Scott Solomon: Do We Need the Original Lucy Fossil?
The 3.2-million-year-old fossilized remains of Lucy, the most intact human ancestor ever discovered, began a six-year tour of U.S. museums last Friday. The scientific community has expressed concern about shipping and exhibiting such a precious and delicate specimen, and several prominent American museums have refused to display her. Given that many museums around the world have nearly identical plaster casts of Lucy, how important is the original fossil?
Very important. Although fossil replicas can be so similar to the original that even paleontologists have trouble telling them apart, such copies are of limited use for research. That's because casts replicate only the outside structure of a fossil. Other information lies within the fossilized bones, and can be accessed via high-resolution CT (computed tomography). These scans can examine the inside of a fossil to determine, for example, how stress was imposed on the spongy internal structure of Lucy's femur during her lifetime. Such information could help settle a debate about whether Lucy spent more time in trees or on the ground....
History also reminds us of the value of access to original fossils. In 1912, Charles Dawson and Arthur Smith Woodward presented the remains of a human ancestor they called Eoanthropus dawsoni, or "Piltdown Man." The find altered paleontologists' view of human evolution for 40 years, until it was revealed that the "fossil" was actually a fake—a human skull had been combined with the jaw of an orangutan. The forgery was not exposed until 1953, in part because many paleontologists were allowed to carefully examine only casts but not the original "fossils," which contained clues about the subterfuge.
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Very important. Although fossil replicas can be so similar to the original that even paleontologists have trouble telling them apart, such copies are of limited use for research. That's because casts replicate only the outside structure of a fossil. Other information lies within the fossilized bones, and can be accessed via high-resolution CT (computed tomography). These scans can examine the inside of a fossil to determine, for example, how stress was imposed on the spongy internal structure of Lucy's femur during her lifetime. Such information could help settle a debate about whether Lucy spent more time in trees or on the ground....
History also reminds us of the value of access to original fossils. In 1912, Charles Dawson and Arthur Smith Woodward presented the remains of a human ancestor they called Eoanthropus dawsoni, or "Piltdown Man." The find altered paleontologists' view of human evolution for 40 years, until it was revealed that the "fossil" was actually a fake—a human skull had been combined with the jaw of an orangutan. The forgery was not exposed until 1953, in part because many paleontologists were allowed to carefully examine only casts but not the original "fossils," which contained clues about the subterfuge.