Our tall and slender bodies seem evolutionarily advantageous in the expanding hot and dry savannah, helping to avoid overheating and well-suited to bipedal running over long distances in more open terrain.
Scientists have long assumed that our body shape originated with the first representatives of H. erectus in the context of climate changes and the receding forests in tropical Africa, over two million years ago. Our tall and slender bodies seem evolutionarily advantageous in the expanding hot and dry savannah, helping to avoid overheating and well-suited to bipedal running over long distances in more open terrain.