What if humankind never evolved to walk on two legs?

Question

Your opinions. What if mankind stayed a four-legged animal? How would human civilization be different? Would it exist at all?

Answer 1

Bipedalism was inevitable; some other animals living in the open are apt to rear on their hind legs to see a wider horizon – monkeys in savanna, goats, dogs, woodchucks, etc. Else they have to wait till they evolve into big animals like giraffes or elephants did.

Answer 2

I get the feeling we would greet each other by sniffing butts

Answer 3

yes it would still exist. i think we would learn how to walk eventually

Answer 4

haha interesting

Answer 5

elementary my dear Watson

Answer 6

......"doggie-style".....

Answer 7

I would think it depends on what the "limbs" of this animal could do.  Like say monkeys/apes might move around on all fours and swing about in trees but they can use fingers to do lots of things like grasping stuff etc. but their hands are not as good as humans' for intricate stuff.  Now if these non-upright beings of your imagination had supple fingers like we have today then they could evolve to a very high level as just think about it - the main thing we humans have in our favour as well as brains is the fact that we can use our hands so well whether a big task or an intricate thing like threading a needle of typing on a keyboard whatever and casting nets to catch fish or throwing spears in hunting and also pulling triggers to shoot something and steering around in boats and cars.  Anyway without that ability to do intricate things we couldn't have progressed as we have so basically to answer your question it would depend on those two front "legs" and their manipulative skills I think.    And yeah things would be different.  Maybe the houses/shelters would be lower and little things like that like our workstations etc. but with a similar brain and use of our fingers and thumbs well surely we'd be approximately where we are today????? Oh the power of speech is big too.

Answer 8

No, but gee, let's put in a gene mutation that gives us prehensile teeth. Or a longer nose that can move around and use tools. We'd be small pachyderms, and still bet be able to manipulate tools and fire better than our ocean-going mammalian cousins...

So sad. It would be very difficult to brew beer...

Answer 9

we would be a completely different species. we probably wouldn't be the most dominant specie, might have been but it would not have been the same. We would have canine teeth still, because we would not be able to throw or thrust, so weapons would be useless and we would have to hunt down food which would also mean claws. Wouldn't have technology, because all human knowledge of science basically started with fire. If we cant use tools (which we wouldn't have been able to) then it would be almost impossible to start a fire, when was the last time u saw a four legged animal making a fire??? Also if we don't have science then we probably would never have invented clothes, which means we would have kept our coat of fur. For all we know we could have ended up being 1st level consumers which eat plants and are eaten by 2nd level consumers. But my bet would have been on the more carnivorous animals just because of the overall human desire to be the most dominate species.

Answer 10

If we never learned how to walk on two legs we could have evolved in other ways that are very different than who we now are.  For example, if humans evolved to walk bipedally to follow prey as it migrated (one theory), then maybe we would only be herbivores.  This could have also affected the way our jaw, skull, and teeth developed.  Apes have a sagittal crest (strong cheek muscles from chewing fibrous plants that meet at the top of the skull and form a sort of mini mohawk if you will haha), and if we continued on the same sort of diet we might as well, plus larger and coarser teeth.  I don't know, it's a pretty speculative question.  Whether our brain would have evolved as it has is also up for speculation.

Answer 11

Then we would have a completely different civilization, our chairs would be different for sure. But it probably won't exist because, as our ancestors learned more and more skills, it required the use of hands, and that's how they started to be biped. If that didn't happen, there won't be a civilization in the first place.