Many ideas have been proposed to explain the origin of bipedalism in hominins and suspension in great apes (hominids); however, fossil evidence has been lacking. It has been suggested that bipedalism in hominins evolved from an ancestor that was a palmigrade quadruped (which would have moved similarly to living monkeys), or from a more suspensory quadruped (most similar to extant chimpanzees)1. Here we describe the fossil ape Danuvius guggenmosi (from the Allgäu region of Bavaria) for which complete limb bones are preserved, which provides evidence of a newly identified form of positional behaviour—extended limb clambering. The 11.62-million-year-old Danuvius is a great ape that is dentally most similar to Dryopithecus and other European late Miocene apes. With a broad thorax, long lumbar spine and extended hips and knees, as in bipeds, and elongated and fully extended forelimbs, as in all apes (hominoids), Danuvius combines the adaptations of bipeds and suspensory apes, and provides a model for the common ancestor of great apes and humans.
A further iteration supporting the idea that bipedalism, or preadaptations of bipedalism, predate the divergence of the human lineage from the other great apes.
This chap would have been living at approximately the time when the orangutan lineage evolved, and not long before the ancestor of gorillas.
Our common ancestor already had a more bipedal posture, using the reach of longer limbs and upright position to manoeuvre around in the trees. Bipedalism in our lineage evolved as an adaptation for arboreal not terrestrial locomotion.