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Palaeoanthropology

Did our ancestors knuckle-walk?

Nature volume 410, pages 325–326 (2001)Cite this article

Richmond and Strait argue that evidence of ancestral knuckle-walking is retained in the distal radius of Australopithecus1, basing their conclusions on a canonical variate analysis that uses four measurements of the distal radial joint surface in higher primates. We dispute their claim that early hominids retained a specialized wrist morphology associated with knuckle-walking and question the biological and mechanical interpretations they use to attribute knuckle-walking features to the radius of Australopithecus.

The authors believe that in African apes there is a mechanism that 'locks' the wrist into place, which they base on their inference that the scaphoid conforms with a distally facing notch in the dorsal joint margin of the radius in full extension. They suggest that this 'locking mechanism' acts by limiting wrist extension and argue that it exists because chimpanzees do not consistently recruit the major flexor muscles of the digits during knuckle-walking.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Biomedical Sciences, Department of Anthropology, Kent State University, Kent, 44242, Ohio, USA

    C. Owen Lovejoy & Richard S. Meindl

  2. Division of Surgery, Department of Orthopaedics, School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, 44206, Ohio, USA

    C. Owen Lovejoy & Kingsbury G. Heiple

Authors
  1. C. Owen Lovejoy
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  2. Kingsbury G. Heiple
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  3. Richard S. Meindl
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Correspondence to C. Owen Lovejoy.

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Lovejoy, C., Heiple, K. & Meindl, R. Did our ancestors knuckle-walk?. Nature 410, 325–326 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35066636

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