Every family has its own quirks and customs, but one group of relatives has characteristics so unique that scientists have branded them a complete anomaly of humanity.
The Ullas family has been in the spotlight of evolutionary theory for years, ever since they were discovered walking on all fours in a remote village in Turkey.
In the early 2000s, a scientific paper was published about the five Woolas brothers and their strange bear-crawling behavior, and experts were divided over the cause of the anomaly.
A few years after the paper was published, Professor Nicholas Humphrey, an evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics (LSE), traveled to Turkey to meet this special family.
The Uras father and mother had a whopping 18 children, but only six of them were born with quadrupedalism (walking on all four legs), a trait not seen in modern adults. Ta.
The skin on their hands is as thick as the skin on their feet 60 Minutes Australia
Mr Humphrey told 60 Minutes Australia, which produced a documentary about the family in 2018, that “even under the most extraordinary scientific fantasies that modern humans could return to an animal state, it would be impossible to imagine… I didn’t either,” he said.
“What sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom is the fact that we are a species that walks on two legs and holds our heads high,” he added.
“Of course, it’s also language and all sorts of other things, but it’s very important to our sense of being different from the rest of the animal world. These guys cross that line. ”
The documentary describes the Ula tribe as “the missing link between humans and apes” and suggests they “should not exist.”
However, no one has yet determined the exact cause of this strange walking behavior.
Some experts suggest the cause is caused by a genetic problem that has “overridden the last three million years of evolution,” while rejecting the idea that there is a “gene” specific to upright walking. , some experts suggest something else is involved.
Humphrey noted that the affected siblings, five of whom are still alive and range in age from 22 to 38, all suffer from certain forms of brain damage.
In the 60 Minutes documentary, he showed MRI scans that revealed that each had a shrunken part of their brain called a cerebellar worm.
However, the professor also pointed out that this in itself “does not explain why they walk on all four legs.”
“Other children with cerebellum damage, and even children without a cerebellum, are able to walk upright,” he explained.
He also emphasized that the Ula quadrupedal morphology differs in some important ways from that seen in our closest relatives, chimpanzees and gorillas.
These primates walk on their knuckles, but Turkish children use their palms and put their weight on their wrists to lift their fingers off the ground.
“The important thing about this is that if chimpanzees walk like that, they’re going to ruin their fingers,” Humphrey said on the BBC News website when the BBC aired its own documentary about the family in 2006. spoke.
A family walking on all fours – full documentary www.youtube.com
“These children keep their fingers very agile. For example, the girls in the family can crochet and embroidery,” he added.
Humphrey hypothesizes that this may indeed be the path taken by our immediate ancestors.
By keeping their finger dexterity, our early ancestors could also have manipulated tools that were crucial to the evolution of the human body and intelligence.
“What we’re seeing in this family may correspond to a time when they couldn’t walk like chimpanzees, but it was an important step on the way to coming down from trees and becoming fully bipedal.” I think there is,” Humphrey told the News. site.
The LSE researchers also suggested that there was a more fundamental explanation for the quadrupedalism of the Wulas children: they simply were not encouraged to walk on two legs.
In the Turkish village where they grew up, there were no local health services to help children with disabilities transition from crawling like babies to walking fully upright.
Humphrey told 60 Minutes that he provided the Ulases with walkers and within hours there was an “amazing change.”
“Children who had never taken an upright step on two legs used this frame to walk across the room with such joy on their faces and a sense of accomplishment,” he recalled. , added that it was as if “all of a sudden I had accomplished something.” It’s a breakthrough into a world they never imagined. ”
Bar installed at Woolas home to encourage family to walk upright 60 Minutes Australia
He said he felt “a newfound respect for the human spirit” after seeing their enthusiasm as they walked upright with the help of physical therapists.
He said this helped him understand “how the most disadvantaged humans can overcome adversity, no matter what they have to do to maintain their pride and self-respect.” spoke.
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