The California Collection/TheCaliforniaCollection.cdr/his065/btg1189b.arj/BTG1189B.TXT

Text File | 1990-02-13 | 3KB | 65 lines

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 toes─well 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
joint─the strongest evidence for upright stance─in 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.