A 2.5-million-year-old fossil of a hominin species called Australopithecus africanus had been discovered in South Africa.

"These relics are effectively fossils of the planet formation process, holding vital clues to deciphering the history of our ...

"It's rarely the case that fossil bones record evidence of how the individual died," he said in a phone interview. An illustration depicts the hypothesis of Lucy's fatal fall from a tree.

Fossils for males and females often differ, particularly in a species like Lucy's that is sexually dimorphic: Males are much larger than their mates, and their fossils are marked by deeper muscle ...

Donaldjohanson, a main belt asteroid, could be a relic of a cosmic collision that took place 150 million years ago.

The team first scanned Lucy’s bones, which represent about 40 percent of her complete skeleton, using X-ray computed tomography. The technique allowed them to peer deep into the fossils, and trace the ...

New Southwest Research Institute-led modeling indicates the main belt asteroid (52246) Donaldjohanson may have formed about 150 million years ago when a larger parent asteroid broke apart; its orbit ...

New Southwest Research Institute-led modeling indicates the main belt asteroid (52246) Donaldjohanson may have formed about ...

including those represented by the famous ‘Lucy.’” The new fossils have also confirmed another suspicion about Paranthropus robustus. Scientists theorized that this species’ small stature likely made ...

afarensis (e.g. Lucy). However, “[t]he contemporaneity of the two species now suggests that a more complex family tree prevailed early in the human evolutionary process,” the study authors write.

The difference in size between Lucy's petite bones and more massive ones found at Hadar also puzzled paleoanthropologists. But careful analysis of thousands of fossils, and a remarkable discovery ...