Popular renderings of Lucy tend to dress her in thick, reddish-brown fur.
Dave Einsel/Getty Images
The way Lucy has been depicted in newspapers, textbooks and museums shows how today’s cultural norms influence perceptions of the past.
The original Dikika child skull (left), a 3D model produced with synchrotron scanning (middle), and a model corrected for distortion during fossilisation (right).
Gunz et al. (2020) / Science Advances.
Our findings reveal the slowing down of brain development in our ape-like ancestors began more than three million years ago.
Upper teeth of a Neanderthal who lived about 40,000 years ago.
Debbie Guatelli-Steinberg
Anthropologists gather clues about how our ancient ancestors lived from their teeth. What will future anthropologists make of us based on the fossilized pearly whites we’ll leave behind?