Most girls are told they're just "skin and bones." This line may be a compliment, an offensive comment, or an easy way of suggesting someone needs to eat more. I am not most girls though, I am just bones. My bones define me, though. They say so much about who I am and my way of life. Keep reading for a deep dive into what exactly my bones say.
Quick intro
While I want to lie and say I am in the prime of my youth, I did promise honesty. I am a young adult just under 3.18 millions years old. While I cannot be dated to an exact age, the Argon-Argon dating technique has dated the volcanic flows and ashes to this time period. This is also not shocking, considering my species lived from about 3.85-2.95 million years ago.
Hadar in Ethiopia is where I call home. It is where my bones were found and pictured on a map below. My name originates from the song "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds." This well known song was played on repeat at the dig site where my beloved bones were found. No one know who specifically gave me this name, but it stuck. While my name is iconic in the eyes of Beatles fans, it has also taken a special meaning in the anthropology community.
Now I live out my days in the Paleoanthropology Laboratories of the National Museum of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. However, casts and molds of my skeleton are being used all around the world for teaching, research, and display.
"Lived: 3.7 million to three million years ago
[My Home]: East Africa
[Physical Characterstics]: a projecting face, an upright stance and a mixture of ape-like and human-like body features
Brain size: about 385-550cm3
Height: about 1-1.7m (females were much shorter than males)
Weight: about 25-64kg (females were significantly smaller than males)
[Favorite Foods]: plants including grasses, fruits and leaves
Species named in: 1978, four years after the discovery of Lucy
Name meaning: 'southern ape from Afar' (Afar is a region of Ethiopia)"
What makes me Unique
Bipedalism!
Bipedalism itself may be an exaggeration. My ability walk upright does not make me special or unique. In reality, the genus Australopithecus is known for their capability to walk upright, in addition to our small brains and bodies. However, my skeleton was the first to become well known to the public, in addition to anthropologists. This is partly due to the fact that my skeleton is around 40% complete, and consists of 47 out of 207 bones. Furthermore, at the time, my skeleton was the oldest hominin skeleton and evidence that bipedalism evolved before large modern sized brains evolved.
I don't blame you if you have questions or skepticism. People often ask how anthropologists know I walked upright. But like I said, my bones tell an important story. My distal femur shows many traits that are specific to bipedalism. The shaft is angled relative to the knee joint surfaces, indicating that I could transfer wait to only one leg at a time. There is also a patellar lip to keep my knee cap from dislocation at this angle. My pelvis also points toward bipedalism, as it can support the weight of an upright torso.
While bipedalism might not be special or unique to me, my skeleton was so important to the world of paleoanthropology. I am so proud to be a part of something important and glad I could provide more insight into our ancient world.
My Origins
As I said, I am not the only hominin to walk. I am just a piece of evidence in a long line of evolution. There were many who came before me, and many who will come after me.
I am (and you if you are reading this, you are too) a primate. Understanding the evolution of primates and classifications can be tricky if you have never learned about it. While the term primate classifies an order, there are also suborders, superfamilies, infraorders, parvorders, and families. Each primate is classified in a very specific and unique way. I think the best way to explain this is through the visual on the top left. Within this primate phylogenic tree, I fall within the superfamily of Hominoidea. Chimpanzees and bonobos, gibbons, gorillas, orangutans, and humans are all hominoidea. We are classified by our broad noses and palate, our lack of tales, our scrapulae on the back of our rib cage, and broad chests.
Furthermore, my specific species is Australopithecus afarensis. Modern humans like you are classified as Homo sapiens. So you may be wondering why we differ and when that differentiation occurred. As you can see in the image below, there are millions of years of evolution that separate us. Different adaptations led to the evolution of my species from early hominins, and even more led to the evolution of modern day humans. While there are millions of years that separate us, there are many things that connect us. Scientists have done so much to uncover the story of evolution, and my bones are just one piece of the puzzle.
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