The extinct 3.2-million-year-old human ancestor species that Lucy belonged to could have had the capacity to straighten up its knees, stretch its hips, and stand straight like humans today.
Human Ancestor 'Lucy'
Lucy's remains were first found in 1974 in Ethiopia, per CNN World. The unique fossil represented 40% of the skeleton belonging to the species. The remains were then dubbed "Lucy," after the famous song by the Beatles.
These remains are considered the best-preserved ones of the Australopithecus afarensis species that have ever been found. Bones show that Lucy was around 1 meter tall and weighed roughly 29 to 93 pounds.
Now, the skeletal remains are being used by scientists to learn more about this ancient human ancestor's movement. The scientists had their findings included in the Royal Society Open Science publication.
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Lucy Could Have Walked Like a Human
Live Science reports that these findings were revealed through 3D muscle modeling. Such findings support the growing consensus that this creature had an erect walk rather than a crouching and chimpanzee-like waddle.
The reconstruction of the hominin's leg and pelvis muscles also posits that the creature could have climbed trees. This further means that 3 to 4 million years ago Lucy could have thrived in grasslands and forested areas across East Africa.
Dr. Ashleigh Wiseman, a research associate from the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research of the University of Cambridge, explains that the muscles of Lucy posit that she may have been bipedal like humans and that she may have even dwelled in the trees.
Though soft tissues could not be found on the fossil record, researchers could still figure out how the muscles of these extinct species could have looked by having modern humans serve as analogs. The muscle attachments and bone structure of humans could shed light on the muscle layering over the skeleton of Lucy.
Dr. Wiseman made use of a digital modeling approach to reconstruct 36 muscles in each leg of Lucy. The reconstruction reveals that Lucy could have straightened her knees and stretched her hips like modern humans. This further suggests that the species could have had the capacity to stand and move around uprightly.
The reconstruction also sheds light on the proportions of muscle and fat in Luicy's legs. These legs could have been more muscular than humans' and could have been similar to a bonobo's.
The knees also exhibited a more vast motion range compared to humans. Such findings, mixed with Lucy's muscle mass, posit that the creature could have been capable of utilizing various habitats and that Lucy could have had unique locomotion that cannot be observed in other modern animals.
Though the remains were incomplete and the frequency of adopting such an upright posture remains a mystery, the findings still support the consensus regarding Lucy's physical capacities.
Fred Spoor, a researcher and professor from the UK's Natural History Museum, explains that, though the study is not a game changer, the reconstruction of muscles is an exciting and new way to assess bipedalism. Dr. Wiseman also notes that by using similar methods on ancestral humans, they could discover the physical movement spectrum that pushed the evolution of humans.
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