TY - BOOK ID - 128022763 TI - Upright : the evolutionary key to becoming human PY - 2003 SN - 0618302476 PB - Boston (Mass.) : Houghton Mifflin, DB - UniCat KW - Bipedalism. KW - Human evolution. UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:128022763 AB - What, in evolutionary terms, propelled us to become human? According to Craig Stanford, codirector of the Jane Goodall Primate Research Center, the answer lies not in our forebears' big brains or their facility with language but in their ability to walk on two feet. The pivotal role of bipedalism in our development prompts a dramatic reappraisal of the common belief that millions of years ago some apes moved to the African savanna and evolved into runty hominids, who eventually metamorphosed into us. Newly found remnants of two-legged "proto-humans" show that our ancestry is much richer and more convoluted than that. Could it be that the iconic fossil Lucy is not one of our direct forebears? Might our evolutionary "tree" have more than one trunk? And do we really stand on the top rung of an evolutionary ladder of excellence? With his novel research and interpretations, Stanford offers a fresh, galvanizing take on what made us human. ER -