Bones of ape living 12m years ago point to genesis of upright walking

[wnylib]

2. Interesting point. If this anatomical similarity to human

bipedalism capability was the result of convergent evolution, then human ancestors would have to have been exposed to the same environmental conditions. Around the same time? That would still put the start of the development toward human bipedalism at a much earlier age.

Or, could some human ancestors from a later time period have been exposed to a similar environment by migration or by similar.changes to their environment without leaving their territory? That leaves a 9 million year gap in time between the traits in this article and the appearance of homo erectus. A big gap for.similar environmental influences producing convergent evolution.

But since this discovery shows ape traits and a tendency toward developing homo erectus traits, couldn't it be an evoutionary step toward homo erectus development?