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Rank: Advanced Member
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 Skeleton of "Lucy" Discovered (1974)"Lucy," a 3.2 million-year-old female hominid of the species Australopithecus afarensis, was discovered by scientists in Ethiopia's Afar Depression. An unprecedented 40% intact, Lucy was the first fossil hominid to really capture public notice. Although she was 3 feet, 8 inches tall and looked somewhat like a chimpanzee, her bipedal knee structure indicates that she walked upright, like a human. What other human skeletal features did she possess? More...
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I know that a skeleton alleged to be an older human ancestor was found recently. A week or so after the initial findings were announced, I heard the tail end of a news report stating that scientists had been mistaken about the new discovery's link to humans. So, is Lucy still the oldest human ancestor or is the newly found skeleton the oldest?
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Rank: Advanced Member
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tHERE HAVE BEEN A FEW OLDER SPECIMINS FOUND SINCE LUCY. I BELIEVE SOME OF THE OLDEST HUMAN REMAINS HAVE BEEN FOUND RIGHT HERE IN AUSTRALIA.
I think therefore I think I am
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Is it just me, or is the fact that someone looked at a haphazard collection of brown, dessicated bones and named it "Lucy" a little creepy? I know it's hard to capture the public's imagination, so there's an effort to make these things more friendly, but giving first names to ancient bones is a bit weird. I like it when they name archeologically important finds after the modern name for the region they are found in, or the circumstances of the discovery. Taung Child or Peking Man. That's the way to name a fossil. Wikipedia has a good list of hominid fossils, BTW, for those interested in the timeline.
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Geeman wrote:Is it just me, or is the fact that someone looked at a haphazard collection of brown, dessicated bones and named it "Lucy" a little creepy? I know it's hard to capture the public's imagination, so there's an effort to make these things more friendly, but giving first names to ancient bones is a bit weird.
I like it when they name archeologically important finds after the modern name for the region they are found in, or the circumstances of the discovery. Taung Child or Peking Man. That's the way to name a fossil. You make an interesting observation, Geeman. Apparently, according to the article, "Lucy" was named after the Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," which had been playing at the camp during the night of the discovery. So at least the naming of the fossil in this case was somewhat organic and not the result of some kind of focus group or something.
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