Oral Care
LUCY
Lucy, the most popular Australopithecus afarensis who has been hypothesized to have lived more than three million years ago, has raised the interest of countless of people worldwide. Many believe that she holds the key to the human’s ancestry. Found in Ethiopia, hers was the most intact fossilized remains of her species. She stood almost 4 feet (save for a few inches). Looking at the structure of her bones, one can see that she could easily be a cross between a chimp and the modern human, possessing a smaller cranium and a wider jaw, as well as a wider girth around her lower rib cage and her hips. Judging from the shape of her hips and legs, she was theorized to have walked upright. However, certain features like her fingers and her toes suggests that like the arboreal primates, she may have frequently climbed trees, too.
From the fossil, it has been deduced that Lucy ate plants, roots, fruits, insects and perhaps some smaller animals.
What pointed her as an adult was the fact that she had a fully grown set of wisdom teeth, which, as evidence would have it, grew ideally as her wide jaw would accommodate. Unlike modern humans who have had to have their wisdom teeth extracted because it cause them toothache, or was impacted and could potentially be a cause of gum disease, Lucy’s third molars developed just fine. Moreover, her bones were properly fused, which indicates that she must have been more than 30 years of age.