Thomas Prang

THOMAS C. PRANG, then a graduate student at New York University, New York, New York, was approved funding in October 2016 to aid research on “Functional Morphology and Evolution of the Hominin Hallux and Forefoot,” supervised by Dr. Scott Williams. The purpose of this study was to test hypotheses about the origin and evolution of human upright walking by examining the morphology of the earliest foot fossils using a broad comparative sample that included humans, apes, and monkeys. The three major objectives of the project were to: 1) evaluate morphological correlates of locomotion in apes and monkeys to better understand the functional significance of early hominin foot morphology; 2) reconstruct the evolution of the foot in apes and the morphology of the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees; and 3) evaluate hypotheses of locomotor diversity based on Pliocene hominin foot morphology. The data collected for this project include linear measurements, photographs, and 3D scans of around 400 individuals, which produced around 1,700 3D models of foot bones. The results of this project support the hypotheses that the foot morphology of African apes reflects an adaptation to terrestrial plantigrade quadrupedalism and that the human foot was most likely derived from an African ape-like ancestor who already possessed a partly terrestrial, but quadrupedal lifestyle. Additionally, variation in foot morphology among Pliocene hominins is consistent with the hypothesis of both taxonomic and locomotor diversity in Australopithecus.