The New York Times, November 18, 2004
Running Extra Mile Sets Humans Apart in Primates' World
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
If walking upright first set early human ancestors apart from their ape cousins, it may have been
their eventual ability to run long distances with a springing step over the African savanna that
influenced the transition to today's human body form, two researchers are reporting today.
The evolution of physiques for distance running made humans look the way we do now, whether
winning a marathon, nursing a strained Achilles tendon or sitting on an ample gluteus maximus
in front of the TV.
Endurance running, unique to humans among primates and uncommon in all mammals other
than dogs, horses and hyenas, apparently evolved at least two million years ago and probably let
human ancestors hunt and scavenge over great distances. That was probably decisive in the
pursuit of high-protein food for development of large brains.
The apparently crucial role of running in human evolution has been largely overlooked in
previous research. But today, the two scientists, Dr. Dennis M. Bramble of the University of
Utah and Dr. Daniel E. Lieberman of Harvard, report in the journal Nature that their analysis of
the fossil record found striking anatomical evidence for the capability of prolonged running in
the Homo genus, beginning about two million years ago.
"Today, endurance running is primarily a form of exercise and recreation, but its roots may be as
ancient as the origin of the human genus," the scientists conclude in the article.
Dr. Bramble, a professor of biology and a specialist in the biomechanics of animal locomotion,
said, "Running made us human, at least in an anatomical sense," adding that he and Dr.
Lieberman were "very confident that strong selection for running was instrumental in the origin
of the modern human body form."
Paleontologists not involved in the research praised the hypothesis as an important insight into
the apparent significance of long-distance running in human survival and evolution. But they
raised questions about what stimulated the physical transition that led to this human capability.
By two million years ago, Dr. Bramble and Dr. Lieberman noted, early species of the Homo
family, notably Homo erectus, had long, slender legs for greater strides. They had shorter arms
and a narrower rib cage and pelvis. Their skulls included features to help prevent overheating. A
ligament attached to the base of the skull kept their heads steady as they ran.
Although tissues do not fossilize, traces of muscle and tendon attachment points on bones of
early species revealed an extensive network of springy tendons along the back of the legs and
feet, including a well-developed Achilles tendon that anchored calf muscles to the heel bone.
Tendons served to store and release elastic energy during running but were not needed for
ordinary walking.
And there was the gluteus maximus, the muscle of the buttocks. Earlier human ancestors, like
chimpanzees today, had pelvises that could support only a modest gluteus maximus, nothing like
the strong buttocks of Homo.
"Have you ever looked at an ape?" Dr. Bramble said. "They have no buns."
Dr. Lieberman, a paleontologist, explained: "Your gluteus maximus stabilizes your trunk as you
lean forward in a run. A run is like a controlled fall, and the buttocks help to control it."
The scientists compiled a list of 26 traits connected with running that early Homo specimens
exhibited. It was a result of 13 years of research that started with watching pigs running on a
treadmill.
"Dennis and I noticed how the pigs can't hold their heads still while running," Dr. Lieberman
recalled. "Any good human runner keeps his head still because of the nuchal ligament, a tendon
in the back of the neck."
The scientists learned that all accomplished running animals, modern or fossil, had a mark in the
skull where the nuchal ligament had been. They found it in early Homo specimens, but not in
Australopithecus, the genus that lived more than three million years ago and included the 3.2million-year-old Lucy skeleton.
"That was an epiphany for us," Dr. Lieberman said.
Dr. Philip Rightmire, a paleoanthropologist at Binghamton University in New York, said the
Bramble-Lieberman hypothesis was "a pretty compelling picture of the importance of running in
human evolution, and overall, I'm very impressed."
Dr. Rightmire, who did not participate in the research, said the hypothesis made sense if the
evolutionary focus was limited to Africa, particularly the increasingly open grasslands, where
ancestral Homo specimens were more likely to have tall, lithe bodies. But "the picture is less
clear," he said, among the early Homo erectus migrants out of Africa, many of whom appear to
have been small and stocky.
The two scientists speculated in the article and in interviews that running by early human
ancestors was more than simply a natural step, so to speak, beyond upright walking. These
apelike ancestors, the scientists noted, were walking almost three million years before they
became runners and began to assume more modern physiques.
In such ancestors as Australopithecus, the physical characteristics favoring running were either
absent or underdeveloped. They had short legs, long forearms and high, permanently shrugged
shoulders. The fossil record is scant in the million-year transitional period between most
australopithecines and the emergence of Homo erectus.
Somehow, the scientists continued, those early ancestors who developed primitive running
attributes must have improved their chances of survival and reproduction. They were not as swift
in a sprint for prey as their contemporary four-legged competitors. But their ability to run greater
distances than other predators must have been an advantage in making a kill or at least
scavenging the kills of their swifter rivals.
In the journal article, the scientists suggested that endurance running "may have made possible a
diet rich in fats and proteins thought to account for the unique human combination of large
bodies, small guts, big brains and small teeth."
But the scientists conceded that it might be difficult to establish to what extent the running
capability proved useful in hunting and scavenging.
Dr. Alan Walker, a paleoanthropologist at Penn State University who has excavated Homo
erectus specimens in Africa, said the new research on long-distance running had yet to explain
the stimulus for the transition in anatomy and the specific importance of the change to early
human survival - whether it might have been for hunting, scavenging or escaping predators.
About one consequence of the evolved running physique there is little doubt. Running came to
early Homo at a cost: the loss of physical traits useful for climbing trees for refuge and food. By
this time, however, the climate and the landscape were changing, scientists have learned, and the
woodlands of East Africa were giving way to arid grasslands and miles of running room.