Lucy (paleoanthropology)

Lucy is the nickname of the complete fossil with 40 % of the species Australopithecus afarensis discovered in Ethiopia in 1974 by an international research team. Going back to approximately 3,2 million years and equipped with a biped locomotion partly , Lucy was regarded a long time as representing of one species at the origin of the human line before being isolated direct ancestors of the kind Homo .

Discovered

Lucy was discovered the November 30th 1974 with Hadar on the river banks Awash within the framework of the International Afar Research Expedition , a project gathering about thirty American, French and Ethiopian researchers Co-directed by Donald Johansson (paleoanthropology), Maurice Taieb (geology) and Yves Coppens (paleontology). The first fragment of the fossil was located by Tom Gray, one of the students of Donald Johansson.

Lucy was described first once in 1976 but its fastening with the species Australopithecus afarensis was proposed only in 1978.

Indexed under code Al 288-1, Lucy was called thus by its inventive S in reference to the song of the Beatles Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds . It is sometimes also called Birkinesh , Dinkenesh or Dinqnesh , which means " you are merveilleuse" in Amharique.

Lucy is preserved at the national Museum of Ethiopia with Addis-Abeba and a counterpart is exposed there.

Main features

The discovery of Lucy was very important for the study of the Australopithecus: it is about the first relatively complete fossil which was discovered for one so old period. Lucy indeed counts the fragments of 52 bones including one mandible, of the elements of the Crâne but especially of the post-cranial elements of which part of the basin and femur.

These last elements proved extremely important to reconstitute the locomotion of the species Australopithecus afarensis . If Lucy were incontestably suited to the biped locomotion , as indicate it its wearing of head, the curve of its spinal column, the form of its basin and its femur, it was to be still partially arboricolous: for proof, its upper limbs were a little longer than its lower extremities, its phalanges were punts and curved and the articulation of its knee offered a great amplitude of rotation. Its bipédie is thus not exclusive and its body structure was qualified of “bilocomotrice” since it combines two types of locomotion: a form of bipédie and an aptitude for climbing.

Lucy is probably a female subject if one judges some by his small stature and the characteristics of sound sacrum and of its basin. It was to measure between 1,10 m and 1,20 m, and to weigh to the maximum 25 kg. She died in approximately 20 years and the fact that its bones were not dispersed by a vulture indicates a fast hiding, perhaps following a drowning.

Since 1974, other fossils of older primates were discovered but little are also complete.

Phylogenetic position

Discovered in grounds gone back to 3,18 million years, Lucy was regarded a long time as representing of one species at the origin of the human line. More recent discoveries called into question this assumption: Lucy would be a cousin moved away, rather than an ancestor of the kind Homo .

Lucy belongs to the order of the Primate S, the family of the Hominidé S and with the kind Australopithecus . More precisely, it is about a Australopithecus afarensis , or Australopithecus of the Afar.

For Yves Coppens, starting from the large crossroads of there are 8 to 10 million years which will lead to the separation of the lines of the large monkeys and the men, opens out “a true bouquet of pre human whose Lucy is one of the flowers”.

Random links: