Lucy, an Australopithecus Afarensis that lived 3 million years ago
50 years have passed since archaeologists discovered Lucy. However, scientists who have studied it say the most famous ancient hominin ever found has given us a misleading picture of the nature of its species.
Precisely 100 years ago, on November 28, 1924, in South Africa, Raymond Dart revealed to the world the skull of “Child of Taung”.
This fossil changed the understanding of human evolution by indicating that the first humans evolved in Africa.
This discovery inaugurated the study of Australopithecuswith Dart pioneering the description of this new species as Australopithecus africanus: The Ape Man of South Africa.
Fifty years later, in 1974, Donald Johanson and his team discovered the remains of another Australopithecus in Ethiopia, which would later be baptized as “Lucy”due to the song “Lucy in the Sky” by the Beatles that was playing that night.
Lucy, with the scientific name of Australopithecus afarensis and commonly described as “two humans bisaved”captured the popular imagination and became a cultural icon.
However, despite the iconic status she has achieved and the skeleton being around 40% complete, Lucy represents a partial view of the species Afarensis.
HAS , Tim Whitefrom the University of California, said that Lucy being exceptionally small could offer a distorted image do Australopithecus afarensis if it were the only fossil found.
The researcher says that the image of a species has always been painted based on this single specimen. The fact is that Lucy is not a A. afarensis typical.
However, a year after Lucy’s discovery, more than 200 bones were found from at least 13 afarensis individuals, forming what is known as the “First Family”.
“This sample of afarensis and the gold standard for all early hominins up to Neanderthals. Because so many individuals are preserved, we have a window into the variation of a species in the past,” he said. Carol Wardfrom the University of Missouri Ward, told New Scientist.
This group, dated to 3.2 million years ago, provides a standard of comparison with other primitive hominids up to Neanderthals, proving that Afarensis they lived in complex social groups.
“If we replayed the tape and only found Lucy, we would have a fundamentally misleading picture of what the afarensis“, disse Tim White.
As the researcher compares, it would be as if aliens kidnapped a human being at random and took the little gymnast from the 70s, Olga Korbutand from there try to calculate our average height.
