Lucy's pelvis bone?

Question

What was in Lucy the homonids pelvis bone? please give good description and maybe some pictures. thank you

Answer 1

Australopithecus afarensis, aka Lucy, had a pelvis that was somewhat less efficient than ours at walking bipedally though clearly she was a biped.  Her pelvis bone can be seen in the attached link.  She seemed to be partially arboreal meaning she probably spent some time in the trees.  He mouth did not have the large teeth of some plant eaters and seemed to be intermediate and she was thought to be omniverous much like humans today.  She also may have been very similar to chimps in both behavior and diet.  Her brain was very similar to chimps in size.  Her mouth began to show some rounding characteristic of hominids but was also somewhat apelike.  Her jaws didn't stick out as much as a chimps but it was more than ours.  Males tended to be much larger than females but there is some dispute that they might be separate species.

Answer 2

Actually, Lovejoy disproved the idea that her pelvis was not as well-suited for bipedalism as a modern homo sapiens' is.

He analyzed it from an engineering perspective in significant detail.

The general idea is that, in modern humans, pelvic shape is a compromise between bipedalism and birthing large-brained babies.

Australopithecines had babies whose heads were not significantly larger than a chimpanzee's head, so there was no such compromise.

I've examined casts of Lucy's pelvis, and it looks very similar to a modern human's pelvis, only much smaller (because SHE was much smaller).

As far as teeth go - gracile australopithecines were omniverous, so their teeth were proportioned much like ours.  They didn't have the huge molars of the robust australopithecines OR the large incisors of the frugiverous chimpanzees.

Their teeth were much larger than ours overall (especially the canines), but weren't that much different in structure.  The enamel thickness was significantly different, though.