Throwing started long ago

Study: Goes back 2M years

NEW YORK — Aroldis Chapman, the Cincinnati Reds relief pitcher, fires 100mph fastballs. And when football season begins, quarterbacks will be rocketing 60-yard touchdown passes.

The secret to their athletic success is the ability to throw with great accuracy and power, a trait exclusive to humans. Now, some scientists say they’ve figured out when our ancestors first started throwing well. They say it occurred nearly 2 million years ago.

There’s plenty of skepticism about their conclusion in the journal Nature. But the new paper contends that developing this throwing ability helped Homo erectus hunt by throwing rocks or primitive wooden spears.

Lead study author Neil Roach of George Washington University and his colleagues analyzed the throwing motions of 20 collegiate baseball players.

Based on that research, the researchers theorize that when the human arm is cocked, it stores energy by stretching tendons, ligaments and muscles crossing the shoulder. It’s like pulling back on a slingshot. Releasing that “elastic energy” makes the arm whip forward to make the throw.

That trick, in turn, was made possible by three anatomical changes in human evolution that af- fected the waist, shoulders and arms, the researchers concluded. And Homo erectus, which appeared about 2 million years ago, is the first ancient relative to combine those three changes, they said.

Rick Potts, director of the human origins program at the Smithsonian Institution, said he is “not at all convinced” by the paper’s argument about when and why throwing appeared.

And Potts said it is “a stretch” to say that throwing would give erectus an advantage in hunting.

Large animals have to be pierced in specific spots for a kill. That would seem to require more accuracy than one could expect for erectus to achieve from a distance, he said, given its small stature and narrow shoulders.