'Lucy'
and The Arc of Visual Perception
Summary
This paper questions the currently and generally held hypothesis that
the species Australopithecus Afarensis was a fully upright hominid over
three million years ago.
It considers the importance of the visual field in human
co-ordination and locomotion and compares
the capabilities of modern homo sapiens with the capabilities
generally attributed to A.
Afarensis.
It shows that, if A. Afarensis walked, ran and hunted in
the manner and the posture suggested its visual field
would have been restricted so that it was unsuitable for fully upright
movement.
The inference is then drawn that the progression to an
upright stance would logically coincide with the observed
increase in hominid cranial capacity, the development
of tools and other evidence of mental progression.
Thus it is concluded that A.Afarensis was not fully bipedal in the manner
of man today and, if it was our ancestor, it was still at the stage of
progressing to an upright stance when in motion.
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