The 1974 discovery of a 3.2-million-year-old skeleton named Lucy revolutionized the understanding of human evolution. Discovered by paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson in Ethiopia, Lucy’s knee bone confirmed she walked upright, regardless of having a small mind. This challenged the earlier perception that mind development and bipedalism developed concurrently. Lucy’s discovery instructed that strolling upright preceded the evolution of bigger brains, prompting a shift away from the oversimplified “March of Progress” mannequin. Scientists now view human evolution as a posh course of, resembling a “bushy tree” or “braided river” with a number of human species coexisting, evolving, and typically interbreeding. Lucy’s classification as Australopithecus afarensis paved the best way for a deeper exploration of humanity’s origins, highlighting the continuing seek for lacking evolutionary hyperlinks and a fuller understanding of our lineage.
SOURCE: DW