About Jeremy DeSilva
From Jeremy DeSilva’s website: I am a paleoanthropologist, specializing in the locomotion of the first apes (hominoids) and early human ancestors (hominins).
My recent work has focused on the origins and evolution of upright walking in the human lineage. I have had the opportunity to study wild chimpanzees in Western Uganda and early human fossils in Museums and fieldsites throughout Eastern and South Africa.
From 1998-2003, I worked as an educator at the Boston Museum of Science and continue to be passionate about science education. When I am not studying fossil foot bones or lecturing on human evolution, my wife Erin and I are quite busy with our twins, Benjamin and Josephine.
First Steps: How Upright Walking Made Us Human
Humans are the only mammals to walk on two, rather than four legs—a locomotion known as bipedalism. We strive to be upstanding citizens, honor those who stand tall and proud, and take a stand against injustices. We follow in each other’s footsteps and celebrate a child’s beginning to walk. But why, and how, exactly, did we take our first steps? And at what cost? Bipedalism has its drawbacks: giving birth is more difficult and dangerous; our running speed is much slower than other animals; and we suffer a variety of ailments, from hernias to sinus problems.
In First Steps, paleoanthropologist Jeremy DeSilva explores how unusual and extraordinary this seemingly ordinary ability is. A seven-million-year journey to the very origins of the human lineage, First Steps shows how upright walking was a gateway to many of the other attributes that make us human—from our technological abilities, our thirst for exploration, our use of language–and may have laid the foundation for our species’ traits of compassion, empathy, and altruism. Moving from developmental psychology labs to ancient fossil sites throughout Africa and Eurasia, DeSilva brings to life our adventure of walking on two legs.
Delving deeply into the story of our past and the new discoveries rewriting our understanding of human evolution, First Steps examines how walking upright helped us rise above all over species on this planet.
First Steps includes an eight-page color photo insert.
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