Every as soon as in an awesome whereas paleontological fieldwork turns up a fossil so extraordinary that it revolutionizes our understanding of the origin and evolution of a whole department of the tree of life. Fifty years in the past considered one of us (Johanson) made simply such a discovery on an expedition to the Afar area of Ethiopia. On November 24, 1974, Johanson was out prospecting for fossils of human ancestors together with his graduate scholar Tom Grey, eyes skilled on the bottom, when he noticed a bit of elbow with humanlike anatomy. Glancing upslope, he noticed further fragments of bone glinting within the noonday solar. Within the weeks, months and years that adopted, because the expedition group labored to recuperate and analyze all the traditional bones eroding out of that hillside, it turned clear that Johanson had discovered a exceptional partial skeleton of a human ancestor who had lived some 3.2 million years in the past. She was assigned to a brand new species, Australopithecus afarensis, and given the reference quantity A.L.288-1, which stands for “Afar locality 288,” the spot the place she, the primary hominin fossil, was discovered. However to most individuals, she is understood just by her nickname, Lucy. With the invention of Lucy, scientists have been compelled to rethink key particulars of the human story, from when and the place humanity obtained its begin to how the assorted extinct members of the human household have been associated to at least one one other—and to us. Her mixture of apelike and humanlike traits instructed her species occupied a key place within the household tree: ancestral to all later human species, together with members of our genus, Homo.
It may be precarious to hold such a pivotal argument on a single fossil particular person. However within the half a century since Lucy’s unveiling, many extra specimens of Au. afarensis have been discovered. Collectively they supply an exceptionally detailed file of this historical species, revealing the place it roamed, the way it lived, how its members differed from each other and the way lengthy it endured earlier than going extinct.
In 1972 researchers traveled to the Afar area of northeastern Ethiopia to search for hominin fossils courting to greater than three million years in the past. A website known as Hadar seemed particularly promising, its rugged panorama chock-full of mammal fossils that erode out of the hillsides over time.
On supporting science journalism
Should you’re having fun with this text, think about supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By buying a subscription you’re serving to to make sure the way forward for impactful tales in regards to the discoveries and concepts shaping our world right this moment.
We have now additionally realized quite a bit about Lucy’s personal predecessors—and her contemporaries. Some of the thrilling developments within the subject of human origins analysis for the reason that discovery of Lucy has been the revelation that for many of our prehistory a number of human species, or hominins, roamed the planet. Certainly one of us (Haile-Selassie) has discovered hominins that overlapped in time and house with Lucy’s form. These members of the human household are fascinating in their very own proper. In addition they present very important context for understanding the evolution of the species which will very properly have given rise to us all.
To perceive why Lucy had such a large affect on paleoanthropology, now we have to have a look at the state of the science on the time of her discovery. Again within the early Nineteen Seventies, the oldest hominin fossils on file have been regarded as round 2.5 million years outdated and belonged to a species known as Australopithecus africanus from South Africa. Youthful fossils fell into considered one of two teams: the so-called sturdy australopiths, with their large molars and highly effective jaws, and the extra delicately constructed, or “gracile,” kinds, which included Homo. Though Au. africanus was categorised as gracile, it didn’t notably resemble both of those later teams. But it was the one sufficiently well-documented hominin we had that was sufficiently old to be ancestral to them. There have been a couple of scraps of fossil materials from jap Africa that have been older, however there wasn’t sufficient materials preserved to get an excellent sense of the sorts of creatures they got here from. And so scientists drew their evolutionary timber with Au. africanus because the all-important ancestor of Homo and the sturdy kinds. However what they actually wanted to check that speculation about Au. africanus have been extra full fossils in extra of three million years outdated.
Within the spring of 1972 Johanson journeyed to Ethiopia with French geologist Maurice Taieb in quest of hominin fossils from past the three-million-year mark. Taieb was eager to take him to the Afar area of northeastern Ethiopia, the place he had beforehand seen pig and elephant fossils that from the time interval Johanson was focusing on. Maybe hominin fossils have been there, too, ready to be found. Surveying a bunch of fossil-bearing areas within the area, the group zeroed in on a website known as Hadar. Brimming with fossils of rodents, elephants, rhinos, hippos, monkeys, horses, antelopes and carnivores, Hadar will need to have been a bountiful atmosphere hundreds of thousands of years in the past to help so many animals. It appeared like a promising space to seek for historical human ancestors. Johanson knew that if hominin fossils have been discovered there, they may upend our understanding of how people got here to be.
On November 24, 1974, Donald C. Johanson found the almost 3.2-million-year-old Lucy skeleton on one of many hillsides. A stake marks the spot the place the fossil was discovered.
When the expedition group returned to Hadar the next yr, Johanson made a tantalizing discovery: a knee joint estimated to be 3.4 million years outdated. Anatomical particulars of the knee indicated that it had come from a hominin that walked upright, like us, confirming the fossil hunters’ hunch that Hadar had hominins. Johanson suspected the knee belonged to an Australopithecus particular person, however with out extra anatomical data to go on, he couldn’t decide whether or not it got here from Au. africanus or a brand new species. What the group wanted most was to seek out stays of skulls and enamel, the physique elements that comprise probably the most diagnostic options for distinguishing species in fossil mammals. The researchers might solely hope that the following subject season would flip up cranial and dental specimens.
Their dream got here spectacularly true on that momentous day in 1974. The Lucy fossil preserved cranium fragments and a decrease jaw with enamel, in addition to elements of the arm, leg, pelvis, backbone and ribs—47 bones in all representing a whopping 40 p.c of the skeleton of a single particular person. Her stays promised untold insights into the human previous.
Named after the Beatles track “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” which performed on the tape deck at camp because the group celebrated, Lucy turned an prompt sensation. Nothing like her had ever been discovered earlier than. She was diminutive—her 12-inch-long thigh bone indicated that she stood solely three and a half ft tall and weighed 60 to 65 kilos. Like many different animals, early hominins exhibit a situation known as sexual dimorphism, whereby males are a lot bigger than females, amongst different morphological variations. Lucy was too small to be a male. And her erupted knowledge enamel and lack of unfused development plates in her limb bones confirmed she was an grownup.
The expedition camped alongside the banks of the Awash River and commenced a focused search of the world’s fossil-bearing sediments.
Different options attested to how she carried herself. After intently inspecting her knee, hip and ankle, in addition to conducting in depth biomechanical research, Johanson and his colleagues concluded that she walked upright—a trait that Charles Darwin argued was a trademark of people—with a gait very very like our personal. Different students interpreted the bones in a different way, arguing that she walked together with her knees and hips bent like chimpanzees do once they sometimes journey on two legs. Closing decision of this debate got here in 1978, after researchers found a shocking path of hominin footprints impressed in 3.7-million-year-old volcanic ash on the website of Laetoli in Tanzania. A number of the prints are so detailed that each one the traits of a contemporary human footprint left on a seaside are seen. They confirmed that the Laetoli monitor makers walked like us, not like chimpanzees. And since hominin enamel and jaws just like these from Hadar had been discovered at Laetoli, it stood to purpose that Lucy’s form left the prints.
Traits corresponding to a receding chin, strongly projecting snout, low and sloping brow, and really small mind measurement positioned Lucy within the genus Australopithecus. However sure facets of her anatomy hinted that she could be extra primitive than different recognized species in that group. Her first decrease premolar was oval in form and had a single cusp, like an ape’s. Likewise, her decrease limbs have been comparatively quick, presumably an evolutionary function left over from her ancestors who lived a extra arboreal life. Though solely bits of her braincase have been recovered, the fragments instructed a mind quantity of 388 cubic centimeters. That’s very small in contrast with the fashionable human mind, which averages 1,400 cubic centimeters, and similar to the typical fashionable chimp mind. Lucy confirmed earlier suspicions that upright strolling advanced earlier than massive brains.
With so many elements of her skeleton preserved, Lucy was a trove of data. However she was nonetheless only one particular person. For a deeper understanding of her species, we would have liked extra specimens. To that finish, continued fieldwork at Hadar and different websites within the area has yielded a wealth of further Au. afarensis fossils that collectively present an in depth portrait of this ancestor.
In 1975, only one yr after Lucy was discovered at Afar Locality 288, the Hadar group found greater than 200 fossil hominin specimens eroding from a single layer of rock at close by Afar Locality 333. Dated to a little bit greater than 3.2 million years in the past, the pattern consisted of female and male adults in addition to parts of infants and juveniles estimated to signify not less than 17 people, all presumably associated. The group turned referred to as the “First Family.”
When Lucy was found 50 years in the past, she was the oldest, most full early member of the human household that had ever been discovered, with 47 bones representing 40 p.c of the skeleton. Options of her hip, knee and ankle point out that she walked upright on two legs like we do. But in different respects she was primitive, with a mind lower than a 3rd of the dimensions of our personal.
Combining the expanded Hadar assortment with Lucy’s Tanzanian counterparts allowed the group to reconstruct the cranium of the hominin species discovered at Hadar and to judge the fossils’ taxonomic standing and place on the human household tree. In 1978, following an intensive comparative examine of all of the australopith species then recognized, Johanson and his colleagues concluded that though a number of the dental and cranial options evident in these stays are present in different members of Australopithecus, the entire morphological package deal seen within the Hadar and Laetoli fossils was distinctive and constituted a species new to science: Australopithecus afarensis. Moreover, they proposed, Au. afarensis occupied a outstanding place on the household tree, changing Au. africanus because the final frequent ancestor of later hominins, together with Homo and the sturdy australopiths.
Not everybody within the paleoanthropological group embraced the naming of this new species. Detractors argued that the hominin file between two million and three million years in the past was too sparse to help the declare that Au. afarensis was the ancestor of later hominins. The invention of extra fossils from this time interval could be essential for testing this speculation.
In 1975 Johanson, proven right here with graduate scholar Tom Grey, found fossils from a gaggle of hominins—dubbed the First Household—who had died collectively at one other locality in Hadar and belonged to the identical species as Lucy.
That further proof has since are available. In 1985 researchers working in northern Kenya found a 2.5-million-year-old skull of the sturdy australopith Paranthropus aethiopicus. Dubbed the “Black Skull” for its manganese-tinged coloration, it possessed a robust masticatory system, together with massive crushing and grinding enamel, just like these of a strong australopith particular person typically known as “Nutcracker Man,” who lived 1.8 million years in the past and belonged to the species Paranthropus boisei. The Black Cranium additionally shared a number of traits with Au. afarensis, together with a particularly projecting decrease face. When the three species are thought of collectively, Au. afarensis is a compelling ancestor for P. aethiopicus, which in flip seems ancestral to P. boisei.
Additional help for the speculation that Au. afarensis gave rise to later australopiths in jap Africa got here in 1990, when a skull the identical age because the Black Cranium surfaced in Ethiopia’s Center Awash Valley. The invention group deemed it a brand new species, Australopithecus garhi, and claimed that it occurred on the proper time and place to be ancestral to Homo. Just like the sturdy australopiths, this specimen had a formidable masticatory system, with massive jaws and a crest atop its head that may have anchored sturdy chewing muscle tissue. It additionally had a facial construction just like that of Au. afarensis. Different scientists have surmised that Au. garhi descended from Au. afarensis and advanced its formidable chewing anatomy in parallel with the sturdy australopiths however didn’t itself give rise to later hominin species.
Cranial and dental stays from this discover allowed researchers to reconstruct the cranium of that species, Australopithecus afarensis.
Different fossil finds bolstered the proposed hyperlink between Au. afarensis and Homo. For a very long time the oldest recognized fossils within the genus Homo dated solely way back to round two million years in the past, leaving a worrying hole of greater than one million years between the youngest Au. afarensis and the oldest Homo. In 1994 researchers at Hadar discovered a 2.33-million-year-old palate—the bone that makes up the roof of the mouth—that shared morphological traits with Homo habilis, “Handy Man,” the earliest recognized member of our genus, narrowing that temporal hole by a couple of hundred thousand years. And in 2013 a group working at a website northeast of Hadar known as Ledi-Geraru recovered the left half of a 2.8-million-year-old mandible bearing a mix of primitive Au. afarensis options and traits of early Homo. The Ledi-Geraru jaw offered one other stepping stone between Au. afarensis and Homo and strengthened the morphological connection between them as properly, serving to to validate the speculation that Au. afarensis is the very best candidate now we have for the ancestor of our personal genus.
Human fossils are typically uncommon, which implies that our understanding of the previous can change dramatically when new specimens floor. When Au. afarensis was named as a brand new species in 1978, it was the earliest human ancestor ever documented, with an age vary of three.8 million to three.0 million years in the past. Fossils recovered within the mid-Nineteen Nineties prolonged the early hominin file again even farther. In 1994 researchers working within the Center Awash area of Ethiopia’s Afar Rift discovered hominin fossils dated to 4.4 million years in the past. They assigned the stays to a brand new species, Ardipithecus ramidus. The next yr one other new species was named primarily based on fossil discoveries from Kanapoi and Allia Bay in Kenya’s Turkana Basin: Australopithecus anamensis, which lived from 4.3 million to three.8 million years in the past. With the naming of those two species, Au. afarensis misplaced the excellence of being the oldest hominin, nevertheless it gained an origin story of its personal: Au. anamensis is believed to be the direct ancestor of Au. afarensis. Extra not too long ago, discoveries in Chad, Kenya and Ethiopia have pushed the origin of humankind again so far as seven million years.
Different fossil finds have proven that Au. afarensis was not the one hominin species round throughout its lengthy reign, elevating the query of whether or not Au. afarensis or considered one of these different hominins is the ancestor of Homo and Paranthropus. Removed from diminishing the importance of Lucy’s species, these findings enrich its story: we now have many extra puzzle items from which to reconstruct the evolution of the road that led to us and the elements that formed it alongside the way in which. The image that’s rising from this work is way extra complicated—and interesting—than the one paleoanthropologists historically envisioned.
Previous to 1960, human origins researchers thought that solely a single hominin species lived at any given time up to now. This notion stemmed from the concept competitors prohibits the coexistence of associated species with comparable variations, a precept referred to as aggressive exclusion. The fossil file of hominins appeared to help this idea till fossils of two totally different hominin species have been recovered from the identical geological layer at websites in Kenya and Tanzania. Nonetheless, there was no proof that one other species lived alongside Au. afarensis, and due to that, it was thought of to be the ancestor of all later hominins.
Finally, nonetheless, challengers turned up from numerous websites in jap and central Africa. In 1995 a group lead by paleontologist Michel Brunet found a 3.5-million-year-old partial hominin jaw from a website in northern Chad referred to as Koro-Toro and assigned it to a brand new species, Australopithecus bahrelghazali. This fossil was vital not solely as a result of it was discovered exterior the East African Rift System, the place nearly all early hominins have been recovered, but additionally as a result of it overlapped in time with Au. afarensis. Not everybody agreed that the jaw was distinctive sufficient to signify a brand new species. Nonetheless, it was the primary trace that Au. afarensis might not have been the one hominin species round 3.5 million years in the past.
A second trace got here in 2001, when paleontologist Meave Leakey and her group introduced their discovery of a 3.5-million-year-old skull from Lomekwi, a website in northwest Kenya, and assigned it to a brand new genus and species known as Kenyanthropus platyops, partly on the premise of what they noticed as a particular flatness of its face. Critics additionally challenged the validity of this species, arguing that the badly crushed cranium was too distorted for its true form to be discernible. Regardless, it was one other indication that Au. afarensis may not have been alone—even in jap Africa.
For the previous 20 years Yohannes Haile-Selassie has been working at a fossil website some 40 kilometers north of Hadar known as Woranso-Mille. There he has recovered fossils belonging to contemporaries of Au. afarensis, together with jawbones belonging to a species known as Australopithecus deyiremeda and afoot belonging to a but unidentified species that had a diver gent massive toe like an ape’s.
Cleveland Museum of Pure Historical past
Extra not too long ago, Haile-Selassie has discovered the strongest proof but that Au. afarensis had firm. 20 years in the past he got down to search for new paleontological websites within the Afar Rift containing hominin fossils between three million and 4 million years outdated. His efforts resulted within the discovery of a spectacular new website known as Woranso-Mille simply 40 kilometers north of Hadar. With fossils spanning the time from 3.8 million to three.0 million years in the past, it has turn into some of the vital websites in all of Africa for hominins from the Pliocene epoch.
Maybe probably the most exceptional facet of Woranso-Mille is the range of hominins discovered there. The location has yielded stays of each Au. anamensis (together with a almost full cranium that has given us our first take a look at the face of this ancestor) and its descendant, Au. afarensis. It has additionally produced different hominins. In 2012 Haile-Selassie and his colleagues introduced their discovery of an enigmatic hominin foot with a divergent massive toe extra like an ape’s. At 3.4 million years outdated, it was contemporaneous with Au. afarensis. But it clearly didn’t come from that species, whose massive toe lined up with the opposite digits, like ours does. With none related cranium or tooth stays to information them, the researchers didn’t wish to assign the foot to a species. But it surely confirmed past any doubt that Lucy’s species shared the panorama with a basically totally different type of hominin.
Additional proof that Au. afarensis overlapped with different hominins got here in 2015, when Haile-Selassie and his colleagues introduced their discovery of fossilized higher and decrease jaws from a species new to science, Australopithecus deyiremeda. Dated to three.3 million to three.5 million years in the past, this species was contemporaneous with each Au. afarensis and the proprietor of the mysterious foot that was recovered from the identical website. Whether or not the foot belongs to Au. deyiremeda, given the proximity of the finds, stays to be seen.
A foot belonging to a but unidentified species that had a divergent massive toe like an ape’s.
Cleveland Museum of Pure Historical past
The discoveries at Woranso-Mille present that Au. afarensis didn’t simply share the identical continent and even the identical facet of the continent with different hominin species however lived just about facet by facet with them. They could have been ready to do that by exploiting totally different ecological niches throughout the identical space. The species with the divergent massive toe most likely might have climbed timber extra effectively than Au. afarensis, for instance, and so may need centered on arboreal sources whereas Au. afarensis favored terrestrial ones.
Comparability of the paleoenvironments on the websites the place these fossils are discovered might present additional clues. Hadar and Woranso-Mille are comparable in having hosted each Au. afarensis and different nonhominin mammals concurrently. However solely Woranso-Mille had a couple of hominin species. Why have been there a number of contemporaneous hominin species at Woranso-Mille and never at close by Hadar? One speculation we’re testing is that Woranso-Mille encompassed a larger range of habitats, which might have supported a number of hominins with out substantial direct competitors.
Jawbones belonging to a species known as Australopithecus deyiremeda.
Cleveland Museum of Pure Historical past
The realization that Au. afarensis may need had as many as three different hominin contemporaries has raised questions in regards to the declare that it was the ancestor of all later hominins, together with members of Homo. We have now to think about whether or not any of those different species could also be a greater candidate ancestor than Au. afarensis. In apply, it’s laborious to attach the dots with certainty. One massive downside is that the pattern sizes of those different species are too small to permit for significant comparisons. For instance, researchers have argued that Okay. platyops had a flat face like early Homo and will thus be thought of the ancestor of that genus. However now we have just one cranium of Okay. platyops to go on, and it’s badly crushed. Did this creature even have a flat face, or did its poor preservation distort its true options? We would wish well-preserved skulls of this species to know. What’s extra, Okay. platyops is separated from its proposed descendant, Homo rudolfensis, by about one million years, making it tough to hyperlink the 2. If we had extra fossils of Okay. platyops from totally different time durations to ascertain how lengthy this species continued, we would have the ability to bridge that hole, however we don’t.
We merely don’t have sufficient details about Okay. platyops or the opposite Au. afarensis contemporaries to know what sorts of creatures they have been and the way they’re associated to the remainder of the human household. That leaves Au. afarensis—represented by lots of of fossils from quite a few people, juvenile and grownup, spanning some 800,000 years—as the very best candidate ancestor of Homo and Paranthropus. As further fossils of those extra not too long ago recognized hominins come to gentle, maybe considered one of them may emerge because the front-runner. Till then, Au. afarensis stays the most definitely ancestor and some of the vital species in human evolutionary historical past.
