Lessons

Based on your reading and the above exercise, answer the following questions:

1. Why was the discovery of Lucy so important?
2. What is a good way to determine Lucy’s evolutionary relationship to humans and other living primates? Why? Hint: Think of a type of systematics discussed above using derived and primitive characters.
3. What happened to Lucy, after her death, that allows us to observer her as a fossil today? Describe the process(es)?
4. What did Lucy look like?
5. Lucy had a unique way of moving around in her environment. List and then describe the features of her skeletal anatomy that were discussed in the reading, and determine if this was a primitive or derived character for hominins. Remember hominins include human and other primates that walked bipedally.