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Lowly Origin: Where, When, and Why Our Ancestors First Stood Up
Our ability to walk on two legs is not only a characteristic human trait but one of the things that made us human in the first place. Once our ancestors could walk on two legs, they began to do many of the things that apes cannot cross wide open spaces, manipulate complex tools, communicate with new signal systems, and light fires. Titled after the last two words of Darwin's Descent of Man and written by a leading scholar of human evolution, Lowly Origin is the first book to explain the sources and consequences of bipedalism to a broad audience. Along the way, it accounts for recent fossil discoveries that show us a still incomplete but much bushier family tree than most of us learned about in school.
Jonathan Kingdon uses the very latest findings from ecology, biogeography, and paleontology to build a new and up-to-date account of how four-legged apes became two-legged hominins. He describes what it took to get up onto two legs as well as the protracted consequences of that step--some of which led straight to modern humans and others to very different bipeds. This allows him to make sense of recently unearthed evidence suggesting that no fewer than twenty species of humans and hominins have lived and become extinct. Following the evolution of two-legged creatures from our earliest lowly forebears to the present, Kingdon concludes with future options for the last surviving biped.
A major new narrative of human evolution, Lowly Origin is the best available account of what it meant--and what it means--to walk on two feet.
Jonathan Kingdon uses the very latest findings from ecology, biogeography, and paleontology to build a new and up-to-date account of how four-legged apes became two-legged hominins. He describes what it took to get up onto two legs as well as the protracted consequences of that step--some of which led straight to modern humans and others to very different bipeds. This allows him to make sense of recently unearthed evidence suggesting that no fewer than twenty species of humans and hominins have lived and become extinct. Following the evolution of two-legged creatures from our earliest lowly forebears to the present, Kingdon concludes with future options for the last surviving biped.
A major new narrative of human evolution, Lowly Origin is the best available account of what it meant--and what it means--to walk on two feet.
416 pages, Paperback
First published April 7, 2003
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About the author
Jonathan Kingdon
54 books9 followersJonathan Kingdon is a zoologist, science author, and artist; a research associate at the University of Oxford. He focuses on taxonomic illustration and evolution of the mammals of Africa. He is a contributor to The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 28, 2018
Lowly Origin offers a biogeographic overview of hominin evolution, with original insights for what may have happened during the split of chimp-human lineages. Thus, it has a strong focus on explaining the functional origins of bipedalism among the very first hominins. Kingdon’s ideas are inspired by the terrestrial squat-feeding hypothesis (Jolly, 1970). In this earlier model, delicate foraging for seeds from grasses, as geladas and savannah baboons do today, allowed for a more upright posture while squatting was favoured as an early precursor behaviour for bipedal walking.
Kingdon proposed a change of scenario from the grassland setting to a forest one and also expanded seeds to a variety of other nutritional resources, including insects, crustaceans, small mammals, various kinds of vegetation, and low-hanging fruits that would be readily available on the Indian Ocean coastal forests extending continuously from Somalia all the way to South Africa. This hypothetical event might have occurred as African ape lineages become geographically isolated because of aridity cycles starting at 10.5 Ma, with maximum dry peaks at 7.8 and 6.2 Ma.
Right now there are no known coastal forests of the right age and location on the fossil record to test this. But this will soon change, google Paleo-Primate Project, Gorongosa to know more.
Kingdon proposed a change of scenario from the grassland setting to a forest one and also expanded seeds to a variety of other nutritional resources, including insects, crustaceans, small mammals, various kinds of vegetation, and low-hanging fruits that would be readily available on the Indian Ocean coastal forests extending continuously from Somalia all the way to South Africa. This hypothetical event might have occurred as African ape lineages become geographically isolated because of aridity cycles starting at 10.5 Ma, with maximum dry peaks at 7.8 and 6.2 Ma.
Right now there are no known coastal forests of the right age and location on the fossil record to test this. But this will soon change, google Paleo-Primate Project, Gorongosa to know more.
March 10, 2019
One of my new favorite books. Jonathon’s tone is quite personal, reasoning tightly argued, and his artwork graces every other page.
The book is written in 2003, a couple arguments are dated. He argues that functional hairlessness is an immune-based adaptation in H Sapiens. But genetic evidence has now confirmed Lieberman’s claim that it is a endurance running adaptation of H Erectus. And most of the arguments about modern H Sapiens are outdated.
The emphasis on ecology’s role in human evolution is a well-needed antidote to the exclusive focus on fossil record characterized by other theorists. Kingdon doesn’t limit his theories to when and why X adaptation evolved. He also adduces evidence for where something evolved. On this point his expertise as an African zoologist is quite apparent.
I review one of the books interesting claims (bipedalism evolved as apes engaged in squat-feeding along Eastern Littoral Forest) here:
https://kevinbinz.com/2019/03/09/bipe...
The book is written in 2003, a couple arguments are dated. He argues that functional hairlessness is an immune-based adaptation in H Sapiens. But genetic evidence has now confirmed Lieberman’s claim that it is a endurance running adaptation of H Erectus. And most of the arguments about modern H Sapiens are outdated.
The emphasis on ecology’s role in human evolution is a well-needed antidote to the exclusive focus on fossil record characterized by other theorists. Kingdon doesn’t limit his theories to when and why X adaptation evolved. He also adduces evidence for where something evolved. On this point his expertise as an African zoologist is quite apparent.
I review one of the books interesting claims (bipedalism evolved as apes engaged in squat-feeding along Eastern Littoral Forest) here:
https://kevinbinz.com/2019/03/09/bipe...
January 29, 2020
One of my favorite books, and a frequent gift to friends. Charming, beautifully written and illustrated, enormously informative and convincing.
December 18, 2021
after outlining evolutionary processes, he presents his model for the rise of bipedalism and offers a new place of origin for upright apes, the development of various branches of the human tree, fossils found worldwide and possible relationships to each other and homo sapiens, he suggests that our survival as the only human species and our role in the extinction of other branches of the family tree may be the result of behaviours that enabled us to become successful but might become the cause of our eventual extinction. scarey stuff.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews