The Postcranial Anatomy of Australopithecus afarensis

Download or read book The Postcranial Anatomy of Australopithecus afarensis written by Yohannes Haile-Selassie and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-12-22 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume describes a 3.6 million-years-old partial skeleton of Australopithecus afarensis from the Woranso-Mille, central Afar, Ethiopia. This specimen is the first adult partial skeleton to be recovered since Lucy’s (A.L. 288-1) discovery in 1974. It is older than Lucy by 400,000 years and sheds light on the paleobiology of early Australopithecus afarensis, particularly the morphology of the shoulder girdle and thoracic shape, which are thus far poorly understood and actively debated. The fauna associated with the partial skeleton tells us enormously about Au. afarensis paleoecology and give us another piece of the puzzle regarding habitat availability and use for Au. afarensis outside the Hadar region where it has been well-known for the last four decades.