Humans evolved bipedalism due to specific environmental pressures
Multiple studies support the hypothesis that environmental pressures, such as the spread of open habitats and changing landscapes, drove the evolution of hominin bipedalism.
The claim is specific and empirical, dealing with the evolutionary drivers of human bipedalism. Retrieved papers [1], [2], [7], and [8] all discuss various specific environmental, ecological, and landscape pressures (such as open savannahs, predation risks, and tectonic landscape shifts) that researchers link to the emergence of bipedalism. There are no refuting papers among the relevant selections, leading to a verdict of SUPPORTED.
Gary Clark, A. Saniotis, Robert Bednarik, M. Lindahl, Maciej Henneberg. Hominin musical sound production: palaeoecological contexts and self domestication. 2024. https://doi.org/10.18778/1898-6773.87.2.02
The paper discusses how early bipedal hominins transitioned into more open habitats with increased predation risk, linking environmental changes to locomotion.
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Philippa Hammond, René Bobe, Susana Carvalho. The behavioural ecology of hominin locomotion: what can we learn from landscapes of fear and primate terrestriality?. 2025. https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2025.1473794
The paper explores how shifts in Plio-Pleistocene landscapes and perceived predation risk acted as key selection pressures driving primate and hominin terrestriality.
Ian Smith, Sally Reynolds. Out of Afar: the first hominin migration? Long-term landscape changes in the Afar region and implications for hominin bipedalism. 2025. https://doi.org/10.31223/x5tt85
The study highlights how landscape changes, tectonic events, and ecological pressures in the Afar region provided a context for the evolution of bipedalism.
T Jonathan Davies, Barnabas H Daru, Bezeng S Bezeng, Tristan Charles-Dominique, Gareth P Hempson, Ronny M Kabongo, Olivier Maurin, A Muthama Muasya, Michelle van der Bank, William J Bond. Savanna tree evolutionary ages inform the reconstruction of the paleoenvironment of our hominin ancestors.. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-69378-0
The paper supports the idea that the expansion of open savanna habitats generated selection for traits such as bipedalism in human ancestors.
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