{"id":117479,"date":"2024-10-23T15:19:51","date_gmt":"2024-10-23T08:19:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=117479"},"modified":"2024-10-23T15:19:51","modified_gmt":"2024-10-23T08:19:51","slug":"how-one-extraordinary-fossil-altered-our-view-of-evolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=117479","title":{"rendered":"How One Extraordinary Fossil Altered Our View of Evolution"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"fluid\"\r\n     data-ad-layout-key=\"-fb+5w+4e-db+86\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"7910942971\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<figure class=\"player-wrapper player-wrapper-lg\"\/>\n<p class=\"inline-text\" id=\"inline-text-0\">Donald Johanson really had no business going bone hunting that Sunday. There were letters to write and fossils to catalog\u2014heaps of paperwork left undone while fellow paleoanthropologists were visiting his camp in Ethiopia\u2019s Afar region.<\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-text\" id=\"inline-text-1\">But graduate student Tom Gray was headed out to map the fossil site, Hadar, and he needed a guide to Locality 162. So Johanson ignored his better judgment in favor of what he later <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/lucyslegacyquest0000joha\/page\/4\/mode\/2up?q=%22gut+sense%22\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">called<\/a> a \u201cgut sense\u201d and set off with Gray and company in a Land Rover.<\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-text\" id=\"inline-text-2\">A good two hours into the search, that gut sense had only netted them a handful of animal fossil fragments, and the late-morning temperature had already topped 100\u00b0F. They made one last sweep of a peripheral gully\u2014nothing doing\u2014and decided to call it a day.<\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-text\" id=\"inline-text-3\">Then, \u201cas we turned to leave,\u201d Johanson <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/lucybeginningsof00joha\/page\/16\/mode\/2up\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">recalled<\/a>, \u201cI noticed something lying on the ground partway up the slope.\u201d It was 2-inch-long bone shard that he immediately recognized as \u201cpart of an elbow.\u201d And it wasn\u2019t alone: A closer scan turned up bits of a skull, a femur, a pelvis, and more.<\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-text\" id=\"inline-text-4\">\u201cAn unbelievable, impermissible thought flickered through my mind,\u201d Johanson wrote. \u201cSuppose all these fitted together? Could they be parts of a single, extremely primitive skeleton? No such skeleton had ever been found\u2014anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-text\" id=\"inline-text-5\">The camp buzzed with the thrill of a big break long before Johanson could answer that question. That night, November 24, 1974, nobody slept, beer flowed as freely as conversation, and a tape recorder blared the Beatles\u2019 \u201cLucy in the Sky With Diamonds\u201d on repeat. By morning, the skeleton that would forever alter our understanding of human evolution had a name: Lucy.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"inline-text\" id=\"inline-text-6\">Walk Tall<\/h2>\n<p class=\"inline-text\" id=\"inline-text-7\">Hadar, located in the Afar region\u2019s Awash River valley, is a dry expanse of eroded sedimentary deposits <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/lucybeginningsof00joha\/page\/128\/mode\/2up?q=hadar\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">formed<\/a> in part by prehistoric rivers and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/Hadar-anthropological-and-archaeological-site-Ethiopia\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">volcanic eruptions<\/a>. Thanks to its geological backstory, it\u2019s a fossil gold mine. French geologist <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/lucybeginningsof00joha\/page\/130\/mode\/2up?q=%22taieb+had+been+out+there%22\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Maurice Taieb<\/a> put Johanson on to the site\u2019s paleoanthropological potential when Johanson was still a Ph.D. student in the early 1970s, and the two teamed up for their inaugural expedition during the <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/lucybeginningsof00joha\/page\/150\/mode\/2up?q=%22fall+of+1973%22\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">fall of 1973<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><mm-embeds-youtube data-embedhtml=\"&lt;iframe width=&quot;480&quot; height=&quot;270&quot; src=&quot;https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/cQIyfgqTQ-U?feature=oembed&quot; frameborder=&quot;0&quot; allowfullscreen=&quot;&quot; title=&quot;Palaeoanthropological Fieldwork in Hadar, Ethiopia (1974)&quot;&gt;&lt;\/iframe&gt;\"><\/p>\n<figure class=\"youtube-embed\"\/><\/mm-embeds-youtube><\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-text\" id=\"inline-text-9\">Johanson hoped to find evidence of early species in a category now commonly known as <a href=\"https:\/\/australian.museum\/learn\/science\/human-evolution\/hominid-and-hominin-whats-the-difference\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">hominins<\/a>, which includes all human species and their immediate ancestors. Hominins (Hominini) are a tribe (i.e. a subgroup) of the hominid family (Hominidae), which also features chimpanzees, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mentalfloss.com\/posts\/chimpanzees-vs-bonobos\">bonobos<\/a>, gorillas, and orangutans, as well as <em>their<\/em> immediate ancestors. Modern humans are <em>Homo sapiens<\/em>, the only hominin species that exists today, and how exactly we evolved as we are is buried deep within the fossil record.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-text\" id=\"inline-text-10\">One characteristic that makes humans unique among extant mammals is that we\u2019re exclusively bipedal\u2014most of us (as adults, anyway) always walk on two feet. In the mid-20th century, the leading theory (a version of which Charles Darwin had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/science-nature\/becoming-human-the-evolution-of-walking-upright-13837658\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">laid out<\/a> in 1871\u2019s <em>The Descent of Man<\/em>) <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/lucybeginningsof00joha\/page\/180\/mode\/2up?q=%22came+before+bipedality%22\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">posited<\/a> that hominins evolved this way after their brains got larger and they started using tools. To put it very simply, walking upright leaves your hands free to hold things.<\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-text\" id=\"inline-text-11\">But during his first field season in Hadar, Johanson <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/lucybeginningsof00joha\/page\/154\/mode\/2up?q=%22what+looked+like+a+hippo+rib%22\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">unearthed<\/a> fossils that could complicate this timeline: part of a tibia and two femur pieces that formed a knee joint at an angle, much like a modern-day human\u2019s. Its age was <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/lucybeginningsof00joha\/page\/162\/mode\/2up?q=%22scarcely+more+than+three+feet%22\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ballparked<\/a> at 3 million years, and its size suggested that the being it belonged to stood only a few feet tall. This could mean hominins were bipedal before big brains entered the picture.<\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-text\" id=\"inline-text-12\">All walking aside, what kind of hominin was this? An early <em>Homo<\/em> species\u2014or something else?<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"inline-text\" id=\"inline-text-13\">Found Family<\/h2>\n<p class=\"inline-text\" id=\"inline-text-14\">The plot thickened during the team\u2019s next dig at Hadar in 1974, which <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/lucybeginningsof00joha\/page\/172\/mode\/2up?q=%22three+jaws%22\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">produced<\/a> three hominin jaws and then, miraculously, Lucy.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"content-image\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" sizes=\"(min-width: 768px) 775px, 92vw\" srcset=\"https:\/\/images2.minutemediacdn.com\/image\/upload\/w_354\/images\/GettyImages\/mmsport\/mentalfloss\/01j9rn6exzp5e45a5qs1.jpg 354w, https:\/\/images2.minutemediacdn.com\/image\/upload\/w_708\/images\/GettyImages\/mmsport\/mentalfloss\/01j9rn6exzp5e45a5qs1.jpg 708w, https:\/\/images2.minutemediacdn.com\/image\/upload\/w_376\/images\/GettyImages\/mmsport\/mentalfloss\/01j9rn6exzp5e45a5qs1.jpg 376w, https:\/\/images2.minutemediacdn.com\/image\/upload\/w_752\/images\/GettyImages\/mmsport\/mentalfloss\/01j9rn6exzp5e45a5qs1.jpg 752w, https:\/\/images2.minutemediacdn.com\/image\/upload\/w_731\/images\/GettyImages\/mmsport\/mentalfloss\/01j9rn6exzp5e45a5qs1.jpg 731w, https:\/\/images2.minutemediacdn.com\/image\/upload\/w_675\/images\/GettyImages\/mmsport\/mentalfloss\/01j9rn6exzp5e45a5qs1.jpg 675w, https:\/\/images2.minutemediacdn.com\/image\/upload\/w_1350\/images\/GettyImages\/mmsport\/mentalfloss\/01j9rn6exzp5e45a5qs1.jpg 1350w, https:\/\/images2.minutemediacdn.com\/image\/upload\/w_2025\/images\/GettyImages\/mmsport\/mentalfloss\/01j9rn6exzp5e45a5qs1.jpg 2025w\" src=\"https:\/\/images2.minutemediacdn.com\/image\/upload\/w_480\/images\/GettyImages\/mmsport\/mentalfloss\/01j9rn6exzp5e45a5qs1.jpg\" alt=\"Lucy's remains at an exhibition at the Houston Museum of Natural Science in 2007.\" width=\"1922\" height=\"2883\" loading=\"undefined\"\/><figcaption>Lucy&#8217;s remains at an exhibition at the Houston Museum of Natural Science in 2007. \/ Dave Einsel\/GettyImages<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"inline-text\" id=\"inline-text-16\">Lucy was so special because she was so intact: hundreds of bones and parts of bones that <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/lucybeginningsof00joha\/page\/18\/mode\/2up?q=%22forty+percent%22\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">made up<\/a> some 40 percent of a skeleton. Her large pelvic opening <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/lucybeginningsof00joha\/page\/18\/mode\/2up?q=%22pelvis%22\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">identified<\/a> her as female, and the shape of her pelvis and legs confirmed that she walked upright. She was about 3.5 feet tall and at least 3 million years old (now dated at nearly <a href=\"https:\/\/iho.asu.edu\/about\/lucys-story\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">3.18 million<\/a>), with a small brain and a jaw notably smaller than the others found there. Because of this and other discrepancies between Lucy and those jaws, Johanson <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/lucybeginningsof00joha\/page\/206\/mode\/2up?q=%22i+said+that+lucy+and+the+jaws%22\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">guessed<\/a> that she belonged to one previously unknown species, while the jaws belonged to another.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-text\" id=\"inline-text-17\">But further findings would cause him to change his tune. One was the 1975 discovery of an entire group of hominin skeletons, nicknamed the \u201cFirst Family,\u201d in Locality 333. \u201cFossils seemed to be cascading, almost as from a fountain, down the hillside,\u201d Johanson <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/lucybeginningsof00joha\/page\/212\/mode\/2up?q=%22as+from+a+fountain%22\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">wrote<\/a>. \u201cA near-frenzy seized us as we scrambled madly to pick them up.\u201d Another was the discovery of fossils in Laetoli, Tanzania, by a team led by Mary Leakey not long after that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-text\" id=\"inline-text-18\">Determining the scientific relationship between all these fossils <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/lucybeginningsof00joha\/page\/260\/mode\/2up?q=%22summer+of+1977%22\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">consumed<\/a> Johanson and his collaborator Tim White in the summer of 1977. Though Lucy proved especially baffling due to her small teeth, the paleoanthropologists eventually <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/lucybeginningsof00joha\/page\/268\/mode\/2up?q=%22laetoli%22\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">attributed<\/a> the anomaly to sexual dimorphism: differences in appearance between males and females of one species. At roughly 3.5 feet tall and likely tipping the scales at around 60 pounds, Lucy was the most diminutive adult female in the whole collection, and her teeth showed it. The largest of the bunch <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/lucybeginningsof00joha\/page\/274\/mode\/2up?q=%22weighed+about+sixty+pounds%22\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">measured<\/a> 5 feet tall and could have been as heavy as 150 pounds.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><mm-embeds-youtube data-embedhtml=\"&lt;iframe width=&quot;480&quot; height=&quot;270&quot; src=&quot;https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xT8Np0gI1dI?feature=oembed&quot; frameborder=&quot;0&quot; allowfullscreen=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;\/iframe&gt;\"><\/p>\n<figure class=\"youtube-embed\"\/><\/mm-embeds-youtube><\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-text\" id=\"inline-text-20\">In the end, they concluded that everything from Laetoli and Hadar belonged to a single species that, as Johanson <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/lucybeginningsof00joha\/page\/266\/mode\/2up?q=%22stood+somewhere+between%22\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">explained<\/a>, \u201cstood somewhere between apes and humans and appeared to be neither one nor the other.\u201d Their brains were fairly <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/lucybeginningsof00joha\/page\/274\/mode\/2up?q=%22they+displayed+these+characteristics%22\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">proportional<\/a> to chimps\u2019 brains, their arms hung a little lower than ours, and their faces were apish. But they ambled along more or less like we do. Johanson and White decided to categorize them in the genus <em>Australopithecus<\/em>, established by Raymond Dart after his 1924 discovery of a hominin fossil known as the Taung child\u2014also somewhere between ape and human (though <em>Australopithecus<\/em> loosely <a href=\"https:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/word\/Australopithecus#etymonline_v_18960\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">translates<\/a> to \u201csouthern ape\u201d). For a species name, they settled on <em>afarensis<\/em> as a nod to the Afar region.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"inline-text\" id=\"inline-text-21\">Lucy in the Rearview<\/h2>\n<p class=\"inline-text\" id=\"inline-text-22\">As the oldest and most complete hominin skeleton at the time of her discovery, Lucy became the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mentalfloss.com\/posts\/who-was-original-poster-child\">poster child<\/a> for <em>Australopithecus afarensis<\/em> and the unofficial mother of all humans. But her legacy is much more nuanced than that, especially in light of all the fossils excavated in the decades after hers was.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-text\" id=\"inline-text-23\">For one thing, we now know that <em>A. afarensis<\/em> wasn\u2019t the origin point of bipedalism: Evidence suggests that other hominins\u2014including the 4.4-million-year-old <a href=\"https:\/\/humanorigins.si.edu\/evidence\/human-fossils\/species\/ardipithecus-ramidus\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Ardipithecus ramidus<\/em><\/a>, the 6-million-year-old <a href=\"https:\/\/humanorigins.si.edu\/evidence\/human-fossils\/species\/orrorin-tugenensis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Orrorin tugenensis<\/em><\/a>, and maybe even the 6-to-7-million-year-old <a href=\"https:\/\/humanorigins.si.edu\/evidence\/human-fossils\/species\/sahelanthropus-tchadensis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Sahelanthropus tchadensis<\/em><\/a>\u2014walked upright long before Lucy lived (though they likely did spend time in trees). This reinforces that bipedalism wasn\u2019t a product of brain enlargement, and it may have predated tool use, too: The earliest tools we\u2019ve found so far are only <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/nature14464\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">3.3 million years old<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><mm-embeds-youtube data-embedhtml=\"&lt;iframe width=&quot;480&quot; height=&quot;270&quot; src=&quot;https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/C7ve4LIPG9U?feature=oembed&quot; frameborder=&quot;0&quot; allowfullscreen=&quot;&quot; title=&quot;'Ardi' Fossil Altering Ideas on Human Evolution&quot;&gt;&lt;\/iframe&gt;\"><\/p>\n<figure class=\"youtube-embed\"\/><\/mm-embeds-youtube><\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-text\" id=\"inline-text-25\">Why hominins began walking erect remains a subject of debate. According to one hypothesis, it could have arisen from males\u2019 need to carry food to their childrearing mates. Others believe shrinking forests meant more time traversing grasslands, which was more energy-efficient on two feet than four. Still others think hominins actually <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/why-humans-walk-on-two-legs-a-close-look-at-chimpanzees-puts-some-old-theories-to-the-test-194193\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">became<\/a> bipedal in order to better navigate life in trees.<\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-text\" id=\"inline-text-26\">Another of Lucy\u2019s ambiguities is how she\u2019s related to us. Other hominins that lived around <em>A. afarensis<\/em>\u2019s time have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/content\/article\/was-lucy-mother-us-all-fifty-years-discovery-famed-skeleton-rivals\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">since been uncovered<\/a>, from fellow <em>Australopithecus<\/em> species like <em>A. anamensis<\/em> and <em>A. deyiremeda<\/em> to <a href=\"https:\/\/humanorigins.si.edu\/evidence\/human-fossils\/species\/kenyanthropus-platyops\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Kenyanthropus platyops<\/em><\/a> (though it has been suggested that the solitary fossil found in that last species is just another <em>afarensis<\/em> relic). It\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/scitable\/knowledge\/library\/australopithecus-and-kin-145077614\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">commonly thought<\/a> that <em>Australopithecus<\/em> begot <em>Homo<\/em>, whose earliest fossil to date\u2014part of a jaw <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/science-nature\/oldest-human-fossil-unearthed-ethiopia-180954470\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">found<\/a> in the Afar region in 2013\u2014is between 2.75 and 2.8 million years old. Lucy\u2019s species prevails as a popular possibility for <em>Homo<\/em>\u2019s direct ancestor.<\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-text\" id=\"inline-text-27\">\u201cWe have now found <em>afarensis<\/em> in Tanzania, Chad, Kenya and Ethiopia, and we know Lucy and her kin must have lived in these parts of Africa for close to a million years. That antiquity and extensive geographical spread convince me that it is the most likely candidate to have given rise to the many species of the <em>Homo<\/em> genus and ultimately to our own species, <em>Homo sapiens<\/em>,\u201d paleoanthropologist Zeresenay Alemseged told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/science\/article\/2024\/jun\/30\/fifty-years-on-how-lucy-the-mother-of-humanity-changed-our-understanding-of-evolution\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>The Guardian<\/em><\/a> in June 2024. That said, it\u2019s far from a certainty.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"content-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" sizes=\"(min-width: 768px) 775px, 92vw\" srcset=\"https:\/\/images2.minutemediacdn.com\/image\/upload\/w_354\/images\/voltaxMediaLibrary\/mmsport\/mentalfloss\/01jardrk1f3v7t1tqd8v.png 354w, https:\/\/images2.minutemediacdn.com\/image\/upload\/w_708\/images\/voltaxMediaLibrary\/mmsport\/mentalfloss\/01jardrk1f3v7t1tqd8v.png 708w, https:\/\/images2.minutemediacdn.com\/image\/upload\/w_376\/images\/voltaxMediaLibrary\/mmsport\/mentalfloss\/01jardrk1f3v7t1tqd8v.png 376w, https:\/\/images2.minutemediacdn.com\/image\/upload\/w_752\/images\/voltaxMediaLibrary\/mmsport\/mentalfloss\/01jardrk1f3v7t1tqd8v.png 752w, https:\/\/images2.minutemediacdn.com\/image\/upload\/w_731\/images\/voltaxMediaLibrary\/mmsport\/mentalfloss\/01jardrk1f3v7t1tqd8v.png 731w, https:\/\/images2.minutemediacdn.com\/image\/upload\/w_675\/images\/voltaxMediaLibrary\/mmsport\/mentalfloss\/01jardrk1f3v7t1tqd8v.png 675w, https:\/\/images2.minutemediacdn.com\/image\/upload\/w_1350\/images\/voltaxMediaLibrary\/mmsport\/mentalfloss\/01jardrk1f3v7t1tqd8v.png 1350w, https:\/\/images2.minutemediacdn.com\/image\/upload\/w_2025\/images\/voltaxMediaLibrary\/mmsport\/mentalfloss\/01jardrk1f3v7t1tqd8v.png 2025w\" src=\"https:\/\/images2.minutemediacdn.com\/image\/upload\/w_480\/images\/voltaxMediaLibrary\/mmsport\/mentalfloss\/01jardrk1f3v7t1tqd8v.png\" alt=\"Donald Johanson, founding director of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University, faces specimen AL 822-1, a reconstructed skull of an \u2018Australopithecus afarensis.\u2019\" width=\"1196\" height=\"797\" loading=\"undefined\"\/><figcaption>Donald Johanson, founding director of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University, faces specimen AL 822-1, a reconstructed skull of an \u2018Australopithecus afarensis.\u2019 \/ Julesasu, <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Don.Johanson_storey-image.png\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Wikimedia Commons<\/a> \/\/ Public Domain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"inline-text\" id=\"inline-text-29\">But Lucy\u2019s influence transcends genealogy: She also ignited an unparalleled level of public interest in paleoanthropology. Back in the \u201970s, when Johanson told a Paris customs agent that the \u201cfunny little parcels\u201d in his suitcase were fossils from Ethiopia, the man lit up. \u201cYou mean Lucy?\u201d he said. \u201cA large crowd gathered and watched as Lucy\u2019s bones were displayed, one by one, on the Customs counter,\u201d Johanson <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/lucybeginningsof00joha\/page\/184\/mode\/2up?q=%22you+mean+lucy%22\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">recounted<\/a>. \u201cI got my first inkling of the enormous pull that Lucy would generate from then on.\u201d Naturally, this pull was even stronger within the scientific community.<\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-text\" id=\"inline-text-30\">\u201cOne of the major impacts of Lucy\u2019s discovery was that it encouraged so many scientists to go out and survey and explore for more fossils like Lucy,\u201d paleoanthropologist Yohannes Haile-Selassie <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/beUQegVKFFk?list=PLSD3Gw5UYKwEatG6zSrv3mHdO6AnJ9zqN&amp;t=298\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said<\/a> at a 50th-anniversary symposium earlier this year. Lucy wasn\u2019t the end of our hunt for humankind\u2019s origin\u2014she was just the beginning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-text\" id=\"inline-text-31\"><strong>Read More Exciting Stories About Human Origins:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><mm-embeds-content-enrichment><\/p>\n<figure class=\"content-enrichment-embed\">\n<blockquote class=\"mm-content-embed\" data-type=\"GroupOfLinks\" data-embed-name=\"Human Evolution\" data-url=\"https:\/\/content-enrichment-service.mmsport.voltaxservices.io\/properties\/mentalfloss\/embeds\/01hw5v4rr79ftfe\/data\" data-with-images=\"false\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">manual<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p><\/mm-embeds-content-enrichment><\/p>\n<aside class=\"related-topics\">\n<h2 class=\"topics-title\">Related Tags<\/h2>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"fluid\"\r\n     data-ad-layout-key=\"-fb+5w+4e-db+86\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"7910942971\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><div data-type=\"_mgwidget\" data-widget-id=\"1660802\">\r\n<\/div>\r\n<script>(function(w,q){w[q]=w[q]||[];w[q].push([\"_mgc.load\"])})(window,\"_mgq\");\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mentalfloss.com\/discovery-of-lucy-human-evolution\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Donald Johanson really had no business going bone hunting that Sunday. There were letters to write and fossils to catalog\u2014heaps of paperwork left undone while fellow paleoanthropologists were visiting his &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=117479\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8628],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=117479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117479\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=117479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=117479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=117479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}