Natural selection favoured Great Apes with more mobile upper limb joints that enabled safe descent from trees, researchers claim. Downclimbing could be an overlooked factor in the evolution of anatomical differences passed down to human beings...
Many millions of years ago, our tree-dwelling primate ancestors used their climbing skills to find food, shelter and evade predation. They faced a reality familiar to contemporary human climbers: that getting up is only one half of the challenge.
"We think large-bodied apes have been climbing down out of trees at least since the Miocene [23.03-5.333 million years ago], which is a long time to be concerned about falling."