--- title: New Bone Suggests Lucy Walked Like Us | TIME description: A new bone from the foot of the same species as the famous Lucy skeleton is a clue to when human ancestors started walking like people, not apes canonical: https://time.com/video/WsjliKpO/ og:title: New Bone Suggests Lucy Walked Like Us og:description: A new bone from the foot of the same species as the famous Lucy skeleton is a clue to when human ancestors started walking like people, not apes og:url: https://time.com/video/WsjliKpO/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/WsjliKpO/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: New Bone Suggests Lucy Walked Like Us twitter:description: A new bone from the foot of the same species as the famous Lucy skeleton is a clue to when human ancestors started walking like people, not apes twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/WsjliKpO/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # New Bone Suggests Lucy Walked Like Us > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: New Bone Suggests Lucy Walked Like Us [Watch (HLS stream): New Bone Suggests Lucy Walked Like Us](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/WsjliKpO.m3u8) (2:43)  _Published 2011-02-19. A new bone from the foot of the same species as the famous Lucy skeleton is a clue to when human ancestors started walking like people, not apes_ --- Jul 27, 2023 3:10 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [New Zealand Scientists Discover Fossilized Bones of Human-Sized 'Monster Penguin'](/video/WFyAqzxo/) ### New Zealand Scientists Discover Fossilized Bones of Human-Sized 'Monster Penguin' [How to Make Bone Broth](/video/qBaii1hH/) ### How to Make Bone Broth [Behind the Scenes of 'Lucy'](/video/Fz30FQjv/) ### Behind the Scenes of 'Lucy' --- ## Transcript >> Paleoanthropologists have long suspected that Australopithecus afarensis, which lived more than 3. 2 million years ago, was among the first species to walk upright. But the problem was, the most complete skeleton we have of the species, one called Lucy, was missing key bones in the foot that could have confirmed how afarensis carried itself. Lucy's hip and pelvic bones certainly supported the idea that she spent most of her day upright. But the true evidence lay in her feet. >> When we look at particular bones in her foot, they can help tell us whether it was optional. And of course, humans are the only primates that live today that have an [ unk ]. It reflects the fact that they walk in two legs. >> Now, some of the same researchers who discovered Lucy have found a critical bone from one of her contemporaries in Hadar, Ethiopia. The researchers based at University of Missouri and the Institute of Human Origins in Arizona have found a metatarsal bone, which connects the toes to the ankle, and reveals a lot about the body it supports. We visited William Harcourt- Smith, an anthropologist at the American Museum of Natural History, to learn more about how important this find is. >> The bone that we're talking about that was found a short while ago and described last week is from here. It's called the fourth metatarsal. And it tells you a little bit about arching on this side. But it's not much arching on this side. If you turn the foot around to the inside of the foot, those kind of bones will tell you about the really significant portion of the arch that helps during running. And it's really a hallmark of being a modern human. So, a lot more would help us understand it. >> While Harcout- Smith and others are still hoping to find more bones from man's early ancestors, he says this afarensis fossil still reveals a lot about human evolution. >> There's a number of modifications in the afarensis' foot that are more human- like and indicate bipedal locomotion. However, there are other features in the afarensis' foot, including the lack of an arch on the inside and curved finger bones that indicate climbing behavior, that indicate that it's not fully human- like. So, I would say it has a combination of human- like features and ape- like features. It's definitely the foot of a biped, but not a biped like us, and not a creature that would have been bipedal all of the time. >> Just like there are many bones missing in Lucy's skeleton, there are still many gaps in our understanding of how we got from afarensis to modern man. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"New Bone Suggests Lucy Walked Like Us","description":"A new bone from the foot of the same species as the famous Lucy skeleton is a clue to when human ancestors started walking like people, not apes","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/WsjliKpO/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2011-02-19T03:05:24.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/WsjliKpO.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/WsjliKpO/","duration":"PT2M43S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/WsjliKpO/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```