ArticleEvolutionary human sciences2022
Forest terrains influence walking kinematics among indigenous Tsimane of the Bolivian Amazon.
Article in Evolutionary human sciences, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 16 citations in OpenAlex.
- Morphological Influences and Energetic Walking Flexibility in Determining Preferred vs. Optimal Speeds: An Evolutionary Human Ecology Perspective on Children and Adolescents.American journal of biological anthropology · 2025Article
- The Ontogeny of the Human Calcaneus: Insights From Morphological and Trabecular Changes During Postnatal Growth.American journal of biological anthropology · 2025Article
- The fitness costs and benefits of hunter-gatherer locomotor engagement.Evolutionary human sciences · 2025Article
- Contemporary small-scale subsistence populations offer unique insights into human musculoskeletal health and aging.Science advances · 2024Review
- Human walking biomechanics on sand substrates of varying foot sinking depth.The Journal of experimental biology · 2024Article
- Morphological and evolutionary insights into the keystone element of the human foot's medial longitudinal arch.Communications biology · 2023Article
- Why does the metabolic cost of walking increase on compliant substrates?Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2022Article
- Cultural variation in running techniques among non-industrial societies.Evolutionary human sciences · 2022Article
- Variability and the form-function framework in evolutionary biomechanics and human locomotion.Evolutionary human sciences · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Laboratory-based studies indicate that a major evolutionary advantage of bipedalism is enabling humans to walk with relatively low energy expenditure. However, such studies typically record subjects walking on even surfaces or treadmills that do not represent the irregular terrains our species encounters in natural environments. To date, few studies have quantified walking kinematics on natural terrains. Here we used high-speed video to record marker-based kinematics of 21 individuals from a Tsimane forager-horticulturalist community in the Bolivian Amazon walking on three different terrains: a dirt field, a forest trail and an unbroken forest transect. Compared with the field, in the unbroken forest participants contacted the ground with more protracted legs and flatter foot postures, had more inclined trunks, more flexed hips and knees, and raised their feet higher during leg swing. In contrast, kinematics were generally similar between trail and field walking. These results provide preliminary support for the idea that irregular natural surfaces like those in forests cause humans to alter their walking kinematics, such that travel in these environments could be more energetically expensive than would be assumed from laboratory-based data. These findings have important implications for the evolutionary energetics of human foraging in environments with challenging terrains.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.