Re: News on inner ear and upright walking
Todd Hogarth (bign@eskimo.com)
Thu, 30 Jun 1994 13:26:51 GMT
On VINCENT@TRIUMF.CA Pete Vincent (VINCENT@TRIUMF.CA) wrote:
: In <2uf9ev$okf@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> cfitzger@s.psych.uiuc.edu writes:
: ` The claim has been made that the inner ear arrangment which
: ` affects balance shows Homo erectus to be the first habitually
: ` upright walker. Is there more information available on this,
: ` and what are the implications?
: Yes, I was going to raise this but you've beat me. I heard this on the
: radio this weekend: a Dr. Wood(s?) from the UK made the claim that
: analysis of inner ear systems in all hominid skull types, by cat
: scan, indicated that australopithicines had balance systems more
: like chimps than humans, and therefore would not have been able to
: walk upright. This seems to fly in the face of pelvic structure
: evidence, which indicates an upright stance for Aus., and in fact
: as I recall their knees are thought to have not been able to lock,
: which would make me think they would need an enhanced sense of balance.
Perhaps the inner ear structure of chimps will allow upright walking even
though at present chimps do not have what we would consider to be the
proper pelvic structure.
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