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Last week, ASU’s Institute of Human Origins celebrated the 50th anniversary of Lucy, the most complete preserved fossil skeleton of one of humanity’s earliest ancestors, through multiple events.
Discovered in 1974 by Tom Gray and Donald Johansson, founding directors of the Institute of Human Origins, Lucy was the most complete fossil of her species. Australopithecus afarensis. Her discovery has sparked new questions about how early humans moved, ate and evolved, especially about the evidence that they walked on two legs.
Johansson, now 80, recalled the details of discovering Lucy in Hadar, Ethiopia, at a lecture held April 4 at the Mesa Center for the Arts.
“If I had looked to the left, I would have missed the first skeleton fragment,” Johansson said. “Fortunately, I looked to my right and recognized part of a small arm bone. That changed my life and changed the trajectory of many studies in paleoanthropology.”
Lucy quickly became a celebrity among scientists and non-scientists alike, and was recently featured on the cover of this year’s magazine. science problem. NASA named her space probe after her. According to Johansson, Lucy is also a cultural sensation in the country where she was discovered.
“In Addis Ababa, there is Lucy’s Bakery, there is Lucy’s Insurance Company, there is Lucy’s Taxi Service, (and) the national women’s soccer team is called Lucy,” he said. “In Ethiopia she is also known as Lucy and Dinkinesh as this extraordinary fossil, which for many is the best-known fossil discovery in the human family tree.”
The appearance of this 3.2-million-year-old skeleton has attracted the attention of anthropology, spurring further discoveries. On April 6, experts from around the world gathered at the Rob and Melani Walton Center for Planetary Health for an IHO-sponsored symposium commemorating Lucy’s impact on the field.
Ian Tattersall, curator emeritus at the American Museum of Natural History, said Lucy was a turning point in paleoanthropology, rejecting previous oversimplified theories that human evolution progressed in a linear manner. did.
“Once Lucy came on the scene and demanded to be part of the bigger picture, everything would change,” Tattersall said. “The additional taxonomic space that Lucy created ultimately allowed a more dynamic, and indeed more nuanced, picture of human evolution to develop.”
Zeray Alemseged, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Chicago and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences who joined IHO, explains how Lucy’s discovery led his team to discover the fossilized Dikika Child. talked about. The discovery is also known as “Lucy’s baby,” even though the fossil is 100,000 years older than Lucy.
“She sets the standard for subsequent discoveries,” Alemseged said. “So it’s bigger than Lucy, smaller than Lucy, etc. She was a great inspiration for further fieldwork. Thanks to Lucy’s discovery, I was inspired in many ways.”
Alemseged showed a photo of her presenting pieces of Lucy to former President Barack Obama and Pope Francis, and explained how she is also an “inspiration for institutional development.”
Carol Ward, a curatorial professor at the University of Missouri who co-leads the Western Turkana Paleo Project, said technical reconstructions of Lucy’s skeleton show she walked on two legs, but her thorax He said that it still retains some monkey-like features, such as the shape of the monkey.
“This suggests that perhaps even stronger adaptations to climbing are maintained,” Ward said. “(But) she would have basically been able to walk on two legs very effectively and efficiently.”
Ward also pointed out that apes have longer digestive tracts than humans, meaning they can thoroughly process plant nutrients.
“To go from something like Lucy to something like us would have required a reduction in the size of the digestive tract,” Ward says. She said this shows there is a link between changes in physical activity and changes in diet.
“Lucy not only taught us things about these early ancestors, but also taught us new ways of thinking about the evolution of early humans,” Ward said. “In science, to get the right answers you have to ask the right questions. Lucy has given us new questions, and they continue to be improved. Some can be answered better. , some are still under discussion.”
Jessica Thompson, an IHO alumnus who works at Yale University, said studying Lucy’s cranial abilities could help us better understand the diet of early humans.
“Lucy had a diet that was completely different from the behavior of other creatures,” Thompson said. “What puts the spotlight on Lucy is that she can do anything. No matter what Lucy and her companions are doing, they can always get more power and reduce the amount of calories she burns. We were able to reduce it.”
Thompson noted that this benefit may have been due to the use of “smart” tools.
Tracy Kibel, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, said the fossilized finger bones revealed what Lucy was able to accomplish with her hands.
“There is no question, at least in my mind, that Lucy is a very capable tool user and tool creator,” Kivell said. This shows that various early human ancestors “had enough dexterity to use tools” but still regularly used their hands to get around, she said. Ta.
“(Lucy’s) discovery has sparked new research into what distinguishes human hands,” Kibel said.
This symposium will present ideas that were only possible after Lucy’s discovery in 1974, and ask new questions to help people understand where they came from and how they evolved to what they are today. has been formulated.
“Hopefully we can have a better understanding of where we come from,” Johansson said. “I think it’s interesting that the revolution in genetics is showing us that we all have within us primordial genes that first evolved in Africa, and that we’re all united by our past.”
Edited by River Graziano, Walker Smith, and Grace Coppersite.
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