Lucy is a 3.2 million year old skeleton – part skeleton – of a
three-foot-tall woman. Paleoanthropologist Donald C Johanson unearthed the
bones in 1974 in Ethiopia. Scientists dated her, named her species Australopithecus afarensis (meaning ‘southern
ape from Afar – a region in Ethiopia), and called her Lucy. She is kept in the
National Museum of Ethiopia.
But the scientists didn’t know how she died. The mystery of Lucy’s death
may now have an answer (International New York Times, 29 August 2016).
Forty years after her discovery, scientists decided to scan every one of
the bones that make up her part-skeleton. That was done in 2007 by scientists
from the University of Texas (led by John Kappelman), where Lucy stayed for 10
days while she was on tour in the United Sates. After the bones were scanned,
the scientists turned the scans into three-dimensional models. The study of the
bones – and the likely cause of her death – was published on 28 August 2016 in
Nature.
Kappelman found a fracture – a broken bone – in Lucy’s upper right arm in
December 2015. Orthopedic surgeon Dr Sephen Pearce of the Austin Bone and Joint
Clinic also looked at the fracture. It was determined that the break was a
compressive fracture – likely caused from a fall from a great height (possibly
a tree) by other orthopedic surgeons too.
Kappelman went to Ethiopia to study the real bones of Lucy. He found a
number of broken bones that may have occurred before Lucy died (to her jaw and
her ankle), and green-stick fractures (in which the bone cracks only on one
side). Both compressive and green-stick fractures could occur from a fall from
a great height.
Scientists think Lucy fell, landed feet-first, and tumbled forward, holding
her arms out to protect her fall. The fall injured her rib cage, which resulted
in internal injuries, and death.
Kappelman and others think Lucy fell from a tree because geologists think
the terrain was a low-lying wooded area at the time when Lucy was alive. He
thinks she fell from a nest – like apes build in trees.
A scientist, not involved in the study, describes the hypothesis as
‘provocative but plausible’ but other scientists are not so sure – they think
there is not enough evidence to explain Lucy’s fractures. Even Donald C
Johanson, the paleoanthropologist who found Lucy, is not so sure. He thinks
Lucy got the broken bones a long time after she died – maybe animals trappled
on her.
Johanson does not think Lucy was a tree-dweller. Her flat feet indicate
that she walked upright – she was a terrestial person.
Other scientists have looked at Lucy’s hands and think that she was a
tree-climber. And she had flexible shoulders, indicating a life in the trees.
She may have spent part of her time walking on the ground and part of her time
climbing trees. She may have been climbing a tree to look for food and fallen.
Dr. Kappelman whill post the bone data online so that everyone can study
the information and come up with their own theories of how Lucy died.
For now Lucy’s death is still a mystery.
MARTINA NICOLLS is an international
aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of
Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet
(2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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