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Richard Ketcham

UT Austin professor John Kappelman with 3-D printouts of Lucy’s skeleton, illustrating the compressive fractures in her right humerus that she suffered at the time of her death 3.18 million years ago.

Solving an Ice-Cold Case: How Lucy Died

November 18, 2016 by Rachel White

Sharp, clean breaks on the right arm of the oldest, most famous fossil of a human ancestor reopened the coldest cold case in human evolution. Lucy, a 3.18-million-year-old specimen of Australopithecus afarensis — or “southern ape of Afar” — is among the oldest, most complete skeletons of any adult, erect-walking human ancestor. Since her discovery […]

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