Lucy Long Ago

Book Cover

      

Scientists have been searching for it, for a long time. It, was something that was not easy to find, it did not fit into the ancient homo-tree, it was not an australopithecine tree either, it was one of the first hominids that could walk straight up. Its name was Lucy. 

This book "Lucy Long Ago,Uncovering the Mystery of Where we came From." by Catherine Thimmesh, is about the discovery of were us humans came from. Lucy the afarensis, was one the first hominids to walk straight up. And what made this discovery so grand, was the fact that her skeletal system was found in almost perfect condition considering how old it is and that it was buried under many layers of soil. Lucy was found in Hadar, Ethiopia in 1974, by Donald Johanson and his team of scientists, exploring the vast lands. They where on a search to find the mystery of where humans came form. Every skeleton found was another clue, but finding Lucy's Skeleton was a huge clue. She had almost everything intact, except for her right Pelvis which was reconstructed by Owen Lovejoy, who was able to reconstruct it by making a cast of her left Pelvis. Lucy lived sixty million years after the Dinosaurs, and she died, and layed in the grown as stone until found thirty million years later. 

Over the millions and millions of years, a big change takes place. That change is called evolution. Evolution is something that takes place over a long time, it's a change that's not necessarily seen at one time, it takes a very long time for something to evolve into something else. And usually when something evolves it usually evolves into another form that benefits their survival.Some of our ancestor Hominids evolution was that they got taller, and sharper/ human like features, and a ton of body hair loss.

The Hominid Evolution.

Scientist use a lot of artifacts and facts and findings to find out about a creature, and they can study it all they want if they have all the information needed and found. Usually it is very hard to find a lot of information on something that is so old rare as ancient ancestor bones. So sometimes scientists can look at a few guesses and choose their best possibilities and make a best guess. Scientist are able to look at the bones and muscle markings and tell how strong that creature was. Scientists are also able to tell a lot about the mammal like it's skin color just by looking at their habitat that it lived in. So they don't need the hard cold facts, they just need a few surrounding facts to figure out the missing pieces. it's like a puzzle and each leads you closer.


Because of Lucy us humans have a great understanding of where we came form which was the great question asked by many scientists back then, and the scientist can never stop finding information, there is still more out there to be found later on, or we may never find it, it's a great mystery.

I thought that the Author Catherine Thimmesh, wrote this book because she wanted to give out the information but also help readers understand how important it is to know where we humans have came from. And how and why it is important. 

My opinion of this book "Lucy Long Ago Uncovering the Mystery of Where We Came From."  was that i thought it was very informative, and even though it gave facts it told it in a fun story way and sometimes it actually told it like a regular list of facts. But the best part i liked about this book was that it was telling it almost like they where following a journey of one man, almost in the sense of a diary/journal entry, but at the same time not. I really enjoyed this book and it was an easy read, with lots of fun pictures. I very much recommend it!

Apes... to Humans??

Rebecca Stefoff

I read Origins by Rebecca Stefoff, the first book of the series Humans: An Evolutionary History about the discoveries made by paleoanthropologists that helped scientists, for the past century and a half, understand the journey of human evolution. Stefoff wrote this book to deepen one's understanding of the search for traces of the earliest human ancestors - ancient apes. This led to the determination that the evolution of the human line split from apes over 5 million years ago! Numerous acclaimed scientists contributed to important findings such as the first significant discovery in November, 1924 in Johannesburg, South Africa. This was known as the "Taung Child" found by Raymond Dart, as well as "Lucy", "Ardipithecus" and many more hominids. I think the book's main conclusion is that our current situation as homo sapiens is highly unusual because, as it states, we are the only survivor of a "branching bush of evolution" including hominin species that had many offshoots who died off. I did like the book... it was very clear and easy to understand. The ideas and findings made me think more about human evolution and how we got here today. However, I feel it was a bit dry and repetitive at times. I would give this book 3.5 out of 5 stars and I do recommend it for readers who want a very detailed, factual blueprint of how humans have evolved to the way we are today.