I think that some species of canine (including some, but certainly not all not all, domestic breeds) are one of the few that will outrun a human in the long haul.
Well, we can actually say that the most recent common ancestor of the extant great apes was a great ape. The “Great Apes” (aka, the family Hominidae) form a clade, so their most recent common ancestor is, by definition, part of that clade.
Probably about the time we stopped brachiating and/or walking on our knuckles.
Something I’m reminded of every time my elkhound gets loose.
On second read, I have to agree. The date of the split between humans and chimps is in great dispute - I found arguments from 4M to 7M, with the more convincing to me being 6-7M, and the collection of existing chimp fossils is extremely poor and fragmented, more so than human fossils - so I wouldn’t want to come down on a specific time. However, the split between the great and lesser apes appears to be at least twice that period ago, making the common Hominidae ancestor a great ape. I was thinking that it was part of the Hominoidea superfamily, which includes all apes.
Are ungulates, carnivores, and what not also stronger than us, given equivilent sized bodies and fitness? :dubious:
EM: The 5-6M year date is best supported by DNA analysis, rather than the fossil record. I’m not aware of any chimp fossils older than about .5M years, and once you get past 4M years on the human side things get very sparse. But the DNA data is pretty definitive*, so most scientists go by that. What fossils we do have from that time period tend to support it, but they can be pretty controversial.
*With the possible complication of there being more than one split. Some evidence suggests that the two lines split about 10M years ago, then merged again for a time until about 5M years ago.
This could make that new “Cavemen” show much more interesting.
Dang.
But Neandertals were certainly stronger than Homo sapiens sapiens. They had heavier skeletons with larger muscle attachments. That doesn’t mean they were off the human scale, but your average Neandertal would be tougher than modern gracile Homo sapiens.
And of course, they also had bigger brains than us.
To extend on that most astute statement of those made so far, brachiation–movement by swinging from branch to branch–is a primary means of locomotion for chimpanzees (both Common and Bonobo), which means they have to have an arm strength sufficient to support their own weight plus swinging forces, and a grip strength to maintain a hold. The orangutan is thought to be even stronger–unsurprising, since they rarely descent from the forest canopy. Superhuman strength is mandated for their lifestyle. Knuckle-walking primates like the gorilla have maintained substantial strength, though it’s not clear (from anything I can find, anyway) that there is an accepted estimate on typical and maximum strength of gorillas. Given that the front members support a considerable portion of body weight during movement it’s unsurprising that they would have dramatically higher upper body strength than humans since they function as much as legs.
For humans and our hominid ancestors, excess upper body strength was a liability; it would require more protein to build and more carbohydrates to fund, and to no regular use for a species of savannah-dwelling scavenger/gatherers. The resources devoted to sustaining muscle mass were evolutionarily better suited to supplying an increasingly large brain, which must have provided a significant benefit to those proto-humans in surviving and outwitting predators and competitors in Africa and elsewhere. Human legs retained considerable strength, although the necessary changes in anatomy for upright bipedal motion eliminated clutching and retractile strength and increased the portion of aerobic Type I muscle suitable for long treks or sustained running.
So loss of muscle strength almost certainly occured coincident with the intial development of plantigrade bipedalism. Why one branch of primates moved to bipedal locomotion is a significant question that is currently without a consensus.
The notion that Neanderthals were stronger or more brutish than modern humans of the same era is an outdated notion that stems from 19th century phrenological assessments as has no basis in modern understanding. As already noted, the size of the braincase indicates that they had brains of equal or larger size to modern humans, and likely sufficient complexity of the auditory and vocal articulation to support complex speech, though it is not known whether Neanderthal societies actually supported language capable of communicating sophisticated concepts. Neanderthals built complex tools and weapons and had at least some degree of socialized ritual behavior such as burials.
Although humans are clearly pedomorphic (carrying phenotypical juvenile features into maturity) this is true of all domesticated species to some extent. Notions that the infirmities of old ages are some repressed, incomplete stage of extended puberty is pure science fiction without basis. The swelling of joints, shrivelling of testes and overies, inflamation of the prostate, wrinkling of skin, loss of teeth, et cetera are clearly nothing more than the failing of various metabolic repair processes that occur on the cellular level, i.e. apoptosis.
Stranger
It is my understanding, and someone can correct me if I’m wrong, that the Neanderthal comparison is not quite valid since they were stronger simply (mainly?) because they had bigger muscles. Chimps, OTOH, are innately stronger on a pound-for-pound basis of muscle mass. So, a Neanderthal is stronger than me in the same sense that Stone Cold Steve Austin* is stronger than me. But a chimp is a different matter.
*That probably shows my age since he’s the first WWF guy that comes to mind.
I’m actually quite conservative when it comes to DNA dating. The “Multifactor bootstrap-resampling approach” and other such statistical techniques depend on too many uncertainties. The size of the samples, the location of the DNA sampled, the availability of fossils, and the range of error all affect the studies to a very large and probably unknown extent.
It’s true that having the complete chimp and human genomes have helped, but I think we’re going to need a few more years before one can say that DNA dating is good to a set value of reliability.
No, that means they were more squat. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they were stronger. One leading theory is that they developed in Northern Europe where a thicker, stouter stature helped them retain heat better. We also don’t know for sure that their brains were larger than ours; we know that the braincase is larger–roughly in the same proportions as the relative thickness of other skeletal members–but since we have no direct information on the structure of their brains, we can’t say that brain was larger, or what signficance that would have if it were true. It may be that the dura was thicker, or that the Neanderthal brain had a different organization, or more structures to radiate away heat due to the thicker skull, et cetera. Be very cautious of accepting authoritative answers based on reasoning from fragmentary evidence. Everything we know about Neanderthal behavior, society, intelligence, lifestyle, et cetera is based on a few dozen mostly fragmentary skeletons and enough artifacts to maybe fill a couple of steamer trunks. That would be like divining all of American history from Dumpster diving in a handful of U.S. cities.
Stranger
But he was talking about evidence for larger muscles due to more robust bones and larger muscle attachments. That’s not about conserving heat, that’s about being stronger.
Possibly–even likely–but not conclusive. It’s likely they had a higher ratio of upper body strength to leg strength than H. sapiens, and certainly possible that overall strength was greater. From what I’ve read, though, the strengths of leg bones between H. neanderthalensis and H. sapiens was comperable, even though the Neanderthal had thicker bones and larger joints. It may have been that muscle and skeletal strength was somewhat lower and that muscles were bulkier, reducing (to a modest degree) the surface area and heat loss. Since we lack for any fragment of tissue we can’t say for certain the comparison between Neanderthal physiology and our own, though I’d be suprised if it were dramatically different, even given the more recent understanding of the much longer divergence of the two species.
Stranger
I’ve read a number of papers by Trinkaus, Stringer and Tattersal (can’t cite them here) that indicate the Neanderthals were stronger in pretty much every part of their bodies, down to their fingers and thumbs. Those guys are pretty much the experts on Neanderthal anatomy, so I’m going with their conclusions.
There have been some relatively recent studies which have shown that the upper body strength of a neanderthal was significantly greater than that of a modern human, while their lower body strength was about equal to a modern human. These conclusions were based on the strength of the bones as predicted by computer programs used for orthopedics, and aren’t just based on the fact that neanderthals were squat and had barrel shaped chests.
I’m an engineer, not an anthropologist, so someone in the field is going to have to comment on the validity of these tests. I’m just passing on what I’ve read.
Not really. It’s mostly a matter of leverage. A chimp’s arm muscles are attached to the bone further from the joint than in a human; this gives greater mechanical strength while sacrificing range of motion. A human’s limbs and hands are much more versatile.
BTW, Cecil had something to say about chimp strength. Doesn’t sound like that could come from leverage alone.
In case you didn’t notice, I provided my source, which you are free to evaluate for anything it’s worth. If you want to get pissy and snarky, take it to the pit. I dont have time to debate your 'tude here.