An ancestor's ancestor
In an old iron ore mine near the town of Rudabánya, paleontologists unearthed fossil fragments that challenge ideas about how humans came to walk on two legs. The fragments form a partial pelvis from Rudapithecus hungaricus, an ape that lived here approximately 10 million years ago. This region in the Late Miocene was a subtropical swamp forest on the shores of the Pannonian Sea, a shallow inland sea that has long since disappeared. The discovery of this pelvis is important because this part of the skeleton is rarely preserved and shows direct evidence about an animal's posture and movement.
Analysis of the Rudapithecus pelvis, led by researcher Carol Ward, shows a creature with a unique blend of anatomical features. While it likely moved through trees like modern apes, holding its body upright, its lower back was surprisingly flexible. This flexibility is a trait shared with humans, allowing us to stand and walk efficiently on two legs, and is different from the long pelvis and short, stiff lower back of modern African apes like chimpanzees and gorillas. The discovery suggests that the common ancestor of African apes and humans might not have been built like today's apes. Instead, it may have possessed a more flexible torso, meaning our own lineage may never have passed through a knuckle-walking phase.