First Steps: How Upright Walking Made Us Human Free Audiobook Download by Jeremy Desilva

First Steps: How Upright Walking Made Us Human is the story of how our upright gait came to be. Through many fascinating stories, it provides a detailed history of what is known to have happened in early hominids and the world's earliest pieces of human technology, such as tools and fire. While not all stories necessarily apply to humans today or take place in the present day, they help provide a clear picture of how our ancestors lived life five million years ago.

One of the first things that made us human was upright walking. It is believed that this changed our evolutionary pattern and we started using more muscle mass to walk around. Walking upright also gave us more energy because it created a larger surface area for oxygen intake. This allowed humans to divide their time between hunting and gathering, which led to the development of many cultures across the world today.

The foundations of upright walking have been discovered in the fossil record. The key to standing up came from our ape-like ancestors and was once thought to be a major evolutionary milestone, but it actually took us much further than that. Humans are now on their third major stride and it has been widely accepted in recent years that we got our brains from over-compensating for this new way to move.

Our ancient ancestors evolved to walk on two feet. This meant that they were more mobile, had the ability to kill prey and rapidly find food while running and hiding, and could provide a cradle for their children. As our species evolved, so did our ancestors' toolkit of locomotion. Today, we have learned to walk in one way and run in another - but this was not always the case. When humans began walking upright, our bodies evolved differently from those who continued to roam on all fours. In First Steps: How Upright Walking Made Us Human, author Jeremy Desilva takes us through the story of these changes as well as what modern day evidence tells us about how natural selection would continue to mold human anatomy over time.

Upright walking is a relatively recent phenomenon in human evolution, with the earliest evidence of it dating back to two million years ago. Upright walking is what allowed us to reach new heights and become more adapted to different environments.

The human body is made up of many different systems with different needs. One system that has been highly influenced by walking upright is the respiratory system. Upright walking has allowed for a larger amount of oxygen to enter the lungs, which in turn allows for more efficient breathing and less fatigue.