3D reconstruction of lower extremity muscles Australopithecus afarensis Fossil AL 288-1, aka “Lucy”.Credit: Ashley Wiseman
One of the most famous fossils in the history of human evolution is known as theLucyIt belonged to an extinct species called Australopithecus afarensis— early relatives of homo sapiens He was one of the first humans to walk upright. However, scientists have long debated the extent of her bipedalism. Now, a 3D digital reconstruction of Lucy’s muscular anatomy, combined with a computer simulation of her, has reconfirmed that she was fully capable of walking fully upright. The results are published in a new paper published in the journal Open Science of the Royal Society.
“Lucy’s ability to walk upright can only be known by reconstructing the pathways and spaces occupied by muscles in her body.” Author Ashley Wiseman says:, an archaeologist at the University of Cambridge. “Currently, we are the only animals that can stretch our knees and stand upright. doing.”
Lucy’s body was found in 1974 in a place called Hadar, Ethiopia. Several paleoarchaeologists, including Donald Johansson, Mary Leakey, and Eve Coppens, began exploring the site for fossil evidence related to the origins of humans. The first interesting discovery he made occurred in November 1971, when Johansson found a fossilized upper shinbone and near it the lower end of the femur. Now known as AL 129-1, his origins date back over 3 million years. I knew this was AL 129-1 from the angle of the knee joint. Human race (now known as) australopithecus afarensiss) can walk upright.
But the really important discovery came on November 24, 1974, when Johansson and expedition member Tom Gray decided to probe the bottom of a small canyon. Johansson found an arm bone fragment, then a skull fragment, and part of a femur. Further searches over the next few weeks uncovered even more bones, including vertebrae, parts of the pelvis, ribs, and jaw fragments, all belonging to the same hominid. It is said that there were hundreds of fossilized bone fragments that made up her 40 percent of the woman’s complete skeleton. It’s “Lucy,” aka AL 288-1, after her 1967 Beatles song, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” which was played loudly and repeatedly on the camp tape recorder. named.
Once all the pieces were assembled, scientists were able to reconstruct Lucy, revealing her to be about 1.1 meters (3 feet 7 inches) tall and weighing about 29 kilograms (64 pounds). Her brain was small like a chimpanzee, but her pelvis and leg bones (including bones) were large. valgus knee) appearance is almost the same as modern humans, Australopithecus afarensis It was fully bipedal, that is, walked upright and upright.
Scientific debate is heating up as to how Lucy died.controversial 2016 paper Other scientists (including Johansson) thought the evidence was thin at best, but careful analysis of her bones revealed how she died—that is, from a very tall tree. Suggested that it would be revealed that he had fallen and died. As we reported at the time, anthropologist John Kappelman of the University of Texas at Austin and his team performed a complete X-ray CT scan of Lucy’s bones, and high-resolution 3D renderings and 3D prints of her skeleton. out can be created.
By comparing the fragmentation of her bones to contemporary x-rays of people who had fallen, they concluded that the fragmentation of the bones in her leg was “green,” meaning that it occurred shortly before she died. Specifically, Lucy’s ankle joints are under extreme pressure expected of a person who has fallen from a great height, presumably from a local tree that nests her 23 meters above the ground. I was. However, skeptics have pointed out that bones often fracture in exactly the same way that Lucy’s bones were broken during the fossilization process, and that animals fossilized at the same time as Lucy had similar fractures. .
