Australopithecus afarensis
336336Australopithecus afarensis (Australopithecus afarensis Johanson & White & Coppens, 1978)
Order: Primates
Suborder: Haplorhini
Family: Hominidae
Dimensions: height - 100-150 сm, weight - 30-60 kg
Temporal range: Late Pliocene, approximately 3.9 to 2.9 million years ago (East Africa)
Australopithecus afarensis walked like a human but still climbed like an ape. Living in East Africa between about 3.9 and 2.9 million years ago, these early hominins combined a small, ape-sized brain with an upright posture, human-like pelvis and legs, but retained long arms and curved fingers useful for climbing trees. One of the most remarkable traces of their lives is preserved at Laetoli in Tanzania, where a trail of footprints about 3.6 million years old records early hominins walking upright through wet volcanic ash. The discovery helped overturn the old idea that a large brain came first in human evolution: our ancestors were already walking on two legs millions of years before the dramatic expansion of the human brain.
The most famous member of the species is Lucy, a 3.2-million-year-old female whose partial skeleton was discovered at Hadar, Ethiopia, in 1974. She received her nickname because the Beatles’ Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was played repeatedly as the research team celebrated their discovery; in Ethiopia she is also known as Dinknesh, meaning «you are marvelous». Lucy stood only about 1.1 metres tall, yet her skeleton became one of the great icons of human evolution. Another remarkable individual, the 3.3-million-year-old child Selam, revealed that A. afarensis children could walk upright while retaining powerful adaptations for climbing. Lucy has since become far more than a scientific specimen, appearing in books, documentaries, museums and popular culture around the world. The irony is that one of the most famous figures in the human story was neither human nor ape in the modern sense, but a remarkable evolutionary mosaic - walking on two legs on the ground while still perfectly at home in the trees.
Australopithecus afarensis (Australopithecus afarensis Johanson & White & Coppens, 1978)
Order: Primates
Suborder: Haplorhini
Family: Hominidae
Dimensions: height - 100-150 сm, weight - 30-60 kg
Temporal range: Late Pliocene, approximately 3.9 to 2.9 million years ago (East Africa)
Australopithecus afarensis walked like a human but still climbed like an ape. Living in East Africa between about 3.9 and 2.9 million years ago, these early hominins combined a small, ape-sized brain with an upright posture, human-like pelvis and legs, but retained long arms and curved fingers useful for climbing trees. One of the most remarkable traces of their lives is preserved at Laetoli in Tanzania, where a trail of footprints about 3.6 million years old records early hominins walking upright through wet volcanic ash. The discovery helped overturn the old idea that a large brain came first in human evolution: our ancestors were already walking on two legs millions of years before the dramatic expansion of the human brain.
The most famous member of the species is Lucy, a 3.2-million-year-old female whose partial skeleton was discovered at Hadar, Ethiopia, in 1974. She received her nickname because the Beatles’ Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was played repeatedly as the research team celebrated their discovery; in Ethiopia she is also known as Dinknesh, meaning «you are marvelous». Lucy stood only about 1.1 metres tall, yet her skeleton became one of the great icons of human evolution. Another remarkable individual, the 3.3-million-year-old child Selam, revealed that A. afarensis children could walk upright while retaining powerful adaptations for climbing. Lucy has since become far more than a scientific specimen, appearing in books, documentaries, museums and popular culture around the world. The irony is that one of the most famous figures in the human story was neither human nor ape in the modern sense, but a remarkable evolutionary mosaic - walking on two legs on the ground while still perfectly at home in the trees.
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