Marc Verhaegen wrote:

> A review of the distal femur in Australopithecus
> Catherine K Miller& Jeremy M DeSilva 2023
> Evol.Anthr.doi org/10.1002/evan.22012
>
> In 1938, the 1st Australopithecus distal femur was discovered at SterkFontein, SA,
> a decade later, another distal femur was discovered at the same locality.
> These 2 fossil femora were the subject of a foundational paper:
> Kingsbury Heiple & Owen Lovejoy (1971) discussed functionally relevant anatomies,
> they noted their strong affinity to the H.sapiens condition.
>
> Here, we update this work: we include 8 more fossil Australopithecus distal femora, an expanded comparative data-set & additional linear measurements.
> Just as Heiple & Lovejoy (1971), we find strong overlap between Hs & cercopithecoids, except for inferiorly flattened condyles & a high bicondylar angle,
> both characterize Hs & Australopithecus, and are directly related to striding BPism.
> All other measured aspects of the femora are by-products of these key morphological traits.
> Additional early-Pliocene material will help to inform the evolution of the hominin distal femur & its condition in the Pan-Homo LCA that preceded BP locomotion.

Am I reading this right? Is this CLAIMING that bipedal locomotion /Followed/ the
Homo/Pan split?

Are they out of their freaking minds?!?

> "preceded"?
> Miocene Hominoidea were already "bipedal" in swamp forests:
> wading upright + climbing arms overhead in the branches above the swamp:
> google "aquarboreal".
> The StF fossils were on the evol.way from the Homo-Pan LCA to extant Pan:
> see our recent paper:
> "Have We Been Barking up the Wrong Ancestral Tree?
> Australopithecines are Probably Not our Ancestors"
> Mario Vaneechoutte, Frances Mansfield, Stephen Munro & Marc Verhaegen 2023
> Nature Anthropology 1(1), 10007
> doi org/10.35534/natanthropol.2023.10007 open access

Lucy and her ilk bore superficial resemblance to us because #1 they evolved from
an Aquatic Ape ancestor and #2 they continued to interbreed with the Aquatic Ape
population for just as long as they could.

...however long they remained co fertile for, that's how long they interbred.

I'm guessing you're right about the retrovirus and the final halt between Homo/Pan
occurred around 3.7 million years ago.

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