Lucy, The Gem Of Ethiopia

Discoveries relating to the human lineage are extremely exciting and often baffling. This is the case with the recent discovery of what seems to be the oldest member of the human family. A skull found in northern Chad in 2001, has been deemed the earliest relative to the human ever found. Nicknamed Toumai, and discovered by Michel Brunet and his paleontology team, this new category of human has been given the scientific name, Sahelanthropus tchaensis. What makes this skull so definitive is the fact that it dates back approximately 6-7 million years in the earth’s history (Whitfield 2002). Since the discovery there have been anthropologists and paleontologists that have

The third piece of evidence that made it undoubtedly that Australopithecus afarensis walked upright was the footprints found at Laetoli in northern Tanzania. In 1976, Mary Leakey discovered hominid footprints that was preserved in volcanic ash and unearthed 1978. “The Laetoli Footprints” and skeletal structure excavated showed clear evidence of bipedalism. Many believe the three individuals who made these footprints belonged to the species Australopithecus afarensis. The footprints demonstrated that Australopithecus afarensis walked upright

There was a chief new discovery of fossil bones and teeth belonging to the earliest human ancestors ever discovered. The fossil bones predate the oldest formerly discovered human ancestor by more than a million years. The discovery was of fossil remains of a hominid that lived in present day Ethiopia between 5.2 and 9.8 million years ago. (Hominids include all species following the split as of the chimpanzees on the “human” side of the evolutionary tree.)

A new species of human called "Homo naledi," was discovered by Berger, a professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. What he didn’t know is that this discovery could change the progress of human evolution. After examining the fossils, Berger and his team came up with a new theory. They proposed that “the fossils -- consisting of infants, children, adults and elderly individuals -- were found, in a previously isolated chamber within the cave… the chamber, located 30 meters underground … was a burial ground -- and that Homo naledi could have used fire to light the way”. Naledi’s brain was said to be no bigger than an orange with hands locked in a curve and feet almost identical to ours. They were about 5 feet tall and had long legs. However, getting there wasn’t easy. Since the cave openings were so small, they had to use Underground Astronauts to help recover the evidence. Even with about 1,500 fossils found, they still believed that this chamber is not yet done and has even more Naledi bones to be discovered. This new discovery brought many questions of our true identity and where we came from, but it did remind us of all the things that are still yet to be discovered.

The ancient relative of humanity dubbed "Lucy" may have been one of a harem of girls that mated with a single male, according to research that suggests her species was polygynous.Among the earliest known relatives of humanity whose skeletons were made for walking upright was Australopithecus afarensis, the species that included Lucy.Members of the Australopithecus lineage, known as australopithecines, are among the leading candidates for direct ancestors of the human lineage, living about 2.9 million to 3.8 million years ago in East Africa.To learn more about Lucy's species, researchers investigated the area of Laetoli in northern Tanzania, which previously showed the earliest known footprints belonging to hominins humans and related species

Africa is known to be one of the most heavily povertized region on the globe, and whether or not it was the fault of Europeans or themselves is beside the actual problem. Ethiopia displays one of the problems Africa is dealing with, as one of the overlying problem is rural poverty, and any other issues that follow poverty. Entire households survive on scraps of food every day, and work hard to try to gain more money for food. The poverty has encouraged farmers to have more children in an attempt to increase their workers and profits. This increase in population in rural Ethiopia has been causing migration from the area. Studies have been made about society in Ethiopia and how the economy affects it to try to understand the issue of poverty.

Even so, the fossil record provides a fairly good outline of human history. The earliest humans were found in Africa, which is where much of human evolution occurred. The fossils of these early humans, which lived 2 to 6 million years ago, seem to all come from that continent. Most scientists believe early humans migrated out of Africa into Asia between 2 million and 1.7 million years ago, entering Europe sometime within the past 1 million years ago. What follows are some highlights of the early human species that have been identified by scientists to date. Scientists have dated the oldest known fossils with from modern humans to 195,000 years ago. Early Homo sapiens fossils have come from underground in Sudan, Ethiopia, South Africa, and Israel.

The article “The Great Human Migration” uses non- historical evidence like archaeological findings or samples of DNA which have proven theories to draw conclusions about human history. Two main theories, the Multi- Regional hypothesis and the Out-of-Africa Theory, have arose to support and explicate the fossil records. Unhistorical evidence, like analyzing DNA, have helped scientists trace heredities all the way back in time. This proved that Homo sapiens have evolved in Africa, almost 200,000 years ago. This evidence

A century after the Mamluks defeated the Crusader kingdom of Jerusalem, Solomid Ethiopia was continuing the Christian Holy war in Sub Saharan Africa (von Sivers, Desnoyers, and Stow 412). Ethiopian soon controlled the Muslim sultanates of Ifat and its successor Adal (von Sivers, Desnoyers, and Stow 412). The ethiopian Kings tried to subdue the sultans however the Kings had little choice but to tolerate the sultans of Ifat and Adal as Muslim vassals which led to Ethiopia becoming a multiethnic, multilinguistic, and multireligious empire (von Sivers, Desnoyers, and Stow 412). The Kings did continue to emphasize Christian identity and adopted a Christianized version of Roman law known as the Law of Kings from Egyptian Copts in the mid 1400’s (von

In Search of Human Origins, a film based on the findings of a three million year old female skeleton, that lived near the lake of an African forest. However, ‘Lucy’ was the given name when she was discovered by anthropologist Donald Johanson in Ethiopia many decades ago. Primarily identified as A. afarensis. Lucy, a remarkable piece of treasure portrayed a characteristic of having the ability to walk upright and the capability to lock her knee joints, thus, allowing her to be listed as a vital starting point of the transition between humans and animals. Though, the story of ‘Lucy’ is an interesting one, as she is said to be the “missing link” between humans and apes, essentially, allowing individuals to get a key understanding of the earliest common human ancestor. As Johanson set out on a journey through the Great Rift Valley of Africa, he and his team gathered years of essential evidence that helped tie together the history of human origins known to be the “first family.”

Dinaw Mengestu travels to America at a very young age, and as we travel through his life he shows us that a person can assimilate with surrounding cultures and be in touch with his Ethiopian culture. He uses personification to show what his life felt like being in a new country. Dinaw begins to think that he has lost everything coming to America as he was ¨Stripped bare¨ and lived in ¨small towns and urban suburbs.¨ (Mengestu 213). Mengestu lives in Kensington, Brooklyn with many different cultures around him. He thought that he had nothing and was stripped from everything he once had in Ethiopia . It puts the reader into perspective in what he felt like he was going through at the moment. Living in a small town outside of Brooklyn he discovers

Important skeletal bones such as the femur, skull, jaw, and pelvis showed that Lucy was a transitional species between ape and man. (Johanson, 1981)

Since the beginning of time, there has been a great amount of progress throughout the world. From cultural adaptations, the creation of social classes, technological advancements, the spread of languages, and so on. We know about all of these progressions simply because of anthropology. By studying humans, of the past and the present, anthropologists have learned how humans have evolved throughout time, how they have adapted to their world, their own personal ways of living, as well as how they communicated with one another. One of the ways anthropologists are capable of learning such things, is through the study of archaeology. By digging up past civilizations, archaeology allows anthropologists to put all the missing pieces together and to

One of the most debated about issues in anthropology is looking at the question of what are the origins of today’s humans. It is a spilt debate in the anthropological community. Both sides believe that they are correct in which way that we became the modern humans that we are today. The two beliefs are the Multiregional and the Out-of-Africa theory.

Again I say Ethiopia remains a country in Africa that is known for their artifacts and fossil. With this in mind, Hadar, Ethiopia “sits in the region southwest of the Afar Triangle, as Hadar’s Research