The ‘true face' of Lucy, humanity's most famous ancestor
The 3.5ft skeleton, named after the Beatles song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, was discovered in Ethiopia by Donald Johanson, an American palaeoanthropologist, in 1975.
She belonged to the Australopithecus afarensis species and was the most intact early hominin ever found, which helped prove that our human ancestors walked on two legs before developing large brains.
Before her discovery, many people had hypothesised that a larger brain was needed to allow the dexterity needed for upright walking.
Now, an international team including Cicero Moraes, a world leader in forensic facial reconstruction software, has reconstructed her face using scans of her skull, coupled with soft tissue data from chimpanzees, who have a similar brain size to the Australopithecus afarensis.
'Seeing Lucy's face is like glimpsing a bridge to the distant past, offering a visual connection to human evolution,' said Mr Moraes.
'The reconstruction, blending science and art, allows us to imagine what she might have looked like 3.2 million years ago, enriching both public and scientific understanding of our ancestors.
'It's a reflection of technological progress that makes an extinct being tangible.'
Details like hair and skin colour were determined based on prior studies related to the Pliocene environment in which she lived.
The final result is something not quite ape and not yet human, similar to modern great apes but with some unique features, such as a flatter face and a less protruding jaw.
'It has a less pronounced brow ridge than in chimpanzees, though still distinct from modern humans,' added Mr Moraes.
'The artistic version shows dark skin and hair, inspired by palaeoanthropological descriptions suggesting adaptation to the hot Ethiopian environment of 3.2 million years ago.'
He added: 'The team believes that, despite the limitations of the cranial fragments, it offers an anatomically coherent representation of a female Australopithecus afarensis.'
Lucy's body also shows elements of both ape and human. Her upper torso shows she was adapted to living in trees, but her lower body shows she also walked on two legs.
Her brain, however, is very different to modern humans. The inner surface of her skull has a volume of about 391 cubic centimetres – similar to that of chimpanzees and much smaller than the roughly 1,350 cubic centimetres of modern humans.
It indicates that her brain organisation was closer to that of other primates.
Lucy is thought to have died between 12 and 18 years of age – adulthood for her species – and may have fallen out of a tree.
Her fossilised bones will go on display in Europe for the first time this summer at Prague's National Museum in August.
The research has been submitted to a journal for peer review.
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