Lucy
She walked upright — but her brain was still chimp-sized
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Lucy belongs to the species Australopithecus afarensis, and the skeleton is roughly 40 per cent complete — extraordinary for a fossil this old. The pelvis and knees show unambiguous bipedal walking, while the braincase holds around 400 cubic centimetres, the same as a chimpanzee. That settled a long dispute: upright posture came first, the brain afterwards. The footprints at Laetoli in Tanzania, pressed into wet volcanic ash 3.66 million years ago, record three individuals walking side by side — the closest we get to a snapshot of that world.
For children
In 1974 researchers in Ethiopia found the skeleton of a young woman who lived 3.2 million years ago. They called her Lucy. She was only about a metre tall and had a small brain — but she walked upright on two legs, just like you.
Connects to
Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org