WAS "LUCY" AN APE-MAN?
by John D. Morris, Ph.D.

"Lucy," consisting of a skeleton forty percent complete, was 
discovered in Ethiopia by Donald Johanson in 1974, and was dated at 
3.2 million years of age. He calculated her to have stood about 3'6" 
tall, and to have weighed about 50 pounds. Certain features suggested 
to Johanson that it may have walked erect, and was therefore evolving 
into a human. In a recent interview, Johanson recollects, "I happened 
to glance over my right shoulder. . .and there on the surface of the 
ground was a little bit of an elbow, I recognized it immediately as 
belonging to a human ancestor."

Lest one get the impression that Johanson is blessed with an unusual 
gift of discernment, let me point out that many in the anthropological 
community have yet to be so convinced. Indeed, it is impossible to 
make snap judgments like this, while a number of sophisticated studies 
have shown that the australopithecines, in general, and "Lucy," in 
particular, were not ape-human intermediates, but rather, an extinct 
species of ape which probably spent most of its time in the trees.

Let us look at some of the specific features of "Lucy" which are 
important in this study. Everyone agrees that from the neck up, "Lucy" 
was gorilla-like. Her brain size was about one-fourth the size of a 
human brain; her jaw was "U"-shaped, typical of gorillas; her teeth 
were large, far larger than those in humans.

From the neck down, nearly every feature was likewise non-human. 
Australopithecus fossils, including those which are thought to be much 
more recent and therefore should be more human-like, have long, curved 
fingers and long, curved toesÄwell adapted to swinging from tree limb 
to tree limb.

The features which suggest upright posture to Johanson are primarily 
the hip and knee joints, but numerous studies on the hip have shown 
otherwise. Oxnard, in his 1987 book, Fossils, Teeth and Sex (which 
contains an excellent summary of these various studies), claims that, 
"These fossils clearly differ more from both humans and African apes 
than do these living groups from each other. The australopithecines 
are unique" (p. 227). Evidently they could walk somewhat upright, as 
pygmy chimps do today, but not in the human manner at all. 
Furthermore, Johanson seldom reminds us that he found the knee 
jointÄthe strongest evidence for upright stanceÄin a location some two 
to three kilometers away, and in a layer of rock some 200 feet lower. 
Clearly, the knee does not belong with the rest, but even if they do 
go together, the knee is not diagnostically upright, and points more 
specifically to tree-climbing abilities, according to Oxnard and other 
authorities.

Several investigators, including Richard Leakey, have now concluded 
that two or perhaps three species have been wrongly combined in 
"Lucy." She was not a human ancestor. At best, she was a form of 
extinct ape; at worst, she was a mosaic, yet she is still touted as 
the best "evidence" for human evolution.

As the eminent, evolutionary anthropologist David Pilbeam has stated, 
"Paleoanthropology reveals more about how humans view themselves than 
it does how humans came about." Unfortunately, many textbooks, as well 
as many museum exhibits, still portray the humanistic view of mankind, 
as well as the evolutionary view of mankind's origin, as if it were 
well supported by the data.