Comments on: Big butt? Here's why.

Big butt? Here's why.

orthogonality — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 01:44:39 -0800

Why Homos have big butts, short shouts, and big leg joints: long distance running.

By: orthogonality

orthogonality — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 01:45:07 -0800

Er, snouts.

By: Colloquial Collision

Colloquial Collision — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 02:03:51 -0800

Your post is certainly suggestive.

By: srboisvert

srboisvert — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 04:38:18 -0800

I read short shorts on my first try. Those Homos!

By: rxrfrx

rxrfrx — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 04:55:08 -0800

Short shout out to all my homos!

By: Plutor

Plutor — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 05:08:44 -0800

Who cares about the big leg joints, I want to know about homos and the short shorts.

By: Alison

Alison — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 05:38:52 -0800

This reminds me of a story on This American Life about trying to kill antelope by chasing them until they collapse. The theory was that most animals can only run for short periods of time, but if caught in a prolonged chase by long-distance running humans they would overheat.

By: sciurus

sciurus — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 06:10:15 -0800

I'm almost positive this is a double, but maybe I just read it when it came out a year ago. Since I run, it is likely.

By: Miko

Miko — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 06:20:59 -0800

story on This American Life That story was hilarious. For those who didn't hear it - it didn't work. Clearly, on the ancient savannahs of africa, early captured animals for food by the use of their wits and dexterity, not astounding speed. This is neat. It bears out my completely subjective sensation when I'm out on a good run: This is what the human body is built to do well.

By: OmieWise

OmieWise — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 06:36:47 -0800

Yeah, I love this theory of human evolution. I'm a runner because I'm human. Incidentally, there is a great book by a great naturalist, scientist and UVM prefessor Bernd Heinrich. Why We Run is the title of the book. Heinrich was one of our (USA) best ultrarunners, and once held the US 100 mile record.

By: kika

kika — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 06:37:30 -0800

My knees beg to differ.

By: stagewhisper

stagewhisper — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 07:00:05 -0800

Thanks for the link. I remember reading a condensed version of this theory some time last year, but it wasn't as comprehensive. I'm hardly an objective judge of the validity of this finding, since I am forever trying to add to my arsenal of responses to people who feel compelled to explain to my gimpy self that the reason we retired distance runners have aches and pains as we get older is because "the body was never designed to run long distances".

By: OmieWise

OmieWise — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 07:03:31 -0800

OmieWise writes "prefessor" I'm sorry, of course that's *perfessor*.

By: horsewithnoname

horsewithnoname — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 07:04:02 -0800

I like big glutei maximi and short femoral necks and I cannot lie.

By: RichardP

RichardP — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 07:09:26 -0800

This ScienceDaily article came up a couple of months ago in the comments to an Ask Mefi question: What are humans best at? The discussion also linked to a related article at ABC news.

By: soyjoy

soyjoy — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 07:13:25 -0800

I'm pretty sure I also saw this or something just like it here on the blue a couple months ago. But I don't remember this particular turn of phrase: endurance running evolved in human ancestors so they could pursue predators Interesting theory. What, were they so hard up for entertainment that they needed to run after and taunt their predators?

By: cleverusername

cleverusername — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 08:00:00 -0800

soyjoy wrote: "What, were they so hard up for entertainment that they needed to run after and taunt their predators?" Iraq? /flee

By: QuietDesperation

QuietDesperation — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 08:18:57 -0800

Er, what if one resembles the one on the left more than the one on the right? Just asking, not that it's relevant to me or anything (looks wistfully at place where he's heard arches should be).

By: stbalbach

stbalbach — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 08:21:52 -0800

The article makes clear that its not short distance speed that humans are good at, but long distance endurance. How does long distance endurance tie into hunting? Hunters need to go to where the animals are migrating .. the African savanna is like the mid-western plains of North America, large herds of grass-feeding animals on the constant move across vast distances. Keeping up with the herd may be what its all about. Just a thought.

By: Joeforking

Joeforking — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 08:24:12 -0800

Get back up that tree, QD!

By: nixerman

nixerman — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 08:36:45 -0800

Yeah, stbalbach, there's definitely something missing there. I don't see how long distance endurance is going to make somebody a better hunter. The scavenging bit is a stretch. When you see a column of vultures you're no longer talking about the distances involved for long distance running. And his dismissal of bipedalism is also a bit off. It could very well be the case that anatomically correct humans evolved slowly yet the bipedal ability--particularly walking all the time and rarely climbing trees--would still be the turning point.

By: dial-tone

dial-tone — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 08:52:55 -0800

Keeping up with the herd may be what its all about. In the USA, at least, even in the colder states, there are plenty of animals that don't migrate all that far (for example deer), that would be easy to hunt without long distance running.

By: kozad

kozad — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 08:57:25 -0800

Ummm....chasing mates? Just trying to add sexual selection into the mix here. Still doesn't explain the Homos, though.

By: lodurr

lodurr — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 09:04:21 -0800

I don't see how long distance endurance is going to make somebody a better hunter. Consider the Cape Hunting Dog: By some measures (e.g., pursuit to kill ratio), the most successful mammalian predator known to man. They can sustain high speeds for ungodly distances, and so can outrun prey with significantly faster top speeds. And they hunt in well-organized packs, so they can outmanouver their prey, too. Here's the problem: They prey know this, and they have gotten very good at spotting Cape Dogs a very long distance away. So what the Cape Dogs do is move. All the time. They move at a steady run all day long, in order to close in on their prey fast enough that they can open the faucet and run them down once they get in range. Wolverines do an analogous thing: They cover enormous amounts of territory (40 miles or more, as I recall) in a single day, as a strategy for finding prey that doesn't see them coming. (I saw a video of it one time, from the air. It's kind of a hoot, because they don't look like they can run very well, but apparently they don't care how awkward they look.) In other words, it could be an advantage because it allows them to encounter a greater number of prey opportunities in a give unit of time.

By: sciurus

sciurus — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 09:04:47 -0800

This ScienceDaily article came up a couple of months ago in the comments to an Ask Mefi question: What are humans best at? That's where I saw it!

By: Miko

Miko — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 09:13:43 -0800

Another possibility is that early humans and their immediate ancestors ran to scavenge carcasses of dead animals – maybe so they could beat hyenas or other scavengers to dinner, or maybe to "get to the leftovers soon enough," Bramble says....Scavenging "is a more reliable source of food" than hunting I think this bears serious consideration. IANAEvolutionary Biologist, but I think much too much is made of the idea of "Man, the Predator." Most of the lay science reading I've done suggests that early humans did a lot more gathering and scavenging than hunting, and that when they did hunt, a lot more fishing and trapping than spear- and rock-throwing. We're just not all that tough compared to real predators, and when we outcompeted them, it through brains and the ability to eat omnivorously, not so much brawn. I like the idea of being able to stay with a migrating herd of ungulates, though. Makes good sense. In the USA, at least, even in the colder states, there are plenty of animals that don't migrate all that far (for example deer), that would be easy to hunt without long distance running. I don't think it works well to extrapolate from present-day animal behavior in the USA. The climate and wildlife ecosystem was a little bit different even not so long ago (Wisconsin glacier and all), and seasonal migrations of herding animals were much longer. Anyway, when early humans were emerging, they weren't doing it in North America. You'd have to look at animal populations and behavior in Africa more than four million years ago to guess at what the challenges of hunting were.

By: lodurr

lodurr — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 09:17:10 -0800

Re. scavanging v. hunting: Predators seldom make such a clean distinction, themselves. Hyaenas get most of their calories from hunting, but do a lot of scavenging. Lions get a surprising amount of their calories from scavenging. Pure scavengers are rare, too. By definition, a scavenger eats what's available, and that generally includes live prey that's easy to catch. So though we have aesthetic baggage around saying our ancestors were scavengers, it would be foolish to suppose that htey weren't, at least at some level.

By: Smedleyman

Smedleyman — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 10:51:45 -0800

Plus distance running extends your territory, ups your odds of finding something to hunt or scavenge. My body gives me all kinds of "YES!" signs when I run long distances. That can't be a coincidence. Those opiates have to be an adaption as well.

By: Robot Johnny

Robot Johnny — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 11:11:24 -0800

I can't wait to see how our bodies evolve now that all we do is sit on our asses.

By: nofundy

nofundy — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 11:30:39 -0800

Robot Johnny wins! Isn't this all a part of the ID (Inferior Design) argument?

By: normy

normy — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 11:50:53 -0800

I think this makes some sense. If you're a hungry group of folk creeping up on a herd of antelope or somesuch, it might not make sense to just try picking one and running it down. It's also unlikely that you'll be able to make a quick clean kill with the rocks and sticks you have for weapons. But if you're intelligent enough to get organised, creep up on your prey and attack it enough to injure it, and then spend the next few hours or so following it in its weakened state until you can attack it again or it collapses, you'll eventually get to eat it. Being able to run, albeit relatively slowly, for long distances would be a big advantage in such a scenario.

By: mrgrimm

mrgrimm — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 12:00:17 -0800

I don't see how long distance endurance is going to make somebody a better hunter. Me neither. I just figured that we were running away. The fact that the hunter-gatherers were eventually killed by the farmers makes me think that perhaps we were in a bloody coevolutionary war that we won by running away (and eventually freeing time via agriculture to develop better killing weapons.) On preview: good point, normy. I can't wait to see how our bodies evolve now that all we do is sit on our asses. Isn't this what people talk about when they discuss agriculture as the biggest mistake in human history? Jared Diamond maybe ... I'm too lazy to look it up.

By: artifarce

artifarce — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 12:03:17 -0800

This was a "double" for me in that I remembered this theory from my 200-level ecology & evolution class...then I read the article. Same school, same professor, and that was ~7 years ago. One thing I vaguely remember from this theory that wasn't in the article was that hair loss in humans (i.e., from most of our body, not from our heads ;) ) had the effect of streamlining humans for running.

By: dhartung

dhartung — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 12:17:43 -0800

Thirty or so years ago, it was popular to ~~guess~~ hypothesize that humans evolved through swimming.

By: Durhey

Durhey — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 12:32:01 -0800

I can't wait to see how our bodies evolve now that all we do is sit on our asses. But we're already set up for it! Big butts make a nice cushion, and the short snouts keep us from bumping into the monitor.

By: jcruelty

jcruelty — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 15:42:49 -0800

those who enjoyed the scott carrier's NPR story on chasing antelope should most definitely pick up the book-- Running After Antelope. it's a fun read.

By: kyrademon

kyrademon — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 20:59:35 -0800

That was never a particularly mainstream theory, as far as I know, dhartung, although it did gain a certain amount of pop appeal for a while. But it doesn't take much to show that humans aren't particularly well set up for swimming ... our noses and feet are all wrong for it, among other things.