Abstrakt
It was assumed that because of their shorter lower limbs and greater body mass Neandertals walked markedly less efficiently and economically than Upper Paleolithic Europeans which in certain conditions might play a role in Neandertal extinction. However, other morphological characteristics of Neandertals were proposed to possibly affect locomotor efficiency and economy such as relatively short tibia, posteriorly displaced tibial condyles, thick patella and long calcaneus besides lower limb length and body mass.
In this study we aim to utilize all these morphological characteristics to estimate differences in locomotor efficiency and economy between Neandertals and Upper Paleolithic Europeans. We used a recent biomechanical model of Pontzer et al. (2009) to estimate locomotor efficiency and economy of Neandertal and Upper Paleolithic European expectations.
Being aware of the effect of posture on some variables employed in the model (moment arms of the ground reaction force) we developed a trigonometric model that determines the behavior of the moment arms of the ground reaction force during stance phase when given the body segments lengths and the joint angles which allowed us to control the effect of posture. Our results suggest that Neandertals might use 4 percent less mass-specific energy (were more efficient) and 9 percent more absolute energy (were less economical) to walk a unit distance than Upper Paleolithic Europeans.
Furthermore, assuming the same joint angles Neandertals would have shorter moment arms of the ground reaction force especially at the knee and ankle.