Lucy's Foot

was pretty much like ours. That's what a new find indicates.

Lucy may be 3.2 million years old, but she still has the ability to surprise. Scientists recently reported that Lucy, aka Australopithecus afarensis, likely walked on two feet.

The findings came when researchers discovered a new foot bone belonging to Lucy. The bone's structure suggests that Lucy walked much like we do today. National Geographic explains that "until now it had been unclear just how upright -- in a sense, just how human -- Lucy really was."

The bone, which was found in Ethiopia, connected the toe to the base of Lucy's foot. It helped researchers confirm that Lucy's feet had "well-defined" arches, which likely helped the famous fossil to strut around on two feet and not via a grasping movement.

I had always thought that Lucy was entirely bipedal, but maybe I'm misremembering.

This undated handout combination photo provided by the journal Science shows four images of the fourth metatarsal, a long bone in the foot that shows Austraopithecus afarensis had an arched foot, indicating it was fully adapted to life on the ground rather than in the trees. Lucy's feet were made for walking. That's the word from a team of researchers that has gotten the first look at a foot bone from an human relative that lived three million or more years ago.… Read more »

(AP Photo/Science)

And here's a nice impression of her footprint:

The article is brief, but worth a read. The comments are distressing -- I'm continually amazed that there is so much ignorance in the world, all too often coupled with a large does of hostility.