Australopithecus Afarensis

The Topics:
• Nick-name
• Discovered by
• Place of Origin
• Existence (million years ago)
• Characteristics and Behaviour
• Anatomy (body size, features)
• Diet
• Tools
• Environment
Nickname
Of Australopithecus
Afarensis
Lucy is the common name of AL 288-1, several hundred pieces of bone fossils
representing 40 percent of the skeleton of a female of the hominin species Aus
tralopithecus afarensis. In Ethiopia, the assembly is also known as Dinkinesh,
which means "you are marvelous" in the Amharic language

The affectionate nickname comes from the Beatles' song Lucy in the Sky
with Diamonds, which was often playing from the team's tape recorder back at
camp.
 Who
discovered
Australopithecus
Afarensis
Lucy was found by Donald Johanson and Tom Gray on
November 24, 1974, at the site of Hadar in Ethiopia. They had
taken a Land Rover out that day to map in another locality. Aft
er a long, hot morning of mapping and surveying for fossils,
they decided to head back to the vehicle. Johanson suggested
taking an alternate route back to the Land Rover, through a
nearby gully.
Within moments, he spotted a right proximal ulna (forearm bone) and qu
ickly identified it as a hominid. Shortly thereafter, he saw an occipital (s
kull) bone, then a femur, some ribs, a pelvis, and the lower jaw. Two
weeks later, after many hours of excavation, screening, and sorting,
several hundred fragments of bone had been recovered, representing
40 percent of a single hominid skeleton.
THE ORIGIN
Australopithecus
Afarensis
Au. afarensis fossils have been unearthed in Ethiopia, Kenya
and Tanzania.

Map showing sites in Tanzania and Ethiopia where Australopith

ecus afarensis fossils have been found at Laetoli, Omo, Hadar,
Woranso-Mille and Dikika. They have also been found at Lake Tu
rkana in Kenya.
O
R
I
G
I
N
EXISTENCE
(million
years ago)
Australopithecus afarensis lived 3.7 million
to 3 million years ago.
Characteristics
and
behaviour
Australopithecus Afarensis
Au. afarensis possessed both ape-like and human-like
characteristics.

They Climb trees.

The top of its skull (the cranial vault) was slightly do

med and its brain was comparable in size to a chimpan
zee's. Its face projected outwards, less so in females
than in males.
ANATOMY
Australopithecus
Afarensis
Males and females varied significantly in body
size with males standing approximately 4’ll
inches tall and weighing 100 pounds and
femails standing about 3 ft 5 inches tall and
weighing 62 pounds
Small brain: 380-550 cm cube

The canine teeth of Au afarensis are much

smaller than those of chimpanzees and they
are narrower and differently shaped to those of
the earlier Au.
 DIET
Australopithecus
Afarensis
Au. afarensis had mainly a plant-based diet, including leaves,
fruit, seeds, roots, nuts, and insects… and probably the
occasional small vertebrates, like lizards.
Paleoanthropologists can tell what Au. afarensis ate from looking
at the remains of their teeth. Dental microwear studies indicate
they ate soft, sugar-rich fruits, but their tooth size and shape
suggest that they could have also eaten hard, brittle foods too –
probably as ‘fallback’ foods during seasons when fruits were not a
vailable.
Habitat
of
Australopithecus
Afarensis
Their adaptations for living both in the trees and
on the ground helped them survive for almost a
million years as climate and environments
changed.

Woodlands and Grasslands

TOOLS OF
Australopithecus
Afarensis
 Australopithecus afarensis, used stone tools and consumed meat.

The cut marks demonstrate hominin use of sharp-edged stone to

remove flesh from the femur and rib. The location and density of the
marks on the femur indicate that flesh was rather widely spread on
the surface, although it is possible that there could have been isolated
patches of flesh.
Australopithecus Africanus
Nickname
Of Australopithecus
Africanus
Australopithecus africanus, which means
“southern ape of Africa”.

Nickname: Mrs. Ples

 Who
discovered
Australopithecus
Africanus
Mrs. Ples was discovered by Robert Broom and
John T. Robinson on April 18, 1947. Because of
Broom’s use of Dynamite and pickaxe while
excavating, Mrs Ples’ skull was blown into
peices and some fragments are missing.
THE ORIGIN
Australopithecus
Africanus
Mrs. Ples was found in Sterkfontein, South
Africa.
Broom made the discovery at the now famo
us cave site Sterkfontein. Remembering the
discovery of Mrs. Ples (also known as STS 5)
Broom later said that of all the sights he
had seen in his life, “this was the most
thrilling.”
EXISTENCE
(million
years ago)
Mrs. Ples lived between 3-million and
2-million years ago.
Characteristics
and
behaviour
Australopithecus Africanus
They had strong, slightly curved, fingers an
d thumbs, while their feet were short, with
less flexible toes than other apes and more
like ours. Their strong arms and fingers
could have aided climbing, which may mean
they spent some of their time in trees.
Males of some species were much larger th
an females, as with other
primates, such as gorillas and orangutans.
This characteristic is called sexual
dimorphism.
ANATOMY
Australopithecus
Africanus
Their brain capacity was also comparable to
that of the modern great apes, at about 390
cc to 550 cc, or about a third of modern
humans’.
Height: Males: average 4 ft 6 in (138 cm);
Females: average 3 ft 9 in (115 cm) Weight:
Males: average 90 lbs (41 kg); Females: ave
rage 66 lb (30 kg)
TOOLS OF
Australopithecus
Africanus
Australopithecus africanus, a three to two
million-year-old species from South Africa
traditionally considered not to have engaged in
habitual tool manufacture, has a human-like
trabecular bone pattern in the bones of the
thumb and palm (the metacarpals) consistent
with forceful opposition of the thumb and
fingers typically adopted during tool us.