"Even as recently as the 1970s, professional anthropologists would assume, on the flimsiest of evidence or more usually on no evidence at all, that the australopithecines' bipedalism was an ungainly, energetically inefficient 'stagger'…In fact, proper anatomical analysis has shown australopithecines' locomotion to have been perhaps even more efficient than that of Homo sapiens. Here again was an example of that old problem of differences being exaggerated while similarities were minimized."
Roger Lewin (noted science journalist), Bones of Contention (New York, NY: A Touchstone Book published by Simon & Schuster Inc., 1987), p. 83
related resources:
Sediba revisited
Lucy was a knuckle walker
Homo erectus 'to' modern man: evolution or human variability?
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