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  3. Anthropologists once thought that the ancestors of modern humans began to walk u

Anthropologists once thought that the ancestors of modern humans began to walk u

游客2024-01-12  15
问题 Anthropologists once thought that the ancestors of modern humans began to walk upright because it freed their hands to use stone tools, which they had begun to make as the species evolved a brain of increased size and mental capacity. But discoveries of the three-million-year-old fossilized remains of our hominid ancestor Australopithecus have yielded substantial anatomical evidence that upright walking appeared prior to the dramatic enlargement of the brain and the development of stone tools.
    Walking on two legs in an upright posture (bipedal locomotion) is a less efficient proposition than walking on all fours (quadrupedal locomotion) because several muscle groups that the quadruped uses for propulsion must instead be adapted to provide the biped with stability and control. The shape and configuration of various bones must likewise be modified to allow the muscles to perform these functions in upright walking. Reconstruction of the pelvis (hipbones) and femur (thighbone) of "Lucy," a three-million-year-old skeleton that is the most complete fossilized skeleton from the Australopithecine era, has shown that they are much more like the corresponding bones of the modern human than like those of the most closely related living primate, the quadrupedal chimpanzee. Lucy’s wide, shallow pelvis is actually better suited to bipedal walking than is the rounder, bowl-like pelvis of the modern human, which evolved to form the larger birth canal needed to accommodate the head of a large-brained human infant. By contrast, the head of Lucy’s baby could have been no larger than that of a baby chimpanzee.
    If the small-brained australopithecines were not toolmakers, what evolutionary advantage did they gain by walking upright? One theory is that bipedality evolved in conjunction with the nuclear family: monogamous parents cooperating to care for their offspring. Walking upright permitted the father to use his hands to gather food and carry it to his mate from a distance, allowing the mother to devote more time and energy to nurturing and protecting their children. According to this view, the transition to bipedal walking may have occurred as long as ten million years ago, at the time of the earliest hominids, making it a crucial initiating event in human evolution.  [br] According to the passage, the hominid australopithecine most closely resembled a modern human with respect to which of the following characteristics?
选项 A、Brain size
B、Tool-making ability
C、Shape of the pelvis
D、Method of locomotion
E、Preference for certain foods
答案 D
解析 The passage directly states that australopithecines walked upright (used bipedal locomotion), as human beings do.
A      The passage states that the dramatic enlargement of the brain among hominids occurred after the australopithecine era; it follows that the size of the australopithecine brain did not closely resemble that of the modern human brain.
B      The passage states that stone-tool-making ability did not develop until some time after the australopithecine era. The passage suggests that study of Australopithecus indicates that there is substantial evidence that upright walking appeared prior to ... stone tools.
C      The passage specifies notable differences in shape between the australopithecine pelvis and the pelvis of modern human beings.
D      Correct. As noted above, the passage indicates that australopithecines walked upright, or used bipedal locomotion, as modern human beings do.
E      The passage does not indicate the types of foods preferred by australopithecines.
The correct answer is D.
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