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Science 16 November 2007:
Vol. 318. no. 5853, p. 1066
DOI: 10.1126/science.1146446
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Technical Comments

Comment on "Origin of Human Bipedalism As an Adaptation for Locomotion on Flexible Branches"

D. R. Begun,1*{dagger} B. G. Richmond,2* D. S. Strait3*

Thorpe et al. (Reports, 1 June 2007, p. 1328) concluded that human bipedalism evolved from a type of bipedal posture they observed in extant orangutans with seemingly human-like extended knees. However, humans share knuckle-walking characters with African apes that are absent in orangutans. These are most parsimoniously explained by positing a knuckle-walking precursor to human bipedalism.

1 Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, M5S 2S2, Canada.
2 Department of Anthropology, Center for the Advanced Study of Hominid Paleobiology, George Washington University, 2110 G Street, NW, Washington, DC 20052, USA.
3 Department of Anthropology, University at Albany, 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany, NY 12222, USA.

* These authors contributed equally to this work.

{dagger} To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: begun{at}chass.utoronto.ca

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)