Summary of Daniel Lieberman's The Story of the Human Body

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 Humans are comparatively poor athletes on land. The world’s fastest humans can only sprint about 23 miles per hour for about half a minute. Humans almost always hunt with weapons because no person could ever match a chimp for speed, power, and agility.

#2 The first major transformation in human evolution was bipedalism, the ability to stand and walk on two feet. The human body is so thoroughly adapted to being habitually bipedal that we rarely give our unusual way of standing, walking, and running much thought.

#3 The term missing link is a frequently misused word that generally refers to key transitional species in the history of life. However, there is one particular species in the record of human evolution that is missing: the last common ancestor of humans and the other apes.

#4 The human evolutionary relationship with chimps was a surprise to scientists in the 1980s when the molecular evidence necessary to resolve it became available. The human evolutionary relationship with gorillas was already well-known, as they look similar to humans.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Jul 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822547766

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Insights on Daniel Lieberman's The Story of the Human Body

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Humans are comparatively poor athletes on land. The world’s fastest humans can only sprint about 23 miles per hour for about half a minute. Humans almost always hunt with weapons because no person could ever match a chimp for speed, power, and agility.

#2

The first major transformation in human evolution was bipedalism, the ability to stand and walk on two feet. The human body is so thoroughly adapted to being habitually bipedal that we rarely give our unusual way of standing, walking, and running much thought.

#3

The term missing link is a frequently misused word that generally refers to key transitional species in the history of life. However, there is one particular species in the record of human evolution that is missing: the last common ancestor of humans and the other apes.

#4

The human evolutionary relationship with chimps was a surprise to scientists in the 1980s when the molecular evidence necessary to resolve it became available. The human evolutionary relationship with gorillas was already well-known, as they look similar to humans.

#5

There have been four species of early hominins found so far. The oldest is Sahelanthropus tchadensis, which was discovered in Chad in 2001. It is at least 6 million years old, and may be as old as 7. 2 million years.

#6

The first hominin fossils were discovered in Ethiopia by an international team led by Tim White and colleagues from the University of California, Berkeley. They were assigned to two different species from yet another genus, Ardipithecus. The older species, Ardipithecus kadabba, is dated to between 5. 8 and 5. 2 million years ago.

#7

The first hominins were probably upright bipeds, similar to how apes are. However, they still had many ancestral features that were useful for climbing trees.

#8

The first adaptation that allowed humans to walk upright was the shape of the hips. The iliac bone, which forms the upper part of the pelvis, is shorter and faces sideways in humans than in apes, allowing the muscles on the side of the hips to stabilize the upper body over each leg when walking.

#9

The human spine has two pairs of curves. The lower, lumbar curve is made possible by having more lumbar vertebrae, which have a wedged shape in which the top and bottom surfaces are not parallel. The human chest and neck vertebrae create another, gentler curve at the top of the spine, which positions the upper neck downward rather than backward from the skull.

#10

The first hominins, the ancestors of humans, were not quadrupeds when they were on the ground, but they were occasional bipeds who stood and walked upright in a nonhuman manner when they were not climbing trees. They could not stride as efficiently as humans, but they were probably able to walk upright with more efficiency and stability than a chimp or a gorilla.

#11

The first hominins, like Toumaï and Ardi, had apelike faces and teeth, which suggested that they ate a rather apelike diet that was dominated by ripe fruit. They had wide front teeth that were well suited for biting into fruits.

#12

The first humans were probably bipedal because it allowed them to forage and obtain food more efficiently in the face of major climate change. Climate change is a significant factor in human evolution, and it is believed that humans are warming the earth by burning fossil fuel.

#13

Natural selection acts most strongly during times of stress and scarcity. If the LCA was a mostly fruit-eating ape that lived in