Lucy, a 3.2 million-year old fossil skeleton of a human ancestor, was discovered in 1974 in Hadar, Ethiopia. The fossil locality at Hadar where the pieces of Lucy's skeleton were discovered is known to scientists as Afar Locality 288 (A.L.
Lucy, Ethiopia, 3.2 Million Years Ago
Found in Hadar, Ethiopia, Lucy is the oldest and most complete human fossil ever found, making up 40% of a complete human skeleton. She was dated at 3.2 million years old and was a hominid with clear evidence of being bipedal (two-legged).
The oldest ever remains of what appear to be anatomically modern humans were found in Morocco, and are believed to be about 360,000 years old - but it is not a certainty that they actually belong to humans rather than a closely related species.
Scientists today announced the discovery of the oldest fossil skeleton of a human ancestor. 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.
On the biggest steps in early human evolution scientists are in agreement. The first human ancestors appeared between five million and seven million years ago, probably when some apelike creatures in Africa began to walk habitually on two legs. They were flaking crude stone tools by 2.5 million years ago.
10,000 years ago: European males – 162.5cm (5 ft 4 inches). A dramatic reduction in the size of humans occurred at this time. Many scientists think that this reduction was influenced by global climatic change and the adoption of agriculture.
The “real” Lucy is stored in a specially constructed safe in the Paleoanthropology Laboratories of the National Museum of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Because of the rare and fragile nature of many fossils, including hominids, molds are often made of the original fossils.
Her small skull, long arms and conical rib cage are like an ape's, but she has a more human-like spine, pelvis and knee due to walking upright. Johanson thought Lucy was either a small member of the genus Homo or a small australopithecine.
Nicknamed Ardi, the skeleton preserved many parts missing from Lucy (including hands, feet, and skull) and was 1.2 million years older.
Lucy just might be considered one of the world's oldest cold cases. Forty-two years after the discovery, researchers from the University of Texas at Austin now believe that she was found in proximity to where she died, and that she fell from a great height to her death.
The exact origin of modern humans has long been a topic of debate. Modern humans originated in Africa within the past 200,000 years and evolved from their most likely recent common ancestor, Homo erectus. Modern humans (Homo sapiens), the species? that we are, means 'wise man' in Latin.
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.
Homo erectus characteristics
H. erectus is the oldest known species to have a human-like body, with relatively elongated legs and shorter arms in comparison to its torso. It had an upright posture.
Ötzi is the oldest man ever found intact. Some Egyptian mummies are older, but their brains and internal organs were removed in the mummification process. Since Ötzi was so well preserved in glacial ice, he has provided scientists and researchers the best specimen to date for a man over 5000 years old.
Homo sapiens, the first modern humans, evolved from their early hominid predecessors between 200,000 and 300,000 years ago. They developed a capacity for language about 50,000 years ago. The first modern humans began moving outside of Africa starting about 70,000-100,000 years ago.
And the earliest known member of the Homo genus is now thought to date to about 2.8 million years ago. This proximity in time, and anatomical features that appear to foreshadow those of early humans, have made Lucy's species the main contender as a direct ancestor of Homo.
On November 24, 1974, fossils of one of the oldest known human ancestors, an Australopithecus afarensis specimen nicknamed “Lucy,” were discovered in Hadar, Ethiopia.
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).
They named her Australopithecus afarensis, or more familiarly Lucy, and some scientists pronounced her the "Mother of Mankind." However, four years ago, anthropologists found a 3.3-3.5 million-year-old lower jaw, fragments and teeth from at least three individuals - just 50 kilometers (30 miles) from where a dig had ...
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.
While out mapping and surveying for fossils among the site's 3.2 million year old sediments, Johanson and Gray discovered a hominin forearm bone—a discovery which would lead to the excavation of several hundred fragments of bone over two weeks, making up 40 percent of a single hominin skeleton.
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.
The creature, probably an old female, stood about 4 feet tall with long legs suitable for bipedal motion when it lived some 3.67 million years ago. Called “Little Foot” because the first bones recovered consisted of a few small foot bones, the remains were discovered in a cave in South Africa in the 1990s.
Probably not. Ethical considerations preclude definitive research on the subject, but it's safe to say that human DNA has become so different from that of other animals that interbreeding would likely be impossible.