Lucy Fossil Had iStone 3.4 Million Years Ago
Australopithecus afarensis teen texted nude cave drawings to chimpanzees
August 12, 2010
Paleoanthropologists have discovered evidence of a primitive iStone device near the site in Ethiopia where the nearly intact skull of a juvenile girl nicknamed Lucy was discovered in 1974, according to research published in today's issue of the British journal Nature. Australopithecus afarensis and other human ancesters also used stones to carve meat from the carcasses of large animals, findings suggest. Until now, researchers placed tool use at about 2.6 million years ago. Recent discoveries suggest that teens embraced technology millions of years before the Rolling Stones pounded out hit tunes to throngs of screaming evolved rock fans in the 1960s.
Early iStones used flat stones lashed with strips of leather to short sticks. Primitive texting of crude provocative images may have selected for evolutionary mating behavior that favored survival of teens with dexterous opposable thumbs, according to scientists.
"Lucy was a cute afarensis with very straight teeth and a good figure," said researcher Zeresenay Alemseged of the California Academy of Sciences. "She might have shown cave drawings of herself to chimpanzees or other boy hominids. Our hypothesis is that this behavior led to the incident at Eden and eventually the founding of Apple Corp. There is evidence of primitive disobedience in Ethiopia. Can you dig the scientific significance of these artifacts?"
Researchers found evidence that the Lucy fossil had concerns about the suckiness of iStone reception and had hurled the primitive communication technology against a cave wall in frustration. One corner of the iStone showed telltale scratches.
Tim White, an anthropologist from the University of California at Berkeley, disagrees with conclusions about the scratches. "Those markings look like the work of crocodiles," White said. "Evidence suggests that teen hominids hated Crocs way back then."
—James Dunn
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