She wasn't faster than a speeding bullet, but new research seems
to indicate that Lucy and other early known human ancestors
walked with greater ease and efficiency than previously
believed, despite their short legs. Conventional thought among
paleoanthropologists has been that the short-legged
australopithecines, such as Lucy, were primitive or ape-like and
hominids developed long legs because they are characteristic of
efficient bipeds. Not so, says Patricia Kramer, a University of
Washington doctoral candidate and lecturer in anthropology, who
will present evidence Thursday morning at the annual meeting of
the American Association of Physical Anthropology in Salt Lake
City that "Lucy was beautifully equipped to deal with her world"
3.2 million years ago. Lucy is the name given to the skeleton of
a small female Australopithecus afarensis found by Donald
Johanson in Ethiopia in 1974. The skeleton is about 40 percent
complete, which is unusually rare among early human ancestors.
Many species, including other