Nice coincidence! These days I'm reading Daniel Lieberman's book 'Exercised'. And this video is it in a nutshell ;) Awesome scientist and awesome dude!!!
Interesting talk, although I question the importance of running for getting food. Using that much energy for a little bit of food would not have been very effective for survival. For survival it would be a lot more beneficial to be able to run away from predators. So I think more emphasis should be put on the importance of the latter.
In the talk, Lieberman shows the sprinting speed of an EEA carnivore (lion), and how overwhelmingly fast it is compared to humans. We simply cannot outrun quadrupedal carnivores, so there must be other reasons we developed our many efficient running adaptations. It should also be noted that when Lieberman says "running", the efficient long-distance version is a brisk jog rather than a sprint. The whole point of jogging is that it is efficient and doesn't cost much energy. Meander around jogging after that animal for a while, and boom, you've got enough meat to feed yourself and several others. And the amount of energy found in bone marrow from scavenged carcasses is also worth a bit of a run to get to them!
@@QuasarKaraoke I think it's worth paying attention to children's play in this regard. Human children are very fond of playing games that have to do with sprinting away or catching up by sprinting, or by outlasting the adversary. In many different animal species this is how the young play, whether they are the hunted or the hunters. To be good at this would have meant a lot, evolutionary speaking. Lions were not the only predators of humans. Other humans were probably a greater danger, as well as big birds, etc. Running just to take cover, or into a big group of people would have been some very useful strategies. Dealing with some large carnivores would have been more effective by the use of fire. As far as jogging, it would also have been very useful in order to scout out different areas and come back to the group quickly to report what was ahead in form of food, water or dangers. Outlasting other joggers in pursuit of you can also be very useful for survival. I just think people are staring themselves blind at hunting, which is something that really couldn't have been a very effective way of getting calories, Lieberman says so himself. Not then, and not now, even by present hunter/gatherers. The main takeaway that I found important in his talk was the very high calorie savings humans made by starting to walk/run upright, period. I was not aware of this. But that must surely be a great explanation for larger brain size, among other things, like cooking.
@@carinaekstrom1 As far as I am aware, big cats are pretty firmly the hypothesized #1 predators for early hominids. There are some great ancient big cat species with teeth perfectly adapted for instantly killing apes with a single bite. Later on into the pleistocene and stuff, other humans may have become the most dangerous killers, but in the very early days when these adaptations were starting up in earnest (e.g. australopithecus), cats were where it's at. (Edit: perhaps the development of ranged weaponry / spearthrowers and the like would mark this transition point?) I certainly agree that being able to sprint effectively is useful for most species, including us, but the fact remains that our superlative ability is in *endurance* running, not in sprinting. If we are on average able to outlast any other species in the activity of jogging around for hours in the hot sun, that must have been a very standard activity for our ancestors. Exactly *why* we were jogging around so much is definitely still up for debate, I agree. I'm similar to you, not fond of persistence hunting as the runaway calorie surplus mechanism, but scavenging (bone marrow) seems promising. I'm excited to see new developments in the evolutionary history of early hominid diet, that's for sure.
@@QuasarKaraoke Yes, I think big cats were such a big problem that we actually didn't live on the savannah full time until we had fire. I'm sure big predators were still a problem after that, as they are even now in some places. I am just saying that there were many predators, including other humans that it was very useful to being able to outrun, or outlast. So we don't have to think that persistance hunting was especially important for aquiring calories. I do believe endurance tests have been important for social reasons, though, like proving oneself, spiritual reasons, etc., but not for simple food sustenance. I know there's a paper that tries to calculate that it would be worth the energy expenditure to chase animals in the hot sun for hours, but it could be wrong on so many of it's assumptions that I can't see it as very convincing. Scavenging would have happened, I'm sure, but probably more after the control of fire was possible. Without fire it's not easy to be in competition with large predators with an excellent sense of smell. Also, rotting meat is not something human tastebuds favor, not to mention all the dangerous pathogens in it. There would have been some marrow, but wild animals have very little fat. Eating a lot of meat without a lot of fat would have lead to protein poisoning. I think what we are realizing as evidence accumulate is that fire was used a lot earlier than we used to think, giving us a great caloric advantage whatever we cooked, without having to depend on endurance hunting. There were plenty of things to cook.
@@carinaekstrom1 I believe there was a very good CARTA presentation talking about bone marrow, that's what convinced me of its possible importance. I'd recommend looking for it! The big thing as far as I remember was that the large savannah predators leave the bones behind after their kills, and so only humans (who can break the bones with tools) and hyenas (who can break the bones with extremely strong jaws) have access to marrow as a reliable calorie source. In addition, the marrow is protected from pathogens while the bones are whole, avoiding the problems of eating rotten meat. Remove the dregs of meat from the bones, snap open, enjoy.
Great information. Prof. Lieberman continues to provide wonderful insights into human evolution. Many thanks.
Extremely interesting. Thank you for posting it.
What about bigfoot who is bipedal but runs on all fours?
Nice coincidence! These days I'm reading Daniel Lieberman's book 'Exercised'. And this video is it in a nutshell ;)
Awesome scientist and awesome dude!!!
Interesting talk, although I question the importance of running for getting food. Using that much energy for a little bit of food would not have been very effective for survival. For survival it would be a lot more beneficial to be able to run away from predators. So I think more emphasis should be put on the importance of the latter.
In the talk, Lieberman shows the sprinting speed of an EEA carnivore (lion), and how overwhelmingly fast it is compared to humans. We simply cannot outrun quadrupedal carnivores, so there must be other reasons we developed our many efficient running adaptations.
It should also be noted that when Lieberman says "running", the efficient long-distance version is a brisk jog rather than a sprint. The whole point of jogging is that it is efficient and doesn't cost much energy. Meander around jogging after that animal for a while, and boom, you've got enough meat to feed yourself and several others. And the amount of energy found in bone marrow from scavenged carcasses is also worth a bit of a run to get to them!
@@QuasarKaraoke I think it's worth paying attention to children's play in this regard. Human children are very fond of playing games that have to do with sprinting away or catching up by sprinting, or by outlasting the adversary. In many different animal species this is how the young play, whether they are the hunted or the hunters. To be good at this would have meant a lot, evolutionary speaking. Lions were not the only predators of humans. Other humans were probably a greater danger, as well as big birds, etc. Running just to take cover, or into a big group of people would have been some very useful strategies. Dealing with some large carnivores would have been more effective by the use of fire.
As far as jogging, it would also have been very useful in order to scout out different areas and come back to the group quickly to report what was ahead in form of food, water or dangers. Outlasting other joggers in pursuit of you can also be very useful for survival.
I just think people are staring themselves blind at hunting, which is something that really couldn't have been a very effective way of getting calories, Lieberman says so himself. Not then, and not now, even by present hunter/gatherers.
The main takeaway that I found important in his talk was the very high calorie savings humans made by starting to walk/run upright, period. I was not aware of this. But that must surely be a great explanation for larger brain size, among other things, like cooking.
@@carinaekstrom1 As far as I am aware, big cats are pretty firmly the hypothesized #1 predators for early hominids. There are some great ancient big cat species with teeth perfectly adapted for instantly killing apes with a single bite. Later on into the pleistocene and stuff, other humans may have become the most dangerous killers, but in the very early days when these adaptations were starting up in earnest (e.g. australopithecus), cats were where it's at.
(Edit: perhaps the development of ranged weaponry / spearthrowers and the like would mark this transition point?)
I certainly agree that being able to sprint effectively is useful for most species, including us, but the fact remains that our superlative ability is in *endurance* running, not in sprinting. If we are on average able to outlast any other species in the activity of jogging around for hours in the hot sun, that must have been a very standard activity for our ancestors.
Exactly *why* we were jogging around so much is definitely still up for debate, I agree. I'm similar to you, not fond of persistence hunting as the runaway calorie surplus mechanism, but scavenging (bone marrow) seems promising. I'm excited to see new developments in the evolutionary history of early hominid diet, that's for sure.
@@QuasarKaraoke Yes, I think big cats were such a big problem that we actually didn't live on the savannah full time until we had fire. I'm sure big predators were still a problem after that, as they are even now in some places. I am just saying that there were many predators, including other humans that it was very useful to being able to outrun, or outlast. So we don't have to think that persistance hunting was especially important for aquiring calories. I do believe endurance tests have been important for social reasons, though, like proving oneself, spiritual reasons, etc., but not for simple food sustenance. I know there's a paper that tries to calculate that it would be worth the energy expenditure to chase animals in the hot sun for hours, but it could be wrong on so many of it's assumptions that I can't see it as very convincing.
Scavenging would have happened, I'm sure, but probably more after the control of fire was possible. Without fire it's not easy to be in competition with large predators with an excellent sense of smell. Also, rotting meat is not something human tastebuds favor, not to mention all the dangerous pathogens in it. There would have been some marrow, but wild animals have very little fat. Eating a lot of meat without a lot of fat would have lead to protein poisoning.
I think what we are realizing as evidence accumulate is that fire was used a lot earlier than we used to think, giving us a great caloric advantage whatever we cooked, without having to depend on endurance hunting. There were plenty of things to cook.
@@carinaekstrom1 I believe there was a very good CARTA presentation talking about bone marrow, that's what convinced me of its possible importance. I'd recommend looking for it! The big thing as far as I remember was that the large savannah predators leave the bones behind after their kills, and so only humans (who can break the bones with tools) and hyenas (who can break the bones with extremely strong jaws) have access to marrow as a reliable calorie source.
In addition, the marrow is protected from pathogens while the bones are whole, avoiding the problems of eating rotten meat. Remove the dregs of meat from the bones, snap open, enjoy.
16:44 yeah and we give em gold medals for it
sorry that was distasteful but for what it's worth i am black
People still believe this? That's like believing in the Holy Bible. It's stupid.
If you don't believe in Intelligent Design and you don't believe in evolution then what do you believe in terms of the origins of homo-sapiens?
Someone needs to read the book of Genesis! God created us to run from Satan! Duh