Meet the REAL Lucy! Face of history’s most famous fossil revealed
Lucy, a female of the extinct hominin species, Australopithecus afarensis, revolutionised our understanding of evolution
THE true face of history’s most famous fossil, whose three-million-year-old remains revolutionised our understanding of evolution, has been brought to life by science.
Lucy, a female of the extinct hominin species, Australopithecus afarensis, became a household name when her skeleton was discovered in Ethiopia in 1974.
Her discovery also solved the mystery of whether bigger brains or bipedalism evolved first, since she had a smaller brain but could still walk upright.
Now we can see her face for the first time since the Pliocene epoch, after a multinational team of scientists rebuilt her likeness from her skull.
Cicero Moraes, lead author of the new study, said: “Seeing Lucy’s face is like glimpsing a bridge to the distant past, offering a visual connection to human evolution.
“The reconstruction, blending science and art, allows us to imagine what she might have looked like 3.2 million years ago, enriching both public and scientific understanding of our ancestors.
“It’s a reflection of technological progress that makes an extinct being tangible.”
The reconstruction began with a digital 3D replica of Lucy’s skull from the University of Liège in Belgium.
Then her face was brought to life using data from a chimpanzee – a species picked for its similar brain volume.
Mr Moraes said: “A 3D model of a chimpanzee’s skull and soft tissue was adjusted to Lucy’s skull, deforming it until the two skulls aligned.
“This allowed the soft tissue to be shaped to reflect Lucy’s likely appearance.”
This produced an objective recreation of Lucy’s likely appearance in greyscale.
“Details like hair and skin colour were then added based on prior studies related to the environment she lived in,” said Cicero.
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The final result is something not quite ape and not yet human.
Mr Moraes said: “The reconstructed face of Lucy reflects an appearance consistent with modern great apes but with some unique features, such as a flatter face.
“The objective version, in grayscale and without hair, highlights a graceful facial structure.
“It has less prognathism and a less-pronounced brow ridge than in chimpanzees, though still distinct from modern humans.
“The artistic version shows dark skin and hair, inspired by paleoanthropological descriptions suggesting adaptation to the hot Ethiopian environment of 3.2 million years ago.”
He added: “The team believes that, despite the limitations of the cranial fragments, it offers an anatomically coherent representation of a female Australopithecus afarensis.”
It’s not just Lucy’s face that shows elements of both ape and man.
Her upper body seems to be adapted to arboreal life – and it’s even been theorised that she died falling out of a tree.
But her lower body suggests she typically walked on two legs.
Her brain, however, is very different to modern man’s.
Mr Moraes said: “Lucy had an endocranial volume of about 391cm³ – similar to that of chimpanzees.
“This is much smaller than the roughly 1,350cm³ of modern humans, indicating a brain organization closer to other primates.
“Her face was more forward-projecting and less gracile than a human’s, and she stood only 106cm tall.”
Lucy, named for the Beatles song, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, was discovered in the Hadar Formation by American paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson.
She’s thought to have died at between 12 and 18 years of age – adulthood for her species.
Her fossilised bones will go on display in Europe for the first time ever this summer when they’re exhibited at the Prague’s National Museum in August.
The multinational team behind the new study includes Mr Moraes, from Brazil, Italian archaeologists Luca and Alessandro Bezzi, and Francesco Galassi of the University of Łódź in Poland.
It also includes Elena Varotto of Flinders University in Australia, Czech specialists Jiří and Matej Šindelář, and Nicola Carrara from the University of Padua in Italy.
Mr Moraes and his co-authors have submitted their study to a peer-reviewed journal for publication.