Joel Kontinen
How can a skeleton become the daughter of Lucy which was discovered in Ethiopia in 1974. the current view is that it is 120,000 years older at 3.3 million years ago while Lucy is 318,000 years old.
The scientists wanted to take a look at this fossil by taking the only fossil of Australopithecus afarensis that they had.
The scientists wanted to take a look at this fossil by taking the only fossil of Australopithecus afarensis that they had.
Why is Lucy considered to walk upright? It is because the
Laetoli footprints that showed they walked.
While the Laetoli footprints have been dated a mere “400,000 years” or so older than Lucy, there is a huge logical gap between her and the footprints.
So they took” super–high-resolution images of the deformed skull and teeth of an A. afarensis toddler, known as the Dikika child, which Zeresenay Alemseged discovered in Ethiopia in 2000.”
“The team zoomed in on the inside of the skull, where the brain leaves an imprint. They found that a fold in the tissue at the back of the brain, called the lunate sulcus, was in the same position as in a chimp, not a human brain where its position may have had some impact on complex mental function. Other features also showed “the brain imprint of A. afarensis is completely apelike,” says paleoanthropologist Philipp Gunz of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.”
They also found other skulls. “A second skull was of similar age and size; both suggest A. afarensis’s brain grew at about the same rate as a chimp’s, the team reports today in Science Advances. “
Source:
Gibbons, Ann. 2020. Lucy’s baby’ suggests famed human ancestor had a primitive brain. Science 1 April.
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