Using Anthropology: What does it mean to be human?, we read the first part of chapter 4, “What can the fossil record tell us?” This class concentrated on bipedalism and toolmaking. One of the lessons is that humans have been “learning to move” since the beginning: that mobility is essential to being human.
These materials were for Intro to Anthropology 2021 after reading chapter 3 on Primates and then finishing the chapter.
Learning to Move Resources
See the page Bipedalism is Also Called Walking.
In 2021, I did spend a decent amount of time in this lecture talking about endurance walking, endurance running, and endurance hunting. Some people have prominently argued for the importance of running to becoming human. However, as I have also discussed there is substantial counter-evidence. For the next version of this class, I would like to discuss Chasing the Myths of Mexico’s “Superrunners” and the book Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding.