Locomotor energetics and hominid evolution

2005 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 42-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen L. Steudel
Keyword(s):  
Hominid Evolution ◽  
Locomotor Energetics

Meat Eating and Hominid Evolution

1999 ◽  
Vol 40 (5) ◽  
pp. 726
Author(s):  
Stanford ◽  
Bunn
Keyword(s):  
Hominid Evolution ◽  
Meat Eating

scholarly journals Limitations imposed by wearing armour on Medieval soldiers' locomotor performance

2011 ◽  
Vol 279 (1729) ◽  
pp. 640-644 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham N. Askew ◽  
Federico Formenti ◽  
Alberto E. Minetti
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Physical Performance ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Steel Plate ◽  
Energetic Cost ◽  
Entire Body ◽  
Additional Mass ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
Cost Of Locomotion ◽  
Locomotor Energetics

In Medieval Europe, soldiers wore steel plate armour for protection during warfare. Armour design reflected a trade-off between protection and mobility it offered the wearer. By the fifteenth century, a typical suit of field armour weighed between 30 and 50 kg and was distributed over the entire body. How much wearing armour affected Medieval soldiers' locomotor energetics and biomechanics is unknown. We investigated the mechanics and the energetic cost of locomotion in armour, and determined the effects on physical performance. We found that the net cost of locomotion ( C met ) during armoured walking and running is much more energetically expensive than unloaded locomotion. C met for locomotion in armour was 2.1–2.3 times higher for walking, and 1.9 times higher for running when compared with C met for unloaded locomotion at the same speed. An important component of the increased energy use results from the extra force that must be generated to support the additional mass. However, the energetic cost of locomotion in armour was also much higher than equivalent trunk loading. This additional cost is mostly explained by the increased energy required to swing the limbs and impaired breathing. Our findings can predict age-associated decline in Medieval soldiers' physical performance, and have potential implications in understanding the outcomes of past European military battles.

Review Feature: A review of The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art by David Lewis-Williams. London: Thames & Hudson, 2002. ISBN 0-500-05117-8 hardback £18.95 & US$29.95; 320 pp., 66 figs., 29 colour plates

2003 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 263-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Lewis-Williams ◽  
E. Thomas Lawson ◽  
Knut Helskog ◽  
David S. Whitley ◽  
Paul Mellars
Keyword(s):  
Rock Art ◽  
David Lewis ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Hominid Evolution ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Anatomically Modern Humans ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Cave Art ◽  
West European

David Lewis-Williams is well-known in rock-art circles as the author of a series of articles drawing on ethnographic material and shamanism (notably connected with the San rock art of southern Africa) to gain new insights into the Palaeolithic cave art of western Europe. Some 15 years ago, with Thomas Dowson, he proposed that Palaeolithic art owed its inspiration at least in part to trance experiences (altered states of consciousness) associated with shamanistic practices. Since that article appeared, the shamanistic hypothesis has both been widely adopted and developed in the study of different rock-art traditions, and has become the subject of lively and sometimes heated controversy. In the present volume, Lewis-Williams takes the argument further, and combines the shamanistic hypothesis with an interpretation of the development of human consciousness. He thus enters another contentious area of archaeological debate, seeking to understand west European cave art in the context of (and as a marker of) the new intellectual capacities of anatomically modern humans. Radiocarbon dates for the earliest west European cave art now place it contemporary with the demise of the Neanderthals around 30,000 years ago, and cave art, along with carved or decorated portable items, appears to announce the arrival and denote the success of modern humans in this region. Lewis-Williams argues that such cave art would have been beyond the capabilities of Neanderthals, and that this kind of artistic ability is unique to anatomically modern humans. Furthermore, he concludes that the development of the new ability cannot have been the product of hundreds of thousands of years of gradual hominid evolution, but must have arisen much more abruptly, within the novel neurological structure of anatomically modern humans. The Mind in the Cave is thus the product of two hypotheses, both of them contentious — the shamanistic interpretation of west European Upper Palaeolithic cave art, and the cognitive separation of modern humans and Neanderthals. But is it as simple as that? Was cave art the hallmark of a new cognitive ability and social consciousness that were beyond the reach of previous hominids? And is shamanism an outgrowth of the hard-wired structure of the modern human brain? We begin this Review Feature with a brief summary by David Lewis-Williams of the book's principal arguments. There follows a series of comments addressing both the meaning of the west European cave art, and its wider relevance for the understanding of the Neanderthal/modern human transition.

Multiple dispersals and the environment in hominid evolution

1997 ◽  
Vol 12 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 9-15
Author(s):  
R. A. Foley
Keyword(s):  
Hominid Evolution

On the Production of Religious Configurations

2010 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 239-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gustavo Benavides
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Sexual Differentiation ◽  
Social Evolution ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Hominid Evolution ◽  
The Other

AbstractResearch on the emergence of the configuration known as “religion” requires tracing the articulation among biological, psychological and social processes. This research must take into account evolutionary approaches; first, in terms of hominid evolution, for it is only by taking into consideration work on symbolization, language development, the capacity to engage in metacognition and cooperation, the tendency to form hierarchies, engage in violence, sexual differentiation, and related topics, that one can hope to trace the emergence of certain relatively stable features of human behavior. But since symbolization and the other capacities mentioned above are exercised in specific social circumstances—which themselves could not have come into existence were it not for the exercise of those capacities—it is essential to consider social evolution, especially insofar as this evolution leads to the appearance of stratified societies and to the kind of labor that prevails in them.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document