Is the Secret of Britney Spears Success Hidden in the Locomotion?

Photo from Sita

Britney Spears is well-known as an artiste of unmatched calibre, but how did this singing and dancing sensation become such a success? Recent research by archaeologists suggests it could be due to a very distant grandmother, Lucy, an Australopithecus Afarensis. By being decended from her, or a creature very like her it would make sense to call Britney Spears lucky.

Confused by the Britney Spears Pictures? See here for an explanation. Lucy is a bit of an enigma. She dates from about three million years ago, well before humans existed. About 40% of her skeleton was found including her femur, the thigh bone, and also the pelvis which showed she was female. She was probably about 25 years old when she died. So she was definitely not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman though as she dates from around three million years ago, which makes her pre-human.

Australopithicene Gait. From a video at Interface Journal

It’s Lucy’s thigh bone which has been causing interest recently. Evolutionary robotics experts at Loughborough, Dundee and Liverpool universities have been working on a model which as you can see from the diagram below is topless. Britney Spears photographs show she has a top half as well as a bottom half, and Lucy was probably the same, but this is not a problem. The thing they were looking for was the locomotion of the robot, the way the robot walked. They walked the robot along to see which was the most energy efficient gait. By reproducing this they have discovered that Lucy probably walked upright. You can see a demonstration of this through as the authors have provided a video. Britney Spears dance moves might have prehistoric origins but what about her voice?

Steven Mithen has argued that language has evolved from singing. He’s argued that singing could have acted as a holistic form of communication before language properly developed. He’s also argued that body language played a part and the ability to move in rhythm may have been a linguistic feature. Experiments with autistic childern, he argues show that rhythm is innate to all of us. Even Britney Spears baby. He adds that bipedalism will have also allowed the larynx to descend, which in turn would allow modern humans like Britney to use a wider range of noises than chimpanzees or gorillas if she ever wished to. It’s odd that singing and language would be linked to bipedalism, but it’s one of the peculiar unexpected links that evolution often shows in the body.

As odd as it may seem, the origins of popular music may come from an astonishingly early date. Britney Spears wouldn’t have the career she does if her distant ancestors hadn’t thought to walk upright more millions of years ago in Africa, because ultimately a melodious voice is depends on an upright stance. If she shuffled like a gorilla she’d probably have become a Spice Girl instead.

You can read more about Austropithicene locomotion at Interface. You can read more about prehistoric singing in Steven Mithen’s new book, The Singing Neanderthals.

Inspired by Britney Spears guide to Semiconductor Physics and Blogs of the Day.

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