How Lucy Lived

Other fossil evidence from the same region sheds some light on the way Lucy and her contemporaries might have lived. The remains of at least thirteen other individuals in Hadar show that Lucy's species was strongly sexually dimorphic, with the males much taller and probably twice as strong as the females. This implies a complex social and mating system.

Leaky discovered these footprints of our ancestors, preserved some 3.6 million years ago

An amazing discovery by Mary Leaky in Laetoli, Tanzania provides additional evidence. She found two sets of fossilized footprints along the banks of an ancient river, one male and the other a smaller female. The footprints, nearly indistinguishable from those of modern humans, show that these early hominids walked upright, with what Leaky described as a "rolling and probably slow-moving gait." The male walked a few steps ahead, likely in a defensive role. The gait of the female and the deeper indentations of the footprints on one side suggest she carried a small child on one hip. Not only does this discovery provide more strong proof of australopithecine bipedalism, it also suggests our ancestors already lived in nuclear family arrangements some 3.6 million years ago.

Ever Since Lucy

While scientists still debate whether A. afarensis was a direct ancestor or just a cousin to humans, other recent finds sketch out a far bushier version of the human family tree than the straightforward linear progression anthropologists once imagined. In 1995, researchers discovered fragments of an even older species, A. ramidus, in Aramis, Ethiopia, just south of Hadar. The chimp-like teeth of this species indicate it might have been ancestral to Lucy's species, A. afarensis. In 1996, a jawbone found in Bahr el Ghazal in central Africa indicates australopithecine species had a much wider geographic distribution than scientists once thought. Scientists categorized this creature as a separate species, called A. bahrelghazar, based on the jawbone's unique morphology. There is not yet enough evidence to determine whether A. ramidus and A. bahrelghazal were bipedal or not, but the search for more fossils continues. How these ancient australopithecines are related to Humans and to one another are hot topics of debate in modern Anthropology.

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