The most common view of the time was that a large brain evolved before bipedality, the ability to move on two feet.

But these came much later, long after the transforming influences of bipedality.

The other scientific argument raging at the conference involved the start of bipedality.

Still, Plato's feeling about bipedality was, in my opinion, correct.

In many cases, facultative bipedality is a function of speed.

This find was the first ever to demonstrate, without a doubt, pre-Homo bipedality.

Lengthy debates over the beginnings of bipedality also split the conference.

Bones of the foot (such as the calcaneus) also indicate bipedality.

The interesting fact to note is that dinosaurs soon benefited from bipedality in the same way humans later did - better vision.

The next stage in the narrative, after the human-chimp split, is the origin of bipedality.

Unfortunately bipedality does not prove high activity or endothermy.

How bipedality came about remains one of the mysteries of human evolution, though many theories have been proposed.

The transition to bipedality probably occurred between Prorotodactylus and Sphingopus.

Iguanodon were bulky herbivores that could shift from bipedality to quadrupedality.

So the brain cannot be the whole story since individuals born with cerebellar ataxia can still in a manner walk with bipedality.

One theory of the origins of human bipedality is that it evolved from a terrestrial knuckle-walking ancestor.

Because this, their motor development was channelled into turning their bear crawl into a substitute for bipedality.

More than ever, paleontologists say, it is clear that the Rubicon early hominids crossed was not the large brain or toolmaking, but bipedality.

They had all been augmented for full bipedality and they were all carrying makeshift-in some cases not so makeshift-weapons.

Facultative bipedality is most common in lizards, but also occurs in primates, bears, insects, crabs and even octopuses.

Upright walking, bipedality, was a definitive characteristic of the earliest hominids, the group of apelike animals that included ancestors of modern humans.

In one of the most telling clues to bipedality, the upper end of the shinbone is shaped to bear more weight than a four-legged animal would require.

This, in turn, suggests that human bipedality evolved from a more arboreal ancestor occupying a generalized locomotor and ecological niche common to all living apes".

Until now, the earliest and most evocative evidence for hominid bipedality was the footprints embedded in 3.7-million-year-old volcanic ash at Laetoli in Tanzania.

A number of traits in the A. afarensis skeleton strongly reflect bipedalism, to the extent some researchers have suggested bipedality evolved long before A. afarensis.