What was the crucial change that set us on the path to becoming human? Our big brains, with their capacity for language and making complex tools, set us apart from other animals. Our ability to ...
Lucy was eventually revealed to be an early hominin—a member of a hominid subfamily that includes humans, chimps and bonobos—with a brain about one-third to one-fourth the size of modern humans who ...
The only known hominid fossils of that age in that location are those of Lucy and her kind, the small-brained but upright-walking hominids classified as Australopithecus afarensis. Some analysts ...