Lucy's Discovery
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ScribdTranslationsLucy's Discovery
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ScribdTranslationsDISCOVERY OF LUCY
Lucy , the fossil that rewrote the history of human evolution.
It was on November 24, 1974 when the discovery was made, paleoanthropologist
Donald Johanson discovered in Hadar, northeast of Ethiopia, the set of fossil
remains of an australopithecus that lived 3.2 million years ago. It was a female 1.1
meters tall and it was the first discovery of a humanoid in good condition that
manages to explain the relationship between primates and humans.
Fossil Lucy.
The rescue work recovered 40% of the skeleton and after several studies it was
confirmed that this Australopithecus afarensis was already walking on two lower
limbs. It has arched feet like modern humans, indicating that it was bipedal. The
discovery places it as an ancestor of Homo sapiens and also as an evolutionary
connection with primates.
When the discovery was made, the Beatles' hit Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was
playing on the radio, so paleontologist Donald Johanson thought it would be a
good idea to give a name to the group of bones that, according to early research,
belonged to only one person. He named her Lucy and fame followed with the
nickname. After this discovery, more than 250 fossils of at least 17 individuals have
been found in the same region.
Lucy's peculiarity is that, despite her tiny skull, comparable to that of a
chimpanzee, she could walk on her hindquarters, a key characteristic in the
evolution from ancient hominids to the human we know today. He did it thanks to
the shape of his pelvis.
The finding gave weight to the theory that our evolution was not linear.
At first the discovery was not seen as something important until 1977 when the
magazine Kirtlandia agreed to publish the discovery of the new hominid,
approximately one meter high and dated to an age of 3,200,000 years. Later, six
more specimens of Australopithecus afarensis were found, but none as complete
as Lucy, from which a total of 52 bones were rescued. The remains remain at the
Ethiopian Museum of Natural History in Addis Ababa in a security chamber to
which the public does not have access. However, the Ethiopian Government
decided in 2007 to remove the skeleton from the reservation to take it on a tour of
the United States. For seven years, Lucy traveled to several cities and hundreds of
people were able to observe the pieces of the specimen's skull, ribs, pelvis and
femur.
In 2015, US President Barack Obama visited Ethiopia and was allowed by
authorities to directly observe and touch the skeleton.
On November 24, 2015 , Google celebrates the 41st anniversary of the
discovery of Lucy , the fossil that rewrote the history of human evolution. The
doodle is animated , offering a simulation of a monkey, Lucy and a human
walking in a line.
