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  3. Anthropologists once thought that the ancestors of modern humans began to walk upright because it freed their hands to use stone

Anthropologists once thought that the ancestors of modern humans began to walk upright because it freed their hands to use stone

admin2022-10-18  13
问题 Anthropologists once thought that the ancestors of modern humans began to walk upright because it freed their hands to use stone tools, which they had begun to make as the species evolved a brain of increased size and mental capacity. But discoveries of the three-million-year-old fossilized remains of our hominid ancestor Australopithecus have yielded substantial anatomical evidence that upright walking appeared prior to the dramatic enlargement of the brain and the development of stone tools.
    Walking on two legs in an upright posture (bipedal locomotion) is a less efficient proposition than walking on all fours (quadrupedal locomotion) because several muscle groups that the quadruped uses for propulsion must instead be adapted to provide the biped with stability and control. The shape and configuration of various bones must likewise be modified to allow the muscles to perform these functions in upright walking. Reconstruction of the pelvis (hipbones) and femur (thighbone) of "Lucy," a three-million-year-old skeleton that is the most complete fossilized skeleton from the Australopithecine era, has shown that they are much more like the corresponding bones of the modern human than like those of the most closely related living primate, the quadrupedal chimpanzee. Lucy’s wide, shallow pelvis is actually better suited to bipedal walking than is the rounder, bowl-like pelvis of the modern human, which evolved to form the larger birth canal needed to accommodate the head of a large-brained human infant. By contrast, the head of Lucy’s baby could have been no larger than that of a baby chimpanzee.
    If the small-brained australopithecines were not toolmakers, what evolutionary advantage did they gain by walking upright? One theory is that bipedality evolved in conjunction with the nuclear family: monogamous parents cooperating to care for their offspring. Walking upright permitted the father to use his hands to gather food and carry it to his mate from a distance, allowing the mother to devote more time and energy to nurturing and protecting their children. According to this view, the transition to bipedal walking may have occurred as long as ten million years ago, at the time of the earliest hominids, making it a crucial initiating event in human evolution.  
The passage suggests that proponents of the theory mentioned in lines 35-38 assume that which of the following steps in human evolution occurred most recently?
选项 A、Development of a nuclear family structure
B、Transition from walking on all fours to walking upright
C、Dramatic enlargement of the brain
D、Use of the hands to gather and carry food
E、Modification of propulsive muscles to provide stability and control in locomotion
答案C
解析 The passage states that fossilized remains provide anatomical evidence that upright walking, which required a modification of propulsive muscles to provide stability and control in locomotion, occurred before the dramatic enlargement of the brain.
Proponents of the theory mentioned in lines 35-38 argue that walking upright may have evolved alongside the nuclear family structure because it allowed for cooperative caring for infants, which would have required the use of hands to gather and carry food. Thus, the dramatic enlargement of the brain was the most recent of the developments listed among the answer options.
A      Proponents of the theory mentioned in lines 35-38 hold that the dramatic enlargement of the brain occurred more recently than the development of walking upright, which happened alongside the development of a nuclear family structure.
B      Proponents of the theory mentioned in lines 35-38 hold that the dramatic enlargement of the brain occurred more recently than the transition from walking on all fours to walking upright.
C      Correct. Proponents of the theory
mentioned in lines 35-38 hold that the dramatic enlargement of the brain was the most recent of these developments to occur.
D     Proponents of the theory mentioned in lines 35-38 hold that the dramatic enlargement of the brain occurred more recently than the use of hands to gather and carry food,
which occurred alongside the development of walking upright.
E      Proponents of the theory mentioned in lines 35-38 hold that the dramatic enlargement of the brain occurred more recently than the modification of propulsive muscles to provide stability and control in locomotion, which is a key factor in the development of walking upright.
The correct answer is C.
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