Reconstructing Articular Cartilage in the Australopithecus afarensis Hip Joint and the Need for Modeling Six Degrees of Freedom.

ABSTRACT: The postcranial skeleton of Australopithecus afarensis (AL 288-1) exhibits clear adaptations for bipedality, although there is some debate as to the efficiency and frequency of such upright movement. Some researchers argue that AL 288-1 walked with an erect limb like modern humans do, whilst others advocate for a "bent-hip bent-knee" (BHBK) gait, although in recent years the general consensus favors erect bipedalism. To date, no quantitative method has addressed the articulation of the AL 288-1 hip joint, nor its range of motion (ROM) with consideration for joint spacing, used as a proxy for the thickness of the articular cartilage present within the joint spacing which can affect how a joint moves. Here, we employed ROM mapping methods to estimate the joint spacing of AL 288-1's hi

SUBMITTER: Wiseman ALA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9428927 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature