Lucy, the Iconic Ancestor
Fifty years since the discovery of Lucy, what does this iconic fossil tell us about our evolutionary story?
By Evan HadinghamAuthor of Discovering Us
What marked out our ancestors from other early apes and set them on the evolutionary path to becoming Homo sapiens? At the start of the 20th century, many assumed that intelligence and a big brain were
Lethal Heights
In 1980, a Buddhist monk climbed up to Baishiya Karst Cave, sat to pray, and found half of a massive human jawbone with two huge molars lying on the floor. The cave is at nearly 11,000 feet on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau, often called the “Roof of the World.” Such high-altitude landscapes were among the last places on Earth colonized by our ancient ancestors.