Doctoral Dissertation Improvement: Fossil footprints and the dynamics of footprint formation: Implications for the evolution of human gait

两足行走是现代人类的一种基本行为，但关于它在我们灭绝的祖先中的进化的许多问题仍然没有答案。古人类学家研究了化石骨骼解剖学，以许多不同的方式分析了这些数据，只是得出了关于两足动物何时以及如何进化的相互矛盾的结论。新的方法是必要的，以解决这一持续的争论。博士生凯文哈塔拉（乔治华盛顿大学），在布赖恩里士满博士的监督下，将追求一种新的方法，通过分析一种新的类型的“行为”的数据，在最近发现的化石人类足迹的形式来规避这些问题。随着上新世-更新世不同时期足迹化石样本的不断增加，这些数据可用于研究人类足部解剖学和双足运动的演变。 然而，在科学家利用这些足迹中存储的信息之前，需要确定足迹中的解剖学和步态是如何记录的。本研究将使用实验生物力学来研究足迹形成的动态过程，并将这些知识应用于分析来自坦桑尼亚Laetoli的化石人类足迹; Ileret，肯尼亚;和Engare Sero，坦桑尼亚。这些分析将直接检验现代人类在解剖学和功能上对双足运动的适应分别出现在370万年前、150万年前和12万年前的古人类身上的假设。通过与罗格斯大学/肯尼亚国家博物馆Koobi Fora Field School合作，该项目包括对来自肯尼亚、南非和美国的本科生进行广泛的培训。研究结果将通过出版物和会议向科学观众展示，并通过与史密森尼国家自然历史博物馆人类起源计划的持续合作向公众展示。肯尼亚国家博物馆将开发一个新的档案系统，使学生和其他研究人员能够访问该项目期间生成的化石足迹的原始三维扫描。

Bipedalism is a fundamental modern human behavior yet many questions about its evolution in our extinct ancestors remain unanswered. Paleoanthropologists studying fossilized skeletal anatomy have analyzed these data in many different ways, only to arrive at conflicting conclusions regarding when and how bipedalism evolved. New approaches are necessary to resolve this ongoing debate.Doctoral student Kevin Hatala (The George Washington University), under the supervision of Dr. Brian Richmond, will pursue a novel approach that circumvents these problems by analyzing a new type of 'fossilized behavior' data, in the form of recently discovered fossil hominin footprints. With a growing sample of fossil footprints from different times throughout the Plio-Pleistocene, these data can be used to investigate the evolution of human foot anatomy and bipedal locomotion. Before scientists can take advantage of the information stored in these footprints, however, there is need to determine how anatomy and gait are recorded in footprints. This study will use experimental biomechanics to investigate the dynamic process of footprint formation, and will apply this knowledge to the analysis of fossil hominin footprints from Laetoli, Tanzania; Ileret, Kenya; and Engare Sero, Tanzania. These analyses will directly test the hypothesis that modern humans' anatomical and functional adaptations for bipedal locomotion were present in hominins at 3.7, 1.5, and 0.12 million years ago, respectively.Through collaboration with the Rutgers University/National Museums of Kenya Koobi Fora Field School, this project involves extensive training of undergraduates from Kenya, South Africa, and the US. Results will be presented to scientific audiences through publications and conferences, and to the public through ongoing collaborations with the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History Human Origins Program. A new archival system will be developed at the National Museums of Kenya, allowing students and other researchers to access the original three-dimensional scans of fossil footprints generated during this project.