Early Homo Embraced Terrestrial Walking by 1.8 Million Years Ago
A bone-strength analysis of Australopithecus Little Foot (~3.67 Ma) and a ~1.8 Ma Homo from Dmanisi shows a shift toward habitual terrestrial bipedalism by 1.8 Ma: Little Foot preserves an arboreal signal with a human-like lower limb, suggesting mixed tree-climbing and walking, while the Dmanisi individual falls within modern-human limb-strength ranges for both arms and legs, implying full terrestrial walking and mostly abandoned arboreality; the shift likely ties to foraging and ranging changes rather than tool use, and occurs during a period of increasing brain size.