Australopithecus afarensis (3.7 - 2.9 million years ago)
- Small brain, slightly bigger than an ape's (cranial capacity 400-500 cl)
- Walks on two feet
- Ate mainly plants and fruit
- No tools have been found
Australo = southern
afarensis = from the Afar region
In 1979, during an expedition in Tanzania, Mary Leakey found over 69 footprints made by two people walking side by side. More than 3.5 million years ago. It was clear that the footprints couldn’t have been made by apes because whatever made them had been walking on two feet. Walking! So man could walk as long ago as that. In 1984, working in Ethiopia, Donald Johanson found a skeleton that was over three million years old. That evening, his team were listening to the Beatles’ song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and someone said, 'Let’s call her Lucy'. And so it was that Lucy became a worldwide celebrity after lying in the ground for over three million years. She was a member of the same species that had made the footprints in Tanzania. An ape that could walk and was only just starting to be human.