R. L. Susman

Publications60
h-index30
Citations4,528
Highly Influential Citations279
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The locomotor anatomy of Australopithecus afarensis.
TLDR
It is demonstrated that A. afarensis possessed anatomic characteristics that indicate a significant adaptation for movement in the trees, and it is speculated that earlier representatives of the A.Afarensis lineage will present not a combination of arboreal and bipedal traits, but rather the anatomy of a generalized ape.
Arboreality and bipedality in the Hadar hominids.
TLDR
Consideration of the ecology at Hadar, in conjunction with modern primate models, supports the notion of arboredality in these earliest australopithecines and provides additional evidence on limb and pedal proportions and on the functional anatomy of the hip, knee and foot, indicating that the bipedality practiced at hadar differed from that of modern humans.
Comparative and functional morphology of hominoid fingers.
  • R. L. Susman
  • Biology, Medicine
    American journal of physical anthropology
  • 1 February 1979
TLDR
Comparisons of hominoid metacarpals and phalanges reveal differences, many of which are closely linked to locomotor hand postures, from hylobatid apes to male gorillas.
Evolution of the Human Foot: Evidence from Plio-Pleistocene Hominids
TLDR
The surprising chimpanzee-like qualities of the Hadar fossils strongly support the use of living apes as models of ancestral pongid-hominid morphotypes.
Fossil evidence for early hominid tool use.
TLDR
A test for humanlike precision grasping (the enhanced ability to manipulate tools) is proposed and applied to australopithecines and early Homo and indicates that tools were likely to have been used by all early hominids at around 2.0 million years ago.
Hand function and tool behavior in early hominids.
  • R. L. Susman
  • Biology, Medicine
    Journal of human evolution
  • 1 July 1998
TLDR
This work supports the model of Napier that identified morphological correlates of precision and power grasping in the hands of extant primates and in early hominid hand bones, and questions both the underlying rationale and attempts to identify more subtle aspects of precision grasping, based on present evidence.
Hand of Paranthropus robustus from Member 1, Swartkrans: fossil evidence for tool behavior.
TLDR
Functional morphology suggests that Paranthropus could have used tools, possibly for plant procurement and processing, and the new fossils suggest that absence of tool behavior was not responsible for the demise of the "robust" lineage.
Recently identified postcranial remains of Paranthropus and early Homo from Swartkrans Cave, South Africa.
TLDR
A new distal femur, SK 1896 and other bones attributed to Homo cf.
Functional and morphological affinities of the subadult hand (O.H. 7) from Olduvai Gorge.
TLDR
A number of features of the thumb and the distal phalanges suggest that the O.H. 7 individual was capable of more precise manipulation that extant apes.
Functional Morphology of Homo habilis
TLDR
The skeleton represents a mosaic of primitive and derived features, indicating an early hominid which walked bipedally and could fabricate stone tools but also retained the generalized hominoid capacity to climb trees.
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