Why did we choose to begin our story with afarensis?
Our story begins around 3.5 million years ago in Ethiopia. As one of the first species of upright walking bipedal apes, we featured Australopithecus afarensis in our opening story because this is certainly the best-documented early hominid. (‘Hominid’ is the name we give to the upright walking ape-like ancestors of humans.) The female afarensis known by scientists as Lucy (find AL288-1) has now become a celebrity fossil. It contains 47 out of 206 bones in a full skeleton, which might not sound that impressive, but in the world of palaeoanthropology it is outstanding. We can deduce a fair amount about the group make-up of afarensis from a famous fossil discovery AL333, known as The First Family. Found by Michael Bush in 1975, this discovery comprises the remains of at least 13 individuals that were buried in a catastrophic event, possibly a flood. The group appears to have been related to each other. This collection provides unique insights into the structure and biology of this species
