CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND—A new 3-D model of “Lucy,” an Australopithecus afarensis individual whose 3.2 million-year-old remains were discovered in Ethiopia in the 1970s, suggests that she could climb trees and stand and walk upright as modern humans do, according to a Live Science report. Ashleigh Wiseman of the University of Cambridge created a digital model of 36 muscles in each of Lucy’s legs, using modern human anatomy as a reference. She concluded that Lucy would have been able to straighten and flex her knee joints in a wide range of motion, and extend her hips in a bipedal walk, although the higher proportion of muscles to fat were more like a bonobo’s than a modern human’s. “Lucy likely walked and moved in a way that we do not see in any living species today,” Wiseman said, adding that her anatomy would have allowed A. afarensis to live in both forest and grassland habitats. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Royal Society Open Science. To read more about the ability of A. afarensis to walk upright, go to "'Kadanuumuu'," one of ARCHAEOLOGY's Top 10 Discoveries of 2010.
