Scientistshave discovered a family that walks on all fours – millions of years after its ancestors stood up and walked on two legs. Evolutionary psychologist Professor Nicholas Humphrey, one of the scientists leading the research into the family, said: "This could be hugely important – a living example of how our ancestors walked before they became bipedal.
"As such, it might teach us so much about our distant past."
The family is very poor, has had little medical help and lives in a
small village in Turkey. The parents, who are closely related, have had 19
children.
Most were normal, but six were born with what looks like brain damage.
Five of these, aged between 18 and 34, walk quadrupedally. Family members are
treated as outcasts by many of the villagers.
The BBC was given exclusive access to the family and is to tell the extraordinary story in a documentary film to be broadcast this month.
The documentary features interviews with scientists from across the
world, and their response has been mixed – the only thing they do agree on is
that this is not a hoax.
American paleanthropologists think that the family's skeletons could
hold vital clues about the origin of man.
But UK researchers contend that no single faulty gene could produce the
first human quadrupeds the modern world has seen.
Producer Jemima Harrison, of Passionate Productions, which made the
film for the BBC, said: "The family raises profound questions about what
it is to be human. They walk like animals and that's very disturbing at first.
But we were also very moved by this family's tremendous warmth and
humanity."
The Family That Walks On All Fours is a
documentary that explored the science and the story of five individuals in the
Ulas family in Turkey that walk with a previously unreported quadruped gait.
See the video below.
Source: WilliamMulubwa
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