Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

Webinar: First Steps: How Upright Walking Made Us Human

Archived Webinar

This Zoom webinar with Jeremy DeSilva aired September 23, 2020, as part of the HOT (Human Origins Today) Topics series. Watch a recording in the player above.

Description

Jeremy "Jerry" DeSilva is a paleoanthropologist and an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Dartmouth College. His studies of early human fossil foot bones have contributed to our understanding of the origins and evolution of upright walking in the human lineage. 

 

Why are humans the only mammal that habitually walks on its two legs? How did this happen? In this video, DeSilva explains how new fossil evidence is revealing that the evolution of upright walking was much more complicated — and fascinating — than we ever could have imagined. 

 

Moderator: Briana Pobiner, paleoanthropologist and educator at Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.

Related Resources

Resource Type
Videos and Webcasts
Grade Level
9-12
Topics
Anthropology and Social Studies
Exhibit
David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins