If you were living in Africa 3 million years ago without fire, without structures, and without any means of defense, you'd better be able get up in a tree when the sun goes down

Fire is estimated to have begun to be controlled by humans around 1.7 to 0.2 million years ago.

I'm curious who is estimating 0.2 million (200k) years. That is not very long ago. As a point of comparison, there are populations of humans who have been genetically isolated for that long (the Khoisan in southern Africa).

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