The Secrets of the Oldest Footprints Ever Found

I've been a student of this subject since childhood, and I'm an old lady now and a retired primate caretaker. This is an excellent talk and it's great to see that interest in our human origins and what we are as a species has never died but progressed. Thank you.

The 'running ape' . Sprinting is a great way to avoid predators but 'Seeing' the predator first is paramount. In all the suggestions of the reason for bipedalism in apes I have never heard mentioned the fact that an upright posture makes it easier to turn the whole torso, and then the neck , to look behind and scan the area (pretty much like meerkats) for predators. So this may be another contributing factor...along with wading in water, and carrying things, heat...etc

It's worth noting that gorillas and chimpanzees knuckle-walk in different ways, indicating that they evolved 3-legged walking independently from each other and that it's not an ancestral trait. This is part of what's been leading more and more people to consider that some level of bipedalism may be the ancestral trait of apes and that we are the only ones who retained it.

9:36
"one small step for an ape, but a great step towards humanity"
-Neil Armstrongalis, 3 000 000 BC

A small oddity at 3:25. The map of Germany shown is a World War 2 period map. It shows Germany after the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia.

The idea that Australopithecus was making tools over 3mil years ago is mind blowing!

The shot of a gorilla punching a termite mound at 13:52 is amazing. Kudos to whomever captured that footage.

Biology is Beauty !!

Ah yes, the original feet pics.

I much appreciate your videos for how easy they're to understand. I'm from East Germany, and so, I was taught by teachers, who had actually studied Russian and had either studied English only as a minor subject without passion or only later had English as a further education, for the most of my school time. Just in the last 3 years, I got a teacher who only studied Russian to be allowed to study English. This is why I'm struggling with English, but some creators like you make it so easy that often when I wanna share it with other people, I stopped for a moment because I'm not sure if they understand it, too. Sometimes, I wanna share it with people who may not understand Englisch, and then, I realize I totally forgot it was English content. Sometimes, I wanna share it with English speaking people, and my first thought is that it would be dumb to share German content. So, try to imagine exactly what I saw and heard, and this is the point when I realize the magic. I remember the complete side, even the advertising at the borders. I remember the text, not in English but in German. I remember the voice in the video, even yours, but they don't speak English in my head, but German. So, I go back, and I am confused by realizing it never was on German. This is every time again when I stop thinking it only could be German because I didn't struggle to understand it, and start thinking I'm not that bad in English as I think. The problem is rather that I built up a barrier every time when I'm forced to speak or understand English because I wanna stay in my comfort zone. I really appreciate this because this is a source of motivation to practice English, which is something I completely missed in my entire school life. I'm on the one hand sad about to have missed so much over these years, but I'm much more happy about to enjoy another cool language and so much more interesting stuff now.
So, thank you so much for your work! 🥹

0:36 "Gorillas have been taught to use sign language"

yeah, unfortunately not actually. If you look at Koko's "speech" linguistically, they're not structured or complex, just simple words in usually no consistent word order. Most of the communication was a huge deal of interpretation by the researcher, not actual communication by sign language.

My readings into this subject indicate the ancestors of Australopithecus were most likely Shore-Based, in which case, they would have walked through shallow ponds / rivers, which in turn would have reduced the weight on their hips... which would have allowed them to walk upright for longer periods. Generations upon Generations of this behaviour would have pre-selected for more appropriate hips, to extend the amount of time walking upright in the water that was possible. This then would have translated to walking on dry land too. For example, Chimps can walk upright now, on dry land, but not for very long, since their hips are not designed for that; but when they walk through water, they can walk upright for a much longer time, before it starts to hurt. Trouble is they rarely walk through water, so there's no evolutionary pressure for their hips to change. If the ancestors of Australopithecus were indeed shore based, they may have been gathering mollusks for food, which would have provided them with more DHA-Omega3, which would have been another first step to increasing the brain size. With the Hips now evolved for better upright walking, the foot was now in a better position to start evolving for larger weight too, but also for fore-foot running. And when we started to do Persistent Hunts, the long distance running had the benefit of producing Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF), which also would have had a positive influence on increasing our brain size. There's also the thinking that mushrooms additionally played a big role in creating new connections within the brain, i.e. the stoned ape hypothesis.

This definitely checks out. A lot of what causes foot pain for me is the way that my foot distributes weight very poorly

As a member of the great apes, I am endlessly fascinated by all things primate. And that includes all of our ancestors. After all, they helped to make us what we are. I find it particularly interesting that bipedalism evolved before the bigger brain. We were taught the opposite when I was in high school. This is what I like about studying human evolution--always something new to earn.

The fact that modern humans as a species have existed for more than 150,000 years really puts in perspective the timescale of the progress of evolution. The first civilizations only appeared a couple thousand years ago. For me it is fascinating to think about how we will at some point have become a new different species







I don't understand why so many people got triggered because I said "a couple thousand years ago". I obviously did not mean just 2000 years (look at my damn username lol). So, for all the people that chose do ignore my point and focus on this, let me at least make it clear: The earliest civilization is thought to be Mesopotamia which is estimated to have formed in 5000BC so 7000 thousand years ago. Going back to my point, 7000 is not a lot compared to 150000 years!!


(Pollock, Susan, and Pollock Susan. Ancient mesopotamia. Vol. 1. Cambridge University Press, 1999.)

13:46 BOMBASTIC SIDE EYE

I’ve seen adults in the Amazon area who have almost never worn shoes, and their feet look much different from my North American feet.

These documentaries are amazing! I've already watched them on nebula, but they are so good I watched this again here on YouTube. With ads and all!

I have read a book that blew my mind: Who asked the First Question... So walking on 2 feet may be the start point, I really feel that the development of language and the capacity of making questions is what really differs us from other animals

Kevin Hunt does work on ape positional behavioural choices, usually based on cultural practices related to carrying, display, or tool innovation. this can lead to huge differences in hip-leg growth, e.g.