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Did ancient man run anywhere near as much as modern (sub athletic) man? No doubt they were probably on their feet more, but other than short bursts in fight'n'flight situations, did they run and propel as much?
The other point comes down to terrain, which obviously varied across time and place. Walking through/over knee high shrubs for instance, necessitates large increases in hip flexion on the swing leg, and virtually nil propulsion of the stance leg.
Ancient man had to run and hunt to live. .... but they did not have to contend with concrete.
What about tracking, walking, thinking, and at the last minute sprint, kill, drag and eat.
I am not sure that they would have run as much as we think. In an era of being on your feet for most of the day, and lugging possessions and dependants, a long run would be the last thing you would do IMO.
The exception would be fight/flight. Sprinting to/from prey/predator.
Hi Atlas,
I suggest you look at the legbones of Homo Erectus (Turkana Boy is the name of the specimen - do a search on homo erectus or Turkana Boy - you'll find him easily enough).
They are dated 1.6 million years and are clearly indentifiable as hominid (same length as modern legbones too).
They suggest, to me anyway, that homo erectus was capable of walking and running in much the same way that we are today.
cheers,
davidh
Here's another hypothesis to ponder on. If we believe in evolutionary progress (as opposed to creationism), then by 1.6 million years ago the limbs of successful hominids would already be pretty good in terms of ambulation and grasping/and throwing objects.
Simplistically - the successful guys carried on, the unsuccessful ones died out.
Fossil evidence suggests otherwise.
Homo Habilis (specimen Oh8), dated 2.2 million years old, is a partial fossilised foot with some phalanges, and some calcaneus missing. However is is clearly recognisable as hominid, as opposed to great ape.
Homo Erectus (specimen Turkans Boy), dated 1.6 million years old, is a partial fossilised skeleton. This is much more easily recognised as hominid, and the fact that the legbones are the same length as modern humans is interesting.
We just don't have any fossils from this period to show a different type of physical makeup. This doesn't mean they're not under the ground somewhere, just that we don't currently have any evidence.
However - I happliy concede that the paleoanthropological time-line is changing all the time, as new bones are discovered.
My point is that in evolutionary terms, the lower limbs were pretty much perfect by 1.6 million years ago. Why would they need to change any more?
David presents the normal Orthodox case for Evolution without the trappings of the psuedo-religious/science, beliefs of the evolutionary theorems/hypotheses needed to argue it here!
Mother Nature selects out of chaos the successful answer to the immediate problem of the time! The World in the meantime marches onto it's ultimate destruction as does the Sun and the Human race if we stay around to watch,(We don't really need to worry folks about this happening of course because the Human race will by that time either be extinct or taken flight!)?
David mentions 1.6 million years old and that the foot had evolved to a recognizable state and equivalent dimensions as too ours at this point in time, no need for me to explore further!
Mankind or it's origins would exist as everything else did at the moment of CREATION, BEING, otherwise it would not exist here today! 1.6million years at best, a twinkle in the CREATORS' eye!
Regards,
Colin.
P.S. I look upon human-beings as just that, human beings, her/him rather than it. I look upon Man/Woman-Kind also AS an it. Not a living-being but a collection of Living-beings each individually housed in an Organic-machine, body, (Excluding the Angels of course!). Therefore, we shouldn't be surprised to be able to compare an ancient foot with a modern one, give or take a slight difference in it's application, use, by it's owner.
Not too sure where you are coming from on this one Colin.
May I correct you and say that I said the legbones of homo erectus, rather than the foot, are very similar to modern legbones?
I have presented a simple evolutionary picture, with some easily-found examples which you can search for on the web.
If you are a creationist then the main thread of that argument is that man did not evolve but was created, in God's image, around 11,500 years ago.
Now, given homo erectus is accurately dated to 1.6 million years ago, but the legbones are pretty much the same as modern legbones, doesn't that at least suggest that the lower limb, as we know it, evolved long before the Garden of Eden?
Actually the argument comes back to "have we evolved for a life on concrete?".
Whether we were created in God's image 11,500 years ago (and I think its fair to point out that there were probably very few flat, hard surfaces, and certainly no concrete in the Garden of Eden), or evolved from a 1.6 millon-year old hominid, I think there is a good case for saying, no we have not.
regards,
david
Thank you for your forbearance, (And I'm sure you needed it,)!
Yes your conclusions where drawn from leg bones of homo erectus and modern leg bones. I have made the assumption that the bones of the feet will, therefore, when found be similar!!!
Interesting question, "Is the African or Indian leg/foot bones similar to ours where they as a rule do not wear shoes for most of their lives? Have they adapted to hard surfaces?" (Where/when did the first shoe appear? We had a shoe dated to iron-age man last week??? (Thousands of years old, the oldest shoe, claimed?).
If I were to walk up the meadow near where I live when I can get into Cumbria, it isn't soft soil of the Garden of Eden, it's hard rock beside the River Eden. It's Granite hard and the fells aren't sand either, (Even some of the Rams are more dangerous than the Bulls in lambing season up there when you have a dog with you!).
Rome can still be classed as modern history, (Revenging Concrete! They are to blame!). Especially when considering 1.6million years against 1,600 years since they departed these shores!
11,500 years ago, Creation, I don't really think so! Which clock are we reading, Newton's or Einsteins?
Quote, "Have we evolved for a life on concrete?"
May be our feet haven't, but our shoes have!"
Regards,
Colin.
P.S. We need people in ill fitting shoes, anyway, or some of us could very easily go out of business in the Podiatry Sector, they would, you know!?
P.P.S. I shall go and have a look for the date of that old shoe! Scientist in a Somerset quarry, England (And duck with tin hat on!), have found an iron age shoe, and have actually dated it to 2000yrs. old!
Last edited by C Bain : 21st May 2005 at 03:53 AM.
Reason: Age of shoe, wishful thinking!
There are various catagories of creationism.
You are talking about Day-Age Creationism.
Day-age creationists interpret each day of creation as a long period of time, even thousands or millions of years.
Talk to a modern fundamental Christian (actually talk to a fundamental Muslim too). The Koran is evidently very similar to parts of the Old Testament.
They will assure you that human life began around 11,500 years ago.
Although I believe in evolution, I respect these points of view.
Do a seach on Creationism. It makes for fascinating reading!
Cheers,
david
Sorry about this but I have lost track of the time when I pressed 'Reply'. There isn't a cancel button on the blank message form? Will get back to you later!
Yes like belief's based in Evolution after measuring that which you can see against the finite clock ticking, we in the Creationist camp also have our difficulties. For example,
"I shall only believe the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth!"
Well that should at a stretch get me through the next ten minutes!
I am a Day-age Creationist with Christian Fundamentalist Tendencies! You should by now be able to get a pill for it, but I don't think our friends the Americans have thought of this one yet? A Day-age Creationists before Cambridge and Belchley Park had a COMPUTER! I arrived at my belief's, for that's what they are through reason first, Christianity second. Arrived at by reasoning rather than the Fundamentalist way. Christ doesn't really need a belief such as this in His Salvation! But I found that it helps? (He has trouble with me too!).
I will always have a problem with 11,500 years Linear Time Span for the human race but have no trouble with the Concept of the House of Adam, Cain and the Angels, (Giants in the Land, etc. you Know, having a good time!). Going totally off the subject in hand, I might just take you up on that suggestion and give Creation a twirl in Google? Long time since I've had to remember my year on Metaphysics at the Durham Cathedral Library in the 1910's/30's, (No that was the subject in hand, not my age, although I don't know though!). Science won! Trouble is I've dust-binned at least three valuable text-books on Science since, they keep getting it wrong you know!!! Speaking for myself, "If you think you know it all you probably need a trip to the doctors, soon!"
I will try to remind myself when answering a post like this to remember that if you cannot observe it and accurately measure it, it probably doesn't exist, then again??? I'm still waiting to hear from somebody pointing out that the Roman Period is not part of Modern History, but my answer to that is, I'm using my portable Einsteinian Clock!
I would like a Forensic Pathologist, or possibly a Shoe-historian to contribute with comparison in shoe-wear feet and bare feet? Could be a real indicator, and have a bearing on this question! You see you can get back to the Subject in hand if you try!
Regards,
Colin.
P.S. The above delay was caused re. Posting by the decision, 'Should it be left at the junction, and Morning Prayer or right at the junction and Cooked Chicken from Asda?' I refuse to answer that one! Must go dinner time!
Last edited by C Bain : 22nd May 2005 at 04:53 AM.
Some British scientists have found footprints in central Mexico 40,000 years old! Quote:- "....shattering theories that mankind arrived in the Americas tens of thousands of years later from Asia." More evolutionary hypotheses down the shoot it seems. A section of The Human Race floated off into the wide blue-yonder with the America's and didn't need to walk to Mexico from Asia it seems! That puts the kibosh on Christoper Columbus claim to fame?
The footprints were on a volcanic lakes shore fossilized in the volcanic ash?
You might like to ask Prof Bob Kidd at UWS <b.kidd@uws.edu.au> he did his doctorate on Homonid 8 and would be an informed source for this debate. If we move several millenium forward to the ancient Olympics there was an excellent set of SBS programs (source France, I think) which outlined the preparation of athletes. In compettion I recall running speeds and jumping lenghts were potentially greater than today. Bearing in mind this was a drug free time too.
The theory that North America was populated from migration through the Bearing Straits has been questionable for some time now. The confirmation of a footprint in Mexico is a furher vindication that bipeds existed on the continent. To add to that the biggest prehistoric cache of shoes to be found came from Arizona (US) and the shoe styles represeted all seven styles of shoe, we know today. In a much cruder form of course and not just restricted to mocassins as might be thought.
Being more evolutionary than religious visionary...I often think it is no surprise that the human foot gives so many of us trouble....regardless of all the concrete...we just did not evolve for a service life any where near as long as we are now trying to make them last.
We may well have chased a great many dinners in the dim past over more natural surfaces...but not many of us did it for that many years I don't think.
Regards Phill
Human foot bones from Klasies River main site, South Africa.
From the latest Human Evolution: Human foot bones from Klasies River main site, South Africa.
Quote:
The caves at Klasies River contain abundant archaeological evidence relating to human evolution in the late Pleistocene of southern Africa. Along with Middle Stone Age artifacts, animal bones, and other food waste, there are hominin cranial fragments, mandibles with teeth, and a few postcranial remains. Three foot bones can now be added to this inventory. An adult first metatarsal is similar in size and discrete anatomical features to those from Holocene burials in the Cape Province. A complete and well-preserved second metatarsal is especially long and heavy at midshaft in comparison to all Holocene and more recent South African homologues. A large fifth metatarsal is highly distinctive in its morphology. In overall size, these pedal elements resemble specimens from late Pleistocene sites in western Asia, but there are some differences in proportions. The fossils support earlier suggestions concerning a relatively high level of sexual dimorphism in the African Middle Stone Age population. Squatting facets on the two lateral metatarsals appear to indicate a high frequency of kneeling among members of this group. The new postcranial material also underlines the fact that the morphology of particular skeletal elements of some of the 100,000-year-old Klasies River individuals falls outside the range of modern variation.
as i remember if 'ancient man' survived infancy then the average age was in the mid 20's, with eldest ~40 y/o, traversing varying terrain with varying resistance (mainly plenty of cushioning) so jts worked their whole rom...........here we are living to 70, walking on CONCRETE in footwear, the better ones of which provide cushioning (as much as natural surfaces???) but with a greatly reduced rom (> o/a), and often in climates differing from those when feet evolved,.... we surely have no worries about shortages of podiatric clientele in the future, i feel better now
here we are living to 70, walking on CONCRETE in footwear, the better ones of which provide cushioning (as much as natural surfaces???) but with a greatly reduced rom (> o/a), and often in climates differing from those when feet evolved,.... we surely have no worries about shortages of podiatric clientele in the future, i feel better now
Hi David,
To extrapolate a little further.
Did our feet evolve for the concrete?
Did early hominids have an inbuilt inversion to allow more effective ambulation over undulating terrain (and more effective "up on your toes and away" in case of predation)?
If so, is that inversion still present on our modern "walk on concrete" feet?
PS. You know what some would say? When a theory becomes factual even when you cannot measure it or repeat the experiment! Wishful thinking perhaps?
Colin, I'm not sure what you are saying. You can do repeatable experiments on populations of fruit flies that show that the population evolves.
To evolve there has to be selection pressure. There has to be a greater liklihood of passing on genes with one trait as opposed to another. How many people do you know who are unable to have offspring because of thier feet?
This one hidden in the mist of time! Hang on while I check the feet? No they are all still there but I am sure there were ten when I last looked? Are there you are you little blighter under that other one!
Yes I was told we will loose the fifth toes later in evolutionary time when I was a child. I have seen a number of Ladies without their fifth and second toes recently because the Orthopaedic Surgeon thought it was a good idea to remove them at the time, (Granted it was forty or so years ago when they were removed!). Some of these ladies now have a terrible habit of falling over you know?
Quote:- "How many people do you know who are unable to have offspring's because of their feet." [efuller].
I agree with you, the mind boggles!
I could answer you regarding this and your fruit flies but I think Admin. would probably have me barred!
Regards,
Colin.
P.S. I think it might have something to do with the environment and we are not dieing quickly enough before our feet wear out. Never mind the little grey cells up here at the other end!
P.P.S. Fruit flies, are they evolving or adapting to environment rather than evolution? Which can be questionable as a theory at the best of times? There are, quiet a few human beings walking about today, fit and well who wouldn't last five minutes in the front-line! They can not even stop walking under buses and things, but they are still producing offspring's! My feet are all right and they have been in some funny places, but I became an expert at ducking!
P.P.P.S. When I was in my second year in Electrical Engineering in the 1950's My text book said that electricity flowed from Positive to Negative because the Scientists could repeat the experiment! When you threw the switch the lamp was lit! They had it all there because of their deep understanding of hydraulic engineering and they could even calculate pressure and volume, volts. and Amperes! Big tank of electricity at the positive end flowing through to the other end when you turned the tap, the Switch, lit lamp!
Then some fool declassified the nuclear physics of the atomic bomb, "Throw your text books in the bin Bonny Lad's they got it wrong! Now I'm sitting there watching all these little Electrons jumping from atom to atom coming from the Negative to where the irresistible force is waiting to be neutralised by them the Positive end when I light my lamp!
I won't bore you with the Quantum Mechanics explanation but do you know I might have seen a glimpse of pure energy, life itself, when they describe the wave particles in the Sphere of the Atom! Now that does really light my lamp! But who switched the pure energy on. Now if I answer that Admin. for sure will switch me Off! He has said so in the dim and distant past somewhere.
True I will have difficulty fitting this one into evolutionary feet???
Then again there is always miracle mouse who can grow some new ones when you chop his off if I remember rightly, feet I mean! Phew, got there, back to the feet I mean, it's worse than Theology! And not a mention of God anywhere!
Last edited by C Bain : 10th November 2005 at 11:18 AM.
Reason: Flowed not followed and I strongly suspect worse to come!
Interesting post and I liked your "electricity" example of how our understanding of some physical properties can change overnight.
If you believe in evolution (and the fossil bones are out there to show that hominid lower limbs have not changed too much in 1.6 million years) then surely it is fairly obvious that homo sapiens is not suddenly (and if we are talking a million years or so, then 2 or 3 hundred years ago constitutes "suddenly" in my book) going to develop a foot/lower limb which has adapted for life on a hard, flat surface?
If you don't believe in evolution, and hold a creationist viewpoint, then a similar argument surely holds true?
Creationists believe we were created whole and fully evolved, and the latest (and some believe much earlier) that creationists believe we came out of the Garden of Eden was about 11500 years ago. Yet I've seen no descriptions of the Garden of Eden being paved or concreted, so some genetic change would have had to take place for our feet to evolve over the last couple of hundred years so that we can now ambulate, fully adapted, on hard and flat surfaces.
This of course, is not to knock the creationist viewpoint. I don't believe that myself, but many people of different religions do, and I respect that.
No trouble with accepting change in any living-being with respect to Linear Time. We must all adapt or die!
In regard to the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve, PERFECTION, IMMORTAL!
Eden paved or concreted is I believe of no matter! We are back to miracle mouse again. Genetic Perfection delivered in His Creation of Adam and Eve from God. Miracle Mouse, Genetic Correction of imperfect delivered by Human Kind.
The Curse of God was to make it impossible for human kind to live in His Presence because of their disobedience. Therefore a steady decline in Genetic Perfection! The result of Genes who are copied, and mistakes are made in the copying! Now we are well down the slippery slope of Genetic Imperfection. Can we reverse it? Will He let us live long enough to reverse it?
1.6 million years or whatever. Can there be any calibration between the Linear Clock , (Going tick tock), and Einsteins Clock of Curving-planial-Relativity? By the short time we have left here, I don't think it's going to matter very much anyway?
I would still point out that when walking the fells in Cumbria I am walking on ancient granite and even with hard packed soil on top of it bare feet is really not such a good idea? Even the Romans in their Mediterranean kit and sissy attitude to the natives all wrapped up against the weather and soon learnt what winter was all about here and adapted, probably after a few toes dropped off to make the point of course!
P.P.S. Fruit flies, are they evolving or adapting to environment rather than evolution? Which can be questionable as a theory at the best of times? There are, quiet a few human beings walking about today, fit and well who wouldn't last five minutes in the front-line!
I don't understand your first sentence above. What is the difference between adaptation and evolution? What questionable theory are you referring to? There is behavioral adaptation and there is genetic adaptation which occurs over generations. Evolution, as proposed by Darwin, is genetic adaptation to an environment.
I had a patient come in the other day whose feet were hurting and without any prompting from me said, "My feet were not intellegently designed."
I mean most Variation in Species over time are usually by accident, random selection in a part not the whole! We have the situation where the one that can outrun the lion passes his Genes on to the next generation! It is not by genetic adaption to the environment! Somewhere else in the same species the failed genetic traits which allowed the lion to catch him could be having a weal of a time in another environment on this planet could they not?
All theorems could be questionable if we change an environment suddenly. Feet, who says evolution has a lot to do with our species feet? Is there any evidence of environmental change in feet anyway that you know of Eric? I thought DavidH. had already put that one to bed regarding ancient bones found latterly!
Even in the medieval times a bad fracture where modern attention is not given leaves evidence we can see, the bones in the skeletal remains have thicken in an attempt to compensate for the deficiency in the ability to heal normally? No genetics just plain body who does not allow holes to continue to exist for to long!
As far as your patient is concerned the very fact that he/she was there with you shows that his/her feet where not normal feet, there must be something wrong with them to get him/her through your door! What mischief had the bearer of the feet being doing to them I wonder, walking about perhaps.
I only see the feet where someone has assaulted them with something etc.,
I get quiet a shock sometimes when I see a pair which are normal you know.
I mean most Variation in Species over time are usually by accident, random selection in a part not the whole! We have the situation where the one that can outrun the lion passes his Genes on to the next generation! It is not by genetic adaption to the environment! Somewhere else in the same species the failed genetic traits which allowed the lion to catch him could be having a weal of a time in another environment on this planet could they not?
The lion is the environment. This is where you have to understand the Galapagos finches. A couple of finches go on a three hour tour and they end up on a group of Islands with different habitats. Their offspring go to different habitats. On one Island the best food is isnects in crevices and the long skinny beaks are better suited to that environment. On another Island the best food is seeds where a strong thick beak is more advantageous. The random variations have different selection pressures in different environments. The environmental selection is not random, but the initial variation was. The theory continues that given enough time appart these two groups will become separate species.
Quote:
All theorems could be questionable if we change an environment suddenly. Feet, who says evolution has a lot to do with our species feet? Is there any evidence of environmental change in feet anyway that you know of Eric? I thought DavidH. had already put that one to bed regarding ancient bones found latterly!
I think we are in agreement here. Fifth toes have so little to do with whether or not we have children that there is no reason to expect that we will evolve to the point where we only have four toes. Anyone who predicts that humans will evolve to have fewer toes does not understand the theory. We don't have to crack nuts with our feet. We don't even have to walk with our feet. In modern society we can use motorized wheel chairs and have children.
Last edited by Admin : 12th November 2005 at 05:54 AM.
Reason: fixed quotes
I'm glad we can have some agreement on this. Thank you also for your forbearance. Sometimes we, both of us can sound like our religious friends who knock on the front door when we are in the middle of something urgent or interesting and you know you cannot win!
My interest with evolution is the Big Switch! Just read somewhere recently where a group of scientist in Genetics on a Religions Forum has come to the conclusion that one of the genes under research could not possibly have been formed, or created naturally. Not enough time to design it through the Chaos Theorem! His faith has been increased by the work of the Geneticist.
I must apologies for presenting this without the evidence. I did not copy it, silly me and I have not got a clue where I read it at the moment, I have tried to find it again? Some of the religious forums are a thousand times large than our Forum here! But the wheat from the chaff, amongst the word garbage? In the main Admin. and Reason keeps us on our toes here all three of them, sorry five of them! It's this time on Saturday morning Eric and my brain/soul is not entirely connected up to my hands???
Yours with deep respect and appreciation on how this one went,
Colin.
PS. Do you know anything on the present state of play on Chaos Theory or anything relating to the feet in genetics other than Miracle Mouse, awaiting with baited breath for the next release on that one! I don't think we are going to see our patients being issued with a spare set just yet, feet I mean, now that would put us on a Parr with the Dentists!!!
But sometimes it is the daft ideas which win the philosophising prize rather than get him/her certified? (Admin. of course when he gets back from his short holiday in the Rockies may still do it of course after where I have ended up here! Application for certification I mean!).
If not directly connected to feet may have to start in new thread elsewhere. We might just be a tiny bit off subject here? What was message No. 1 about I will have to go and look?
Evolution
, and can you give us any more information?
Linear Mode
