DARWIN Day @ Redpath Museum: Baby we were born to run

Special Darwin Day presentation by John Polk, visiting professor from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Dept. of Anthropology. Dr. Polk specializes in endurance activity and brain size in human evolution. He says that humans developed their endurance running ability because hunting required it. For instance, the human ancestor, Australopithecus, had shorter limbs and may have used more flexed lower-limb postures when they walked. "They didn't have the anatomy to run long distances, but they were not ecologically required to do so," Polk says. "They probably didn't walk exactly like us either, and it is quite possible that there is more than one way to be an upright biped. The australopithecines lived in forests, and meat wasn't a big portion of their diet, so endurance running was not required in tracking down prey." Dr. Polk will explain how all that changed when long-distance hunting arose. Read more about research on long distance running and human evolution.

FREE,  all ages welcome, no reservation necessary.

Image: Anthropologist John Polk with Homo erectus skull. (Photo by Thompson-McClellan).