National Geographic: Mysteries of Mankind Page #3
- Year:
- 1988
- 991 Views
Leopards are natural predators
of chimpanzees.
Here, as the chimps attack,
we catch a glimpse
of how our ancestors,
having left the safety of the trees,
may have first met the challenges
of life on the ground.
Once the leopard is decapitated,
the chimp may not comprehend
that it is '"dead,'"
but it clearly knows the enemy
is no longer a threat.
If a chimpanzee has the intelligence
to defend itself with natural weapons,
it seems likely our early ancestors
did the same.
The chimpanzee has never
become an habitual upright walker.
Why did we?
Upright walking is so fundamental
and yet it is one of the crucial ways
we are set apart
from all other mammals on earth.
When did our ancestors take that first
tentative step out of the trees
to brave the vast African landscapes?
Lmportant answers would be found in
the Afar Triangle region of Ethiopia.
Here, in 1974,
an international expedition
of 15 specialists
headed out to
the remote badlands known as Hadar.
Co leader of the team,
Dr. Donald Johanson
describes himself as superstitious.
After two frustrating months
on the sun scorched slopes,
he woke up one morning feeling lucky
and so noted in his diary.
Later that very day
the team discovered bones
that made headlines around the world
at the time the oldest,
most complete hominid ever found.
To anthropologists
who usually consider themselves
lucky to recover a tooth
this 40% complete skeleton
was a bonanza.
Nicknamed Lucy,
of intense study.
What is most exceptional
about a skeleton
as complete as Lucy
is all the information that
we as anthropologists can glean
from a skeleton like this.
For example, looking at
which is only about
we know that she was no taller
than three and a half or four feet.
Now that brings up the question
of was it perhaps a child?
If we look at the state of development
for example, of the third molar
or the wisdom tooth,
So that relative to modern humans,
she was an adult when she died.
We're able to tell from
of the hip socket, for example,
that she probably only weighed
about 50 or 55 pounds.
From the size of the brain case,
there is enough
of the brain case preserved
to suggest to us
that the brain was very small
about one fourth the size
Historically, large brains have been
considered the fundamental human trait.
In the 20s when Raymond Dart suggested
a small brained creature walked upright
he had only a skull to work with.
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