She was, for some time, the oldest identified member of the human household. Fifty years after the invention of Lucy in Ethiopia, the outstanding stays proceed to yield theories and questions.
In a nondescript room within the Nationwide Museum of Ethiopia, the three.18-million-year-old bones are delicately faraway from a secure and positioned on a protracted desk.
They encompass fossilised dental stays, cranium fragments, elements of the pelvis and femur that make up the world’s most well-known Australopithecus afarensis, Lucy.
The hominid was found on November 24, 1974, within the Afar area of northeast Ethiopia by a crew of scientists led by Maurice Taieb, Yves Coppens, Donald Johanson, Jon Kalb, and Raymonde Bonnefille.
The 52 bone fragments, amounting to some 40 p.c of Lucy’s skeleton, was, on the time, essentially the most full ever discovered, and revolutionised the understanding of our ancestors.
The skeleton was initially referred to as A.L-288-1, in reference to Afar and its geolocation.
However the researchers nicknamed it Lucy after The Beatles’ music “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”, which they listened to after celebrating their discovery.
Lucy walked on two legs and is believed to have died aged between 11 and 13 – thought-about an grownup for this species. She was 1.10 metres tall (3.6 toes) and weighed 29 kg (64 kilos).
For Sahleselasie Melaku, the 31-year-old head of the palaeontology division, Lucy’s discovery represented an emergence from a “dark age” in our understanding of human ancestors.
“The impact of the discovery was very big in the discipline and even the whole world,” he instructed AFP.
Lucy confirmed that members of the human household existed past three million years in the past, and she or he additionally supplied a template for becoming collectively later bone discoveries.
The quantity of data that may be gleaned from the bones has allowed some extremely detailed theories about Lucy’s life.
A barely deformed vertebra, as an illustration, “means she probably had back problems”, mentioned Melaku.
‘Distinctive’
Jean-Renaud Boisserie, a paleonthologist specialised in Ethiopia and the analysis director on the French Nationwide Centre for Scientific Analysis mentioned it was an “exceptional” breakthrough for the self-discipline.
“We basically knew very little about the period of three million years ago, and we had nothing as complete,” he mentioned.
Lucy was usually described as “the grandmother of humanity”, however more moderen discoveries recommend she might have been extra like an aunt or a cousin, consultants say.
Skeletal finds in locations like Ethiopia, South Africa and Kenya have difficult the image and led to a lot debate about when totally different species of hominid emerged and which ought to be labeled as a part of the human or chimpanzee households.
The invention of “Toumai” in Chad in 2001 – a cranium dated to 6 or seven million years previous – advised the human household might go a lot additional again than beforehand thought.
In the meantime, Lucy has but to disclose all her secrets and techniques.
A examine revealed in 2016 argued she spent a 3rd of her time in bushes, the place she nested, and had extremely developed higher limbs.
One other examine that yr theorised that she died after falling from a tree.
A 2022 examine in Nature, targeted on Lucy’s pelvis, concluded that new child members of Australopithecus had a really immature mind, like human newborns right this moment, and required parental assist to outlive.
“There are a lot of unanswered questions,” mentioned Melaku with a smile. “Especially, we don’t know much more about the early livelihoods of these early human ancestors.”
The museum receives frequent requests to check it, however the iconic skeleton not leaves Ethiopia.
Wider scientific progress and superior gear are opening up new avenues for analysis.
“The studies that can be carried out on her, on her peers, pose the scientific questions of tomorrow,” mentioned Boisserie.
“Material as exceptional as this plays a driving role in the evolution of research.”
