Running and Human Evolution

September 18, 2008 by sean.

University of Utah biologist Dennis Bramble and Harvard University paleoanthropologist Daniel Lieberman suggest that efficient running has a role in human evolution [via Discover Magazine]:

In the 1970s, Carrier was assisting with Bramble’s studies of how dogs, horses, and people regulate breathing while running. A marathoner himself, Carrier began to wonder about the role of endurance running in human evolution. People, he noted, can shed heat quickly—not by panting, like most animals, but by perspiring through millions of sweat glands. A lack of fur also helps dissipate heat more quickly.

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