Lucy and her Origin Story.
Intelligence? Bipedalism? Before Lucy's discovery, there was considerable debate about whuch trait first distinguished our early human ancestors from our ape relatives. In 1924, the first specimen of Australopithecus was uncovered. It was first studied by anatomist, Raymond Dart. It was the skull of Australopithecus africanus and became known as the Taung Child. The skull suggested a species with a small brain. There was somethingly distinctly human about it though. The foramen magnum was located at the bottom of the skull rather than toward the back of the skull. This provided the first clue that bipedalism evolved first.
Scientists were slow to warm up to the idea of bipedalism evolving before large brains. There were pieces of the puzzle still missing. Lucy put the debate to rest. In 1973, a knee joint was discovered in Ethiopia by paleoanthropologist, Donald Johanson. The knee joint was nearly identical to a modern human and clearly from one of our bipedal ancestors. Johanson and grad student Tom Gray returned to the site the following year and uncovered 40% of a 3.2 million-year-old fossilized skeleton that is now known as Lucy. A new species was named: Australopithecus afarensis. Before Lucy, we didn't know what Australopithecus looked like from the neck down. Lucy gave us the rest of the picture. Her locomotion was strikingly similar to modern humans. She revealed that our human ancestors stood up long before our brain size expanded substantially.
Lucy was infamously named after the Beatles song, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. To this day, she has retained her rockstar status. She remains an icon, invoking a sense of inspiration and awe, even amongst non-scientists of the story of our species. In Ethiopia, Lucy is known as Dinkinesh. This translates to "You are marvelous". In 2021, NASA launched the Lucy Space Mission. Lucy will be exploring Jupiter's trojan asteroids, which will greatly expand our knowledge of our solar system's origins. In 2023, Lucy reached her first destination: An asteroid called Dinkinesh.
Today we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the discovery of Lucy! Lucy was discovered by paleoanthropologist and long-time supporter of NCSE Donald Johanson and Tom Gray. Her discovery transformed our understanding of human origins.
#lucy50 #humanorigins #evolution #celebratescience
