I Love Lucy No More
Scientists studying a fossil skeleton found in Africa and nick-named "Ardi" (for Ardipithecus ramidus) say the 110-pound, 4-foot female predates the better-known Lucy by about 1.2 million years as the oldest known human ancestor.
Paleontologists say Ardi, who was found about 40 miles south of where Lucy was discovered in 1974, lived 4.4 million years ago. She's also about a foot taller than Lucy and twice her weight.
According to an article on Yahoo! anthropologist C. Owen Lovejoy of Kent State University says this older skeleton suggests that chimps and humans actually evolved along separate lines from a common ancestor, which lived between 6 and 7 mars ago in what is now Ethiopia, rather than humans developing out of an ancient chimp-like ancestor, as previously believed.
Scientists have been studying Ardi's skeleton ever since she was discovered in 1994, but 11 research papers are being published in the Oct. 2 edition of the journal Science, outlining 17 years of findings by 47 authors in 10 countries. The papers reveal, according to Yahoo! and The New York Times, that Ardi could climb on all fours along tree branches, but could also walk upright on two legs when on the ground.
"This is one of the most important discoveries for the study of human evolution," David Pilbeam, curator of paleoanthropology at Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology told Yahoo!
In addition to walking upright, Ardi share other characteristics in common with humans, including stubby upper canine teeth like ours, a similar brain positioning and relatively short palms and fingers as compared to those of chimps. Curiously, according to The New York Times, research suggests that Ardi lived in a wooded area, contradicting a long-held belief that bipeds evolved to adapt to grassy plains.
Given the death earlier this week of Lucy O'Donnell Vodden, the inspiration behind John Lennon's "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," I have to ask, is it just me, or has it been a bad week for Lucys?
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
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