The Family That Walks On All Fours
Encyclopedia
The Family That Walks On All Fours is a BBC2 documentary that explored the science and the story of five individuals in the Ulas family
Ulas family
The Ulas family is a large Kurdish family of 19 from rural southern Turkey, five of whom walk on all fours with their feet and the palms of their hands in what is called a "bear crawl". Their quadrupedal gait has never been reported in anatomically intact adult humans. The gait is different from...

 in Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

 that walk with a previously unreported quadruped
Quadruped
Quadrupedalism is a form of land animal locomotion using four limbs or legs. An animal or machine that usually moves in a quadrupedal manner is known as a quadruped, meaning "four feet"...

 gait http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4782492.stm. The documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 was created by Passionate Productions and was broadcast on Friday 17 March 2006. The voiceover
VoiceOver
VoiceOver is a screen reader built into Apple Inc.'s Mac OS X, iOS and iPod operating systems. By using VoiceOver, the user can access their Macintosh or iOS device based on spoken descriptions and, in the case of the Mac, the keyboard. The feature is designed to increase accessibility for blind...

 is Jemima Harrison. A revised version of the documentary that shifts the focus away from the story of the discovery of the family and includes the views of additional scientists was shown on NOVA
NOVA (TV series)
Nova is a popular science television series from the U.S. produced by WGBH Boston. It can be seen on the Public Broadcasting Service in the United States, and in more than 100 other countries...

on November 14, 2006 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/allfours/.

Debate exists as to the nature and cause of their walking, including controversial speculation in the form of the Uner Tan syndrome
Uner Tan syndrome
Uner Tan syndrome, Unertan syndrome or UTS is a syndrome proposed by the Turkish evolutionary biologist Uner Tan. Persons affected by this syndrome walk with a quadrupedal locomotion and are afflicted with primitive speech and severe mental retardation. Tan postulated that this is an example of...

 that it may be a genetic throwback
Atavism
Atavism is the tendency to revert to ancestral type. In biology, an atavism is an evolutionary throwback, such as traits reappearing which had disappeared generations before. Atavisms can occur in several ways...

 to pre-bipedal hominid
Hominidae
The Hominidae or include them .), as the term is used here, form a taxonomic family, including four extant genera: chimpanzees , gorillas , humans , and orangutans ....

 locomotion. Nicholas Humphrey
Nicholas Humphrey
Professor Nicholas Keynes Humphrey is an English psychologist, based in Cambridge, who is known for his work on the evolution of human intelligence and consciousness. His interests are wide ranging...

, who accompanied the documentary makers, concluded that it was due to a rare set of genetic and developmental circumstances coming together. First, their mother recalls that initially all of her 19 children started off walking with a bear-crawl (i.e. on their feet rather than their knees). Second, due to an inherited recessive genetic mutation
Mutation
In molecular biology and genetics, mutations are changes in a genomic sequence: the DNA sequence of a cell's genome or the DNA or RNA sequence of a virus. They can be defined as sudden and spontaneous changes in the cell. Mutations are caused by radiation, viruses, transposons and mutagenic...

, they have a non-progressive congenital cerebellar ataxia
Ataxia
Ataxia is a neurological sign and symptom that consists of gross lack of coordination of muscle movements. Ataxia is a non-specific clinical manifestation implying dysfunction of the parts of the nervous system that coordinate movement, such as the cerebellum...

 that impairs the balance children normally use to learn to walk bipedally. Not being able to manage the balance needed for bipedal walking, they perfected in its place their initial bear-crawl into an adult quadruped gait.

Synopsis

Strange footprints and footsteps appear: "About four million years ago our distant ancestors did something amazing, something that changed them forever. It is the moment for many that we made the leap from ape
Ape
Apes are Old World anthropoid mammals, more specifically a clade of tailless catarrhine primates, belonging to the biological superfamily Hominoidea. The apes are native to Africa and South-east Asia, although in relatively recent times humans have spread all over the world...

 to man”.

The origin of the documentary is explained: Nicholas Humphrey
Nicholas Humphrey
Professor Nicholas Keynes Humphrey is an English psychologist, based in Cambridge, who is known for his work on the evolution of human intelligence and consciousness. His interests are wide ranging...

 at his Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...

 home in June 2005 receives a call from Dr. John Skoyles
John Skoyles (scientist)
John Skoyles is a dyslexic neuroscientist and evolutionary psychologist. He initially studied philosophy of science at the London School of Economics and then did MRC funded research upon neuroscience and dyslexia at University College London....

 who has seen an unpublished paper by Turkish Professor Uner Tan
Uner Tan
Uner Tan is a Turkish neuroscientist and evolutionary biologist. He is best known for his discovery and study of the human quadrupedal condition he named the Uner Tan syndrome. He taught at Cukurova University until his retirement in 2004 and had previously taught at several other...

 that focuses upon hand dominance in a family of quadrupeds that does not explore their usual gait. Humphrey explains his reaction and why the British scientists go off immediately to Turkey.

Background information to the main themes of the story are given with photos of
genetic throwbacks
Atavism
Atavism is the tendency to revert to ancestral type. In biology, an atavism is an evolutionary throwback, such as traits reappearing which had disappeared generations before. Atavisms can occur in several ways...

. The hostility to the theory of evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...

 in Turkey and among some Americans is explained as is the need for better information than that provided by human fossils.

The two British scientists and Tan visit the family and their father, Resit. There are 19 children in the family, 12 of them normal, and 7 were handicapped though one died. The commentary notes "The first hint of the problem" -- Gülin is introduced and "looks drunk" but on two legs – suggesting the problem is balance. Then each of affected hand-walking individuals is introduced: the four sisters Safiye, Hacer, Senem and Emine, and their brother, Hüseyin.

More commentary on the origins of bipedalism, the australopithecine
Australopithecine
The term australopithecine refers generally to any species in the related genera Australopithecus or Paranthropus. These species occurred in the Plio-Pleistocene era, and were bipedal and dentally similar to humans, but with a brain size not much larger than modern apes, lacking the...

 Laetoli
Laetoli
Laetoli is a site in Tanzania, dated to the Plio-Pleistocene and famous for its hominin footprints, preserved in volcanic ash . The site of the Laetoli footprints is located 45 km south of Olduvai gorge.-Date:...

 foot prints and Lucy
Lucy (Australopithecus)
Lucy is the common name of AL 288-1, several hundred pieces of bone representing about 40% of the skeleton of an individual Australopithecus afarensis. The specimen was discovered in 1974 at Hadar in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia's Afar Depression. Lucy is estimated to have lived 3.2 million years...

. Prof Humphrey explains the importance of learning how they can be helped.

A musical sequence then starts upon bipedal animals that includes a rat
Rat
Rats are various medium-sized, long-tailed rodents of the superfamily Muroidea. "True rats" are members of the genus Rattus, the most important of which to humans are the black rat, Rattus rattus, and the brown rat, Rattus norvegicus...

 and a dog
Dog
The domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...

 without forelimbs. A sifaka
Sifaka
Sifakas are a genus of lemur from the family Indriidae within the order Primates. Their name of the family is an onomatopoeia of their characteristic "shi-fak" alarm call. Like all lemurs, they are found only on the island of Madagascar...

 dances on two legs. It is explained that humans have extraordinary balance skills as a footballer bounces a ball on his foot and athletes
Athletics (track and field)
Athletics is an exclusive collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking. The most common types of athletics competitions are track and field, road running, cross country running, and race walking...

 run in a race.

Defne Aruoba, Turkish clinical psychologists and translator is introduced, as is the nature of their problem – it is genetic. Prof Uner Tan and his theory is then introduced that they are "deevolved". Professor Tan’s wife, Doctor Meliha Tan, a neurologist
Neurologist
A neurologist is a physician who specializes in neurology, and is trained to investigate, or diagnose and treat neurological disorders.Neurology is the medical specialty related to the human nervous system. The nervous system encompasses the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves. A specialist...

 is shown examining them – they have clinical signs of congenital cerebellar ataxia. A shot of a paper is shown by Prof Tan that labels them as having "Unertan syndrome". But the evidence suggests a more complex story: the sisters have good motor skills, elaborately and carefully tying scarves around their heads and doing needlework
Needlework
Needlework is a broad term for the handicrafts of decorative sewing and textile arts. Anything that uses a needle for construction can be called needlework...

. They are shown chatting and joking together with Defne.

Their brain damage is not uncommon so why do they – and only they—walk in this way? But there is more than a science problem: the local village are hostile and treat them as outcasts. The local children taunt Hüseyin. It is explained that they moved house when told that their previous one was "cursed", and that when they ran out of water no one would help. Defne tells of the parents' distress about what happen to their children when they die.

At Cambridge University, Professor Roger Keynes
Roger Keynes
Roger John Keynes FMedSci is a British medical scientist. He is a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and a professor within the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience....

, a neuroscientist
Neuroscientist
A neuroscientist is an individual who studies the scientific field of neuroscience or any of its related sub-fields...

, explains their brain abnormality – amongst other problems they have a defect of the cerebellar vermis
Cerebellar vermis
The cerebellar vermis is located in the medial, cortico-nuclear zone of the cerebellum, residing in the posterior fossa of the cranium. The primary fissure in the vermis curves ventrolaterally to the superior surface of the cerebellum, dividing it into anterior and posterior lobes....

. But Gülin who walks also has this brain defect.

So the brain cannot be the whole story since individuals born with cerebellar ataxia can still in a manner walk with bipedality.

The two British scientists return to Turkey to hunt for other reasons. Their father, Resit, has a deep but very kind and human Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

 faith. Perhaps they have too readily accepted fate?

In Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, the geneticist
Geneticist
A geneticist is a biologist who studies genetics, the science of genes, heredity, and variation of organisms. A geneticist can be employed as a researcher or lecturer. Some geneticists perform experiments and analyze data to interpret the inheritance of skills. A geneticist is also a Consultant or...

 Professor Stefan Mundlos is shown and his laboratory
Laboratory
A laboratory is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. The title of laboratory is also used for certain other facilities where the processes or equipment used are similar to those in scientific laboratories...

. He explains DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...

 holds the secrets of our past – he hopes to find a gene
Gene
A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...

 that has switched off bipedal walking. Prof Humphrey, however, explains the problems of this theory – notably that Gülin who walks bipedally also has the same genetic defect.

But as the film makers note there is dissent in Professor Humphrey’s own ranks as his colleague Dr. John Skoyles suggests Mundlos might be half right – he suggests that there may be a gene but it impairs what he calls "superbalance". Dr. Skoyles points out that Hüseyin has good balance on four limbs – what he lacks is the superbalance we use to keep ourselves safely upright on two.

The story develops in Turkey: Defne explains there is local tension. The local military police
Military police
Military police are police organisations connected with, or part of, the military of a state. The word can have different meanings in different countries, and may refer to:...

 visit the family and ask the documentary makers to leave. It is explained it is against the law in Turkey to insult Turkey and they fear that the documentary might compare the family to animals.

But Professor Humphrey explains the real problem is religious sensitivity. He is shown visiting and talking to the local imam
Imam
An imam is an Islamic leadership position, often the worship leader of a mosque and the Muslim community. Similar to spiritual leaders, the imam is the one who leads Islamic worship services. More often, the community turns to the mosque imam if they have a religious question...

. But the religious objection to the idea people did not arise from Adam and Eve
Adam and Eve
Adam and Eve were, according to the Genesis creation narratives, the first human couple to inhabit Earth, created by YHWH, the God of the ancient Hebrews...

 does not only exist in Turkey: an evangelistic pastor
Pastor
The word pastor usually refers to an ordained leader of a Christian congregation. When used as an ecclesiastical styling or title, this role may be abbreviated to "Pr." or often "Ps"....

 in America expresses his creationism
Creationism
Creationism is the religious beliefthat humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being, most often referring to the Abrahamic god. As science developed from the 18th century onwards, various views developed which aimed to reconcile science with the Genesis...

.

The documentary then shifts to the American Museum of Natural History
American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History , located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States, is one of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world...

. Scientists there look at the film and make comments. Professor Will Harcourt-Smith and Dr. Esteban Sarmiento explain the limits of fossil
Fossil
Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...

 evidence and the hope that this family might provide a new source of evidence.

At Liverpool University Professor Robin Crompton has studied their movement: they walk in way that apes walk on branches.

The theory
Theory
The English word theory was derived from a technical term in Ancient Greek philosophy. The word theoria, , meant "a looking at, viewing, beholding", and referring to contemplation or speculation, as opposed to action...

 of the two British scientists is explained. A clue is that their mother, Hatice, also occasionally moves through a quadruped-like stage when she gets up. The mother explains that all her 19 children crawled on their feet – bear-crawling. The suggestion is that the whole family has a propensity for the use of all four limbs out of which they all dropped except for the cerebellar ataxic children who could not balance and so kept using it, with the result it became their adult gait. Prof Humphrey also notes the importance of the lack of physiotherapy.

Defne then translates and explains the mother’s touchingly deep love for her children. Defne then expresses her own feelings: she does not care to find the source of their problems, she wants to know what can be done for them. The British scientists and the film makers invite in Dr Ali, a physiotherapist. He examines them. He holds out hope for the sisters but not for Hüseyin. He gives the family a $30 walking frame to help them learn to walk on two feet – an aid surprisingly they have never had. Their father, Resit, says he would give everything if his children could walk without using their hands. His obvious love and deep care of his children is very apparent. Hacer explains she would love go to dances. Hüseyin, however, is shown going through despair, frustration and anger at his condition – only the family pet dog calms him down. Safiye, in her unhappiness, seeks solitude.

Contrasting with these scenes of sadness, we then see the family enjoying themselves at a sandy beach only an hour’s drive away. In spite of its nearness, they have never been to the sea before. We see them paddling and touching the sea waves. Hatice, their mother, upon seeing the sea for the first time in her life, says that she did not know that Allah
Allah
Allah is a word for God used in the context of Islam. In Arabic, the word means simply "God". It is used primarily by Muslims and Bahá'ís, and often, albeit not exclusively, used by Arabic-speaking Eastern Catholic Christians, Maltese Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Mizrahi Jews and...

 had made such beauty.

The voiceover explains that it has been explained to the family that the film will put the world’s spotlight on them. Resit says does not want them compared to monkeys. He does not believe in evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...

 but also he philosophically observes words cannot harm them and film might bring help and a little understanding. Professor Nicholas Humphrey expresses his concern that this phenomenon may never be seen again.

In January 2006, the film makers return to the family. Before they left, parallel bars had been bought on Dr. Ali’s advice and put outside so the family could exercise upright walking and they have done this nearly every day. The family is seen smiling as they have made progress in learning to walk.

But there is sadness: Hüseyin may now be unable to learn to walk upright. The film ends with the following words "how amazing it is that we came to document an echo of one stage of our evolution and end up recording another ... the extraordinary moment, lost in time, when our ancestors stood up and become a man". We end seeing Hüseyin walking up a path on two legs.

People involved in its production

  • Written, directed, voiceover and edited Jemima Harrison
  • Photographed and produced Jon Lane
  • Computer model Premog
  • Titles Alex Pritchard
  • Additional photography Darren Hercher
  • Production Assistant Chloe Hayward
  • Additional Research David Boardman
  • Archive researcher Elizabeth Ashe
  • Colourist Malcom Merdith
  • Dubbing mixer Matt Skilton
  • Online Editor Jim Dummett
  • Executive Producer for BBC Richard Klein
  • Consultants, Turkey Defne Aruoba, Cetin Mursalioğlu
  • Consultants, UK Nick Humphrey, Roger Keynes
    Roger Keynes
    Roger John Keynes FMedSci is a British medical scientist. He is a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and a professor within the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience....

    , John Skoyles

External links

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