LUCY A REAL SWINGER reported ScienceDaily 25
October 2012 and Science, 2012; 338 (6106): 514 DOI:
10.1126/science.1227123. David Green of Midwestern University and Zeresenay
Alemseged, Curator of Anthropology at the California Academy of Sciences, have
made a detailed study of shoulder blades from a juvenile skeleton of
Australopithecus afarensis found in Dikika, Ethiopia. The most famous
member of this species is “Lucy”. The scientists compared the shoulder blades
with those of humans and a number of different ape species, including
chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans. The key features studied were the
orientation of the socket in the ball and socket joint (the glenoid fossa) and a
ridge on the back of the bone named the spine of the scapula. In humans the
socket faces almost straight to the side, and the spine is almost horizontal. In
apes the fossa faces upwards and the spine slopes sharply upwards. These
features in apes help orientate the arm upwards for tree climbing. The A.
afarensis shoulder blades with their upward facing glenoid fossae and spines
strongly resembled ape bones. David Green commented: “The question as to whether
Australopithecus afarensis was strictly bipedal or if they also climbed
trees has been intensely debated for more than thirty years. These remarkable
fossils provide strong evidence that these individuals were still climbing at
this stage in human evolution”.
Link: ScienceDaily
ED. COM. This finding adds to evidence that Lucy and other
Australopithecines were simply tree climbing apes, just like chimps and
orangutans. Australopithecines also had wrist bones which indicate they were
knuckle walkers when they were on the ground like living chimps and gorillas.
The claim that they walked upright with a bipedal (two legged) gait like humans
was originally based on a fossil knee that was not found with the original Lucy
specimen, an ape-like hip reconstructed by Owen Lovejoy to look human, an
isolated foot bone identical to a human foot bone but not found with any other
bones, and the Laetoli footprints found in a totally different country from
where the Lucy bones were found. Whenever Australopithecines are mentioned in
the media they are commonly described as human ancestors. Since the only real
evidence we have about them is their bones, the case is now strong enough to
state they were nothing more than large tree swinging apes that are now extinct.
(Ref. primates, locomotion, brachiation,
anthropology)
