Neither chimpanzee nor human, Ardipithecus reveals the surprising ancestry of both
Tim D White cs 2015 PNAS 112:4877-84
doi org/10.1073/pnas.1403659111

Australopith.fossils were regularly interpreted late-20th cent. in a framework that used living African apes (esp.chimps) as proxies for the immediate ancestors of the human clade. (indeed... :-D --mv)
Such projection is now(?? many years ago already, google "aquarboreal" --mv) largely nullified by the discovery of Ardipithecus.
In the context of accumulating evidence from genetics, developmental biology, anatomy, ecology, biogeography & geology, Ardi alters perspectives on how our earliest hominid ancestors (& our closest living relatives) evolved.(Ardi confirms what we're
saying for years --mv)

:-D "surprising"?? google "aquarboreal":
Ardi = one of the many aquarboreal hominids (relatives of Gorilla & Pan, probably Gorilla) then in Africa:
Pliocene Homo then lived along S.Asian coasts, of course, not in Africa, google e.g. "GondwanaTalks verhaegen".

Other just-so afro+anthropocentrisms in the paper:
"... Ar.ramidus shared with African apes & humans a trunk & appendicular skeleton more evolved (:-DDD "more evolved"?? what does that mean?? = typical anthropocentric unscientific prejudices! --mv) than those of pronograde arboreal QPs, but was not as
adapted to orthograde vertical climbing or suspension as are extant great apes.(of course! see my book, below --mv)
Ar.ramidus was neither adapted for QP running(after kudus?? :-DDD --mv) & leaping typical of smaller pronograde monkeys, nor for the acrobatic gymnastics of quadrumanous & suspensory-oriented chimps.(of course --mv)
On the ground,(in the swamp forest, they mean... :-D --mv) the lack of chimp-like lumbar & pelvic specializations allowed Ardi to move with much more effective BPity than any living ape.
In short, Ar.ramidus combined versatile but deliberate climbing involving body postures spanning both "pronogrady" & "orthogrady", with a previously unknown form of BPity."

Previously unknown??
Google "aquarboreal".

Ardi was most likely an early relative of Gorilla, not very long after the Gorilla/Homo-Pan split c 7 Ma in the incipient northern Rift near the Red Sea.
From my book:
• Ardipithecus uit Ethiopië (6–3½ Ma, ♂ ~50 kg?) waren viervoetige(QP) palmgangers,(palmigrade) denkt Esteban Sarmiento. De lange gebogen vingerkootjes(curved phalanges) wezen volgens Thomas Prang op verticaal klimmen zoals bij chimpansees,
orangs, gibbon- en slingerapen, het sprongbeen(talus) was gorilla-achtig. Hun gebit(dentition) was wat bonobo-achtig, maar de hoektanden(canines) kleiner, de kiezen((pre)molars) iets groter en vlakker. Het kiesglazuur(thin enamel) was dun, met micro-
slijtage zoals voor vlezig fruit, zaden en jong lover. Ze hadden ruime luchtholtes(sinuses) in de schedelbasis, niet zo grote hersenen(rel.small brain) (~350 cc, zoals Sahelanthropus), een bekken met kenmerken zoals bij hondapen of australopitheken,
lange en verbrede vingerkootjes, mensaapachtige ellebogen,(apelike elbow) en aan hun voeten zoals Oreopithecus een aapachtige grijp‘duim’ voor klimmen. Ze leefden in een afwisselend, waterverzadigd gras- en boslandschap of rivierdelta met netel-,
palm- en vijgenbomen, papegaaien en pauwen, visarenden, futen, eenden, aalscholvers, slanghals- en andere reigers, 3 soorten otters, waterdwerghertjes, diverse antilopes en dikhuiden.(otters & other semi-aquatic animals)

IOW, the endurance-running fantasy is the most unscientific nonsense thinkable. Mio-Pliocene hominoids were simply mostly aquarboreal!

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)