In pursuit of knowledge, the evolution of humanity ranks with the origins of life and the universe. And yet, except when an exciting find hits the headlines, palaeoanthropology and its related fields have gained far less scientific support and funding – particularly for scientists and institutions based in the African countries where so many landmark discoveries have occurred.
One of the first was made a century ago in Taung, South Africa, by mineworkers who came across the cranium of a 2.8 million-year-old child with human-like teeth. Its fossilised anatomy offered evidence of early human upright walking – and 50 years later, in the Afar region of northern Ethiopia that would become a hotspot for ancient human discovery, this understanding took another leap backwards in time with the discovery of Lucy.
The part-skeleton of this small-bodied, relatively small-brained female captured the public’s imagination. Lucy the “paleo-rock star” took our major fossil evidence for bipedal walking, human-like creatures (collectively known as hominins) beyond 3 million years for the first time. The race to explain how humans became what we are now was well and truly on.
