Mystery solved. How and why human ancestors became hairless.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Um...am I confused or are you not realizing we all are African apes?

You are a LITTLE bit confused. That's like saying that cheetahs are american cats.
We ARE apes, but I'm not African.
We EVOLVED from African apes, that's perfectly clear.
.

Wow, he just disagreed with you then refuted himself.

[Pappa]

Um...am I confused or are you not realizing we all are African apes?

You are a LITTLE bit confused. That's like saying that cheetahs are american cats.
We ARE apes, but I'm not African.
We EVOLVED from African apes, that's perfectly clear.
.

Our species evolved in Africa, we are apes.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Um...am I confused or are you not realizing we all are African apes?

You are a LITTLE bit confused. That's like saying that cheetahs are american cats.
We ARE apes, but I'm not African.
We EVOLVED from African apes, that's perfectly clear.
.

Our species evolved in Africa, we are apes.

Can you dumb tone that language down a bit?

[mistermack]

Is wearing clothes linked to Bipedalism? Surely they must have lost their hair at the same time. Being bipedal made the clothes easier to wear.

I would say yes indirectly to the first bit. First you have to get your skins. So I think it's linked to hunting bigger animals, so it's almost certain it's linked to spear-use, which is linked to bipedalism.

However, just because you have skins available for clothes, you don't necessarily have to lose your hair immediately. We could have kept the fur for millions of years after that. If a local population started losing it's hair, the influx of genes from surrounding populations would probably prevent it. That's why I speculated about a population becoming isolated in some way.

Of course, it's possible they could be isolated from interbreeding by cultural behaviour, rather than a physical barrier.
.

[mistermack]

Well done mistermack! That's very clever of you.

Thanks. It's very clever of YOU to say so.!!
.

[mistermack]

I've just watched Ray Mears "Camping with the Hadza" again, it's well worth watching. You can see their huts towards the end of this clip.

[youtubeuk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3400zAqd ... re=related[/youtubeuk]

So they DO make decent sized huts, with a framework of branches and thatched with grasses, that they can stand up in, about the size of a family-sized tent. In hot weather, they remove much of the thatch, so the breeze can blow through, and in heavy rain, they can just throw lots more on, and maybe use some skins as well.
They can put a good-sized one up in a matter of hours, from nothing, but they probably utilize sites they've used before, so the materials are just lying there, waiting to be used again.

During the day, the chances of chilling are pretty low, for an active outdoor people. While you are active, you make plenty of heat. It's when you rest at night, and your metabolic rate drops, that you're likely to suffer hypothermia.
I remember from my days of hitching and roaming around Canada and USA in the early seventies, that so long as you're warm at night, you can cope with practically any weather during the day.

I would imagine that shelters and blankets were actually more important than clothes, to our ancestors in Africa, given the daytime temperatures.

A hunting party could easily erect one of these in minutes, and all pile into it, if they got caught in torrential rain.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

"A hunting party could easily erect one of these in minutes, and all pile into it, if they got caught in torrential rain."

Or, if they were smart, they could use the rain to help them sneak up on prey. As they would be wearing the minimal amount of clothing and not carrying iPods or netbooks, the rain wouldn't have been that much of an issue with them.