LUCY101

EVOLUTION OF MAN

 Who

is Lucy?
Why was Lucy
named Lucy?
What are the
similarities of Lucy
to Modern man?
Was Lucy an
adult?

AUSTRALOPITHECUS
AFARENSIS
is one of the longest-lived and best-known early human
speciespaleoanthropologists have uncovered remains
from more than 300 individuals! Found between 3.85
and 2.95 million years ago in Eastern Africa (Ethiopia,
Kenya, Tanzania), this species survived for more than
900,000 years, which is over four times as long as our
own species has been around. It is best known from the
sites of Hadar, Ethiopia (Lucy, AL 288-1 and the 'First
Family', AL 333); Dikika, Ethiopia (Dikika child
skeleton); and Laetoli (fossils of this species plus the
oldest documented bipedal footprint trails).

How old is Lucy?

The hominid-bearing sediments in the Hadar
formation are divided into three members. Lucy was
found in the highest of thesethe Kada Hadar or KH
member. While fossils cannot be dated directly,
the deposits in which they are found sometimes
contain volcanic flows and ashes, which can now be
dated with the 40Ar/39Ar (Argon-Argon) dating
technique. Armed with these dates and bolstered by
paleomagnetic, paleontological, and
sedimentological studies, researchers can place
fossils into a dated framework with accuracy and
precision. Lucy is dated to just less than 3.18 million
years old.

How do we know she was a

Hominid?
The term hominid refers to a member of the
zoological family Hominidae. Hominidae
encompasses all species originating after the
human/African ape ancestral split, leading to and
including all species of Australopithecus and
Homo. While these species differ in many ways,
hominids share a suite of characteristics that
define them as a group. The most conspicuous
of these traits is bipedal locomotion, or walking
upright.

HOW DID LUCY DIED?

DISCOVERIES

While Lucy was not the first Australopithecus to

be discovered (that honour belongs to the
Taung Child), Lucy is the oldest potential
ancestor for the hominin species.
Though Lucy was more ape-like than other
Australopithecus, her skeleton had a valgus
knee, which meant she normally walked upright.
Because she walked upright, Lucy strengthened
the idea that walking was a key trait that drove
human evolution.

 While

she walked upright, she also spent her

time in the trees, so it was theorized that the
trait was evolved in the trees, as a way to walk
from branch to branch when the branch was
too flexible.
Walking on ground was to search for food
Animal bones as old as Lucy have been found
marked with what seem to be stone tools,
indicating that Lucy and the rest of her species
have been using stone tools to eat meat.

Some Fallacies about the

Discovery of Lucy

This is still an exaggeration since it concedes that

various specimens are part of human evolution.

There were other finds at the same location, other

skulls and U-shaped jawbones.

Does this make her an upright walker? Present day

orangutan and spider monkeys have the same angle
as humans yet are extremely adept tree climbers.
Some experts argue that the higher angle makes her a
better climber.

This appears to be a knee-jerk reaction rather than clear

scientific thinking.

Some Fallacies about the

Discovery of Lucy

What about Lucy? Just another partial find of some primate, put
together to look like a human ancestor? Could the wide separation
of Lucys bones (200 feet by 1 mile) better point to a catastrophic
scenario such as a world wide flood?

Tom Willis, the creationist who attended the U. of Missouri lecture

puts it this way, By any reasonable standards, Johanson
misrepresented the evidence and he did so for money! A
businessman who made claims like those to sell his products would
be charged with fraud rather than be paid an honorarium.

Regardless

of the motives involved for finding our evolutionary

ancestor, we can be sure that when Lucy is acknowledged as an
evolutionary dead end, there will be another press conference with
another knee-jerk explanation.

Our Relation to the Old Hominid

It's widely believed that one Australopithecus genus
was the ancestor of the Homo genus, which comprises
modern humans, as well as now-ex>nct species like
Homo habilis and Neanderthal man. However, it's not
known for sure which Australopithecus species gave
rise to Homo - but since Homo evolved around 2.8
million years ago, it's possible that our two species are
related in some way.

Our Relation to the Old Hominid

At her discovery, it was thought that Lucy could be the
oldest direct ancestor of modern humans - another
stepping-stone towards the 'missing link', the common
ancestor we share with chimpanzees. It's since turned
out that we probably split from chimps much earlier,
maybe as early as 13 million years ago. There were
many dierent hominid species living around this
period, oJen interac>ng or even breeding with each
other, making it hard to nd our true common ancestor.

SOURCES:
hMp://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/who-is-

lucy-the-australopithecus-afarensis-google-doodle-
discovery-a6745696.html
hMp://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/lucy-the-
australopithecus-how-related-are-we-to-this-32-
million-year-old-hominid-a6745801.html
hMp://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/
fossils/al-288-1
hMps://iho.asu.edu/about/lucys-story
hMp://www.history.com/news/famed-lucy-fossils-
discovered-in-ethiopia-40-years-ago