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Why Apes Can’t Pitch: Solving a Riddle of Evolution
From New York Times Science:
No one knows whether Homo erectus, the early ancestor of both the Yankees and the Red Sox, threw the split-finger fastball.
But he could have, according to a group of scientists who offer new evidence that the classic overhand throw used by baseball players at all positions, and by snowball, rock and tomato hurlers of all ages, is an evolutionary adaptation dependent on several changes in anatomy. They first appeared, the researchers say, around 1.8 million years ago, when humans were most likely beginning to hunt big game and needed to throw sharp objects hard and fast.
No other primate throws with anything comparable to human force. Chimpanzees, who are much, much stronger, pound for pound, than human beings, can throw, as any zoo visitor knows. But the best an adult male can do is about 20 miles per hour. A 12-year-old human pitcher can easily throw three times that fast.
Clearly, the reason is not muscle strength, according to Neil Roach of George Washington University, first author of a report in the journal Nature released on Wednesday. Using motion-capture video, Dr. Roach and his colleagues analyzed the throwing motion of 20 college athletes, who hurled baseballs at a target about 100 feet away, with and without a brace that restricted shoulder motion.
But he could have, according to a group of scientists who offer new evidence that the classic overhand throw used by baseball players at all positions, and by snowball, rock and tomato hurlers of all ages, is an evolutionary adaptation dependent on several changes in anatomy. They first appeared, the researchers say, around 1.8 million years ago, when humans were most likely beginning to hunt big game and needed to throw sharp objects hard and fast.
No other primate throws with anything comparable to human force. Chimpanzees, who are much, much stronger, pound for pound, than human beings, can throw, as any zoo visitor knows. But the best an adult male can do is about 20 miles per hour. A 12-year-old human pitcher can easily throw three times that fast.
Clearly, the reason is not muscle strength, according to Neil Roach of George Washington University, first author of a report in the journal Nature released on Wednesday. Using motion-capture video, Dr. Roach and his colleagues analyzed the throwing motion of 20 college athletes, who hurled baseballs at a target about 100 feet away, with and without a brace that restricted shoulder motion.
The Nature paper is Elastic energy storage in the shoulder and the evolution of high-speed throwing in Homo:
Some primates, including chimpanzees, throw objects occasionally, but only humans regularly throw projectiles with high speed and accuracy. Darwin noted that the unique throwing abilities of humans, which were made possible when bipedalism emancipated the arms, enabled foragers to hunt effectively using projectiles. However, there has been little consideration of the evolution of throwing in the years since Darwin made his observations, in part because of a lack of evidence of when, how and why hominins evolved the ability to generate high-speed throws. Here we use experimental studies of humans throwing projectiles to show that our throwing capabilities largely result from several derived anatomical features that enable elastic energy storage and release at the shoulder. These features first appear together approximately 2?million years ago in the species Homo erectus. Taking into consideration archaeological evidence suggesting that hunting activity intensified around this time9, we conclude that selection for throwing as a means to hunt probably had an important role in the evolution of the genus Homo.
