Ultimately, evidence from other parts of Lucy's skeleton, such as her teeth and pelvis, demonstrated that she was, in fact, a hominin (see Kimbel & Delezene, 2009, for a detailed description of Lucy's pelvic anatomy and its locomotor implications).
Johanson suggested taking an alternate route back to the Land Rover, through a nearby gully. Within moments, he spotted a right proximal ulna (forearm bone) and quickly identified it as a hominid.
In 1974, Lucy showed that human ancestors were up and walking around long before the earliest stone tools were made or brains got bigger, and subsequent fossil finds of much earlier bipedal hominids have confirmed that conclusion. Bipedalism, it seems, was the first step towards becoming human.
The fossil is slightly less than 3.18 million years old. None of the bones were duplicates, supporting the conclusion that they came from a single individual. The shape of the pelvic bones revealed the individual was female. Lucy measured just 1.05 metres tall and would have weighed around 28kg.
While her skeleton was only 40 percent complete, it included long bones from her arms (humerus) and legs (femur), a partial shoulder blade and part of her pelvis, which helped scientists determine she was bipedal.
Meyer and his colleagues found that although the majority of bones in Lucy's vertebral column did indeed belong to her, one of them came from a different species entirely. The rogue bone was from an extinct relative of the baboon called Theropithecus darti, the most common monkey around when Lucy was alive.
Move over, Lucy.
The find reveals that our forebears underwent a previously unknown stage of evolution more than a million years before Lucy, the iconic early human ancestor specimen that walked the Earth 3.2 million years ago.
The ancient relative of humanity dubbed "Lucy" may have been one of a harem of gals who mated with a single male, according to research that suggests her species was polygynous.
Known as the Omo I remains, the fossils were found in the Omo Kibish Formation in southwestern Ethiopia, within the East African Rift valley between 1967 and 1974 - a region where humanity is believed to have evolved - and scientists have been attempting to date them ever since.
Lucy, about 3.2 million years old, stood only a meter (3.5 feet) tall. She had powerful arms and long, curved toes that paleontologists think allowed her to climb trees as well as walk upright. organism from whom one is descended. remnant, impression, or trace of an ancient organism.
Before Lucy, it was widely believed that hominins evolved big brains first, and then became bipedal later. Lucy, however, was clearly built for bipedal walking — an extremely rare adaptation for mammals — and yet her skull only had space for a brain about the size of a chimpanzee's.
Unfortunately, with current technology there is no way to detect any DNA on skeletal remains as old as Lucy. Lucy dates back to between 3 and 3.2 million years ago.
The First Humans
One of the earliest known humans is Homo habilis, or “handy man,” who lived about 2.4 million to 1.4 million years ago in Eastern and Southern Africa.
Fossils from Ethiopia suggest that the famous skeleton "Lucy" had cousins living nearby. The famous human relative known as "Lucy" has reigned alone as queen of an important time and place in human evolution: Ethiopia about 3.2 million years ago, roughly the time when the first stone tools appear in East Africa.
Perhaps the world's most famous early human ancestor, the 3.2-million-year-old ape "Lucy" was the first Australopithecus afarensis skeleton ever found, though her remains are only about 40 percent complete (photo of Lucy's bones).
The oldest human remains in Australia were found at Lake Mungo in south-west New South Wales, part of the Willandra Lakes system. This site has been occupied by Aboriginal people from at least 47,000 years ago to the present.
Humans first evolved in Africa, and much of human evolution occurred on that continent. The fossils of early humans who lived between 6 and 2 million years ago come entirely from Africa. Most scientists currently recognize some 15 to 20 different species of early humans.
Researchers Find Evidence Human Beings Are Way Older Than We Thought. A study that reexamined Homo sapiens fossils found our species is 30,000 years older than previously believed.
Before 'Lucy,' there was 'Ardi': Oldest hominid skeleton provides new evidence for human evolution (w/ Video) In a special issue of Science, an international team of scientists has for the first time thoroughly described Ardipithecus ramidus, a hominid species that lived 4.4 million years ago in what is now Ethiopia.
Lucy probably ate a mix of foods, including ripe fruits, nuts, and tubers from both the forest and savanna. Incisor teeth are typically used to prepare the food for mastication (think about biting off a piece of an apple), and molar teeth are used to masticate, or chew, the food into a small pulp that can be swallowed.
Häusler & Schmid (1995) challenged the long held opinion that AL 288-1 (Australopithecus afarensis), popularly known as "Lucy", was female. They concluded that AL 288-1 was most probably male ("Lucifer") and, by extension, the hypodigm for A.
The body height of Australopithecus afarensis A.L. 288-1 ("Lucy") has recently been estimated and calculated as between 1 m to 1.06 m; other estimates give ca. 1.20 m. In addition, it is often stated that her relative leg length was shorter than that of modern humans.
New analysis suggests that Lucy—one of the most complete hominin fossils ever found—met a tragic end three million years ago. Lucy, our renowned hominin relative, died some 3.18 million years ago after plummeting from a tree, according to researchers from the University of Texas at Austin.
Lucy, a 3.2 million-year old fossil skeleton of a human ancestor, was discovered in 1974 in Hadar, Ethiopia.
Lucy was small, about 3½ feet tall and 60 pounds. Analysis of her skeleton and teeth shows she had reached maturity, but not unlike chimpanzees, her species matured young. Kappelman estimates she was 15 or 16 years old.