Computer Science meets Anthropology: A novel approach for reconstructing locomotion from fossil human footprints

George Washington University, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

Bipedal locomotion is a unique and fundamental behavior that has driven and shaped the evolution of the human species. Yet the evolutionary history of human bipedalism remains poorly understood. This project is the first to apply interdisciplinary techniques to understand the evolution of bipedalism. The PI also engages the broader public in this research through ongoing collaborations with the Smithsonian Institution's Human Origins Program. Results of this research, and its implications for understanding the evolution of our species, are presented through regular lectures and participation in educational programs at the museum's Hall of Human Origins. The PI and co-PIs recruit and train research assistants from The George Washington University's Trachtenberg Scholars Program. This program supports the education and training of promising students from the District of Columbia public school system, who typically come from groups historically underrepresented in STEM disciplines. Consistent efforts are also made to disseminate results to a diverse range of professional audiences in biological anthropology, evolutionary biology, and computer science. In recent years, discoveries of several sites preserving fossil human footprints have offered an exciting new form of data from which to understand the evolution of bipedalism. However, novel techniques are required to analyze the wealth of information contained within these diverse sources of data. This project is transformative in its experimental approach for linking footprint morphologies to the patterns of locomotion that produced them. Experimental biomechanics will be bridged with techniques for robotic vision, to understand how details of locomotion are recorded by 3-D footprint morphology. Those data are used to develop powerful machine learning algorithms, applying technologies from a rapidly-growing field at the intersection of computer science and statistics, to build detailed reconstructions of locomotion from fossil human footprints. By doing so, this project sheds new light on the evolutionary history of the human species.