Gravity, posture and locomotion in primates

An animal's physical environment greatly influences its form and function. Therefore, it is not surprising to expect that forces generated by Earth's gravity would exert similar mechanical constraints and yield similar principles of structural design and biomechanical function for most terrestrial species. This is more the case when groups of animals are constructed of tissues having similar mechanical properties. As reflected by its title, the goal of this book, and the 1986 symposium upon which it is based (sponsored by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France), is to identify common themes underlying the biomechanics of locomotor support in primates, to clarify those aspects in which primates may differ from other mammalian species, and to evaluate the usefulness of primates as model species for investigating the influence of gravity on locomotor systems more generally. The book reflects two decades of research in the fields of physical anthropology and biomechanics, which have benefited from the development of new technologies for carrying out important experimental studies of animal locomotion. The success of an edited symposium volume, such as this, depends ultimately on the cohesion and synthesis of the concepts and data presented by the various contributors. Overall, the book makes a fairly good attempt to present a broad, critical perspective of the many topics that are covered and to outline future directions for research. However, it suffers from chapters that are uneven in the effectiveness with which they achieve these goals. Primates are shown to follow fairly general patterns of locomotor design and function, on the one hand (chapters by Alexander, Jungers, and Preuschoft); yet, at the same time, considerable variation is observed among different primate species (Jouffrey et al., Berge and Yamazaki), as well as between primates and humans (Kimura) and primates and mammals (De-