Humans evolved for distance running

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-04194-4
Humans evolved for distance running – but ancestor
‘Lucy’ didn’t go far or fast

Ancient human relatives ran on two legs, like
modern humans, but at a much slower pace,
suggest 3D computer simulations of
Australopithecus afarensis1 – a small hominin
that lived more than three million years ago.

The analysis offers a detailed snapshot of the
hominin’s running speed and the muscular
adaptations that enabled modern humans to run
long distances, says Herman Pontzer, an
evolutionary anthropologist at Duke University
in Durham, North Carolina. “It’s a very thorough
approach,” he says. The findings were published
this week in Current Biology.
...





https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982224015665

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Running performance in Australopithecus afarensis

Summary
The evolution of bipedal gait is a key adaptive
feature in hominids, but the running abilities of
early hominins have not been extensively studied.
Here, we present physics simulations of
Australopithecus afarensis that demonstrate this
genus was mechanically capable of bipedal running
but with absolute and relative (size-normalized)
maximum speeds considerably inferior to modern
humans. Simulations predicted running energetics
for Australopithecus that are generally consistent
with values for mammals and birds of similar body
size, therefore suggesting relatively low cost of
transport across a limited speed range. Through
model parameterization, we demonstrate the key role
of ankle extensor muscle architecture (e.g., the
Achilles tendon) in the evolution of hominin
running energetics and indeed in an increase in
speed range, which may have been intrinsically
coupled with enhanced endurance running capacity.
We show that skeletal strength was unlikely to have
been a limiting factor in the evolution of enhanced
running ability, which instead resulted from changes
to muscle anatomy and particularly overall body
proportions. These findings support the hypothesis
that key features in the human body plan evolved
specifically for improved running performance and
not merely as a byproduct of selection for enhanced
walking capabilities.