The Lucy Fossil - No Homo

<p>It took over three million years to find her. But palaeontologists Donald Johanson and Tom Gray uncovered the remains of ‘the Lucy Fossil’ - a previously undiscovered species of pre-human - in Hadar, Ethiopia on 24th November, 1974.</p><br><p>Despite the find’s massive significance, the event was not greeted with untrammelled joy by all their rival fossil hunters. Some - who had wanted to claim such a discovery for themselves - began publicly disputing that Lucy was indeed a missing link in the evolution of humankind.</p><br><p>In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly reveal how Lucy received her rock n’ roll name; explain how her tiny brain but upright walking turned previous scientific thinking on its head; and consider whether, actually, “Captain Caveman was quite accurate”...</p><br><p><strong>Further Reading:</strong></p><p>• ‘Nov. 24, 1974: Humanity, Meet Lucy. She's Your Mom’ (WIRED, 2009): <a href="https://www.wired.com/2009/11/1124lucy-discovered/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.wired.com/2009/11/1124lucy-discovered/</a></p><p>• ‘Lucy and the Leakeys’ (Khan Academy): <a href="https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/big-history-project/early-humans/how-ancestors-evolved/a/lucy-and-the-leakeys" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/big-history-project/early-humans/how-ancestors-evolved/a/lucy-and-the-leakeys</a></p><p>• ‘Donald Johanson: Discovering the Fossil “Lucy”’ (Freedom From Religion Foundation, 2014): <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AX4eqqBcIM" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AX4eqqBcIM</a></p><br><p><strong>For bonus material and to support the show, visit</strong><a href="https://create.acast.com/episodes/ca1f94a1-0921-446a-ae00-4d4bfd2ba3ef/Patreon.com/Retrospectors" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong> </strong></a><a href="http://patreon.com/Retrospectors" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>Patreon.com/Retrospectors</strong></a></p><p><strong>We'll be back tomorrow! Follow us wherever you get your podcasts:</strong><a href="https://create.acast.com/episodes/ca1f94a1-0921-446a-ae00-4d4bfd2ba3ef/podfollow.com/Retrospectors" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong> </strong></a><a href="http://podfollow.com/Retrospectors" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>podfollow.com/Retrospectors</strong></a></p><br><p><em>The Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill.</em></p><p><em>Theme Music: Pass The Peas. Announcer: Bob Ravelli. Graphic Design: Terry Saunders. Edit Producer: Emma Corsham.</em></p><p><em>Copyright: Rethink Audio / Olly Mann 2021. </em><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Australopithecus_afarensis_-_Naturhistorisches_Museum,_Braunschweig,_Germany_-_DSC05204.JPG" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>image</strong></a> by Daderot [<a href="https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>CC0 1.0</strong></a>], </p><br><p><em>#70s #Discoveries #Science #Ethiopia</em></p><br /><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

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