InvasiveThoughts.com

Image from Houston Museum of Natural Science website www.hmns.org/exhibits/special_exhibits/lucy.asp

When I first read in a newspaper that the exhibit Lucy's Legacy: The Hidden Treasures of Ethiopia was coming to Houston I was greatly intrigued.  Here it was, the first time the most complete set of bones of Australopithecus afarensis coming to America for the first time in an official exhibit setup. Congressman Mickey Leland from Houston passed away in a plane crash while on a humanitarian mission to Ethiopia; without his efforts and the efforts of other Houstonians, Ethiopia may not have chosen my beloved hometown to be the first visit.  Lucy had only been viewed at two times in her homeland of Ethiopia so this was definitely a history-making event that I did not want to miss.

After entering the exhibit wing, there is a quick Ethiopian historical overview you can choose to sit through. Before the overview, I did not realize the history of Ethiopia in regards to religion. I had figured it was a land of poverty and the birthplace of Rastafarianism, but I learned that it was so much more. I learned that Aksum is one of the holiest cities in the world, or that over 60% of the population is Christian and over 30% is Muslim. I'm not sure but that probably makes it one of the more well-balanced religious countries out there. Of extra special intrigue, the Ark of the Covenant is claimed to be held within the walls of a church in Aksum - much to the chagrin of Indiana Jones who thought he found it in the early 80's.

The area before the Lucy room contains cool religious artifacts, old Korans, a shield from an Ethiopian general that killed himself instead of being over run by the British, (the stones that mark the dead), and many other knick knacks. There is even an empty room that plays The Beatles’ Lucy In the Sky (With Diamonds) on a continuous loop; apparently that song was played on cassette at the discoverists’ tent the night they found Lucy in the Awash Valley back in 1974.  

Right before entering the Lucy viewing one is treated to a quick movie about the discovery of Lucy and the historical implications of finding such a complete set of bones (40% of a human body).  There are also snippets of an interview with Donald Johanson, an American anthropologist who found the first part of what led to the total discovery of the fossil.  What I noticed in particular was old still photos of the bones with Johanson wearing a wedding ring, and in the present day interview he was not wearing one. I'm not one to speculate, but I'm sure the fame and allure that came with such a discovery could have led the young scientist to a more philandering lifestyle. (To be fair to Johanson he may have just left the ring off for a day for some odd reason but I wanted to make this piece as juicy as possible). Noticing the ring finger, coupled with the blaring of a song from the most popular pop group of all time, not to mention a very high admission fee, made me wonder if Lucy is more rock show spectacle than an informative discovery that all should share in, like, for instance, leisure suits. I personally felt that something this groundbreaking should be more accessible to the public and not just the ones who have the means to afford the visit so the likes of Johanson and museum curators can live a life of extravagance.

In the movie the narrator mentions how the descendants of Lucy split and some evolved to a more-advanced race of chimpanzees and the rest evolved to a more-advanced race of Homo sapiens, eventually becoming us. A lady at this point looked to the guy she was with and said snidely, “That is not what happened!'”

        The exhibit itself is a tiny circular room. There is a semi-circular mural that shows the different stages of man, from vile monkey to bigger ape that can stand to the caveman that we are used to seeing in car insurance commercials. 

In one case there is a lifelike figure of what Lucy was supposed to have looked like, basically a very short upright walking chimpanzee. Lucy's dimensions are 3 ft 8 inches tall and weighing in at a petite 65 pounds. Also of note is Lucy's smaller-sized head, debunking the myth that our brains developed fully before we were walking upright.  Lucy proves what I have always known about women....legs before brains!

While I was pondering, a lady went up to a young couple and said, “Can I ask you something?” before continuing after a head nod, “How do you know this was a person? Do you really believe these scientists? Who is to say that it wasn't some sort of mutated animal or just some random bones that they pieced together to look like a human?” Now this was interesting, the token conspiracy theorist, though not as entertaining as a man at a taco place that my father and I encountered who claimed the world was flat. I was hoping for an interesting response but the young couple did a quick shoulder shrug proclaiming that either they had no clue or they wanted the silly lady to get away and that was that. I'm always up for thought-provoking conversation, but if you want to question such a thing there is a time and a place and a message board out there somewhere with your name on it.

Not quite in the center of the room but very close to a fully armed yet very-polite security guard are the bones strewn out to form a highly incomplete pattern of a small human being. You can't gaze at it like you are looking at the Pieta or anything but you can just look down at it and reflect. This is what I did.  I'm not going to mention what basis of thought I follow, creation or evolution, but what I see when I see Lucy is stories:

I see stories of someone, something, that lived 3.2 million years ago in a dessert terrain with minimal shrubbery and water. Someone, something, that lived in a world without microwaves, Internet, or even a set of matches. Someone, something, that lived without fear of religious or racial or gender or sexual persecution, free of the influence of emo music, free from cramped department stores during the yuletide.

I see someone, something, that perhaps never read the works of Shakespeare, never rode a rollercoaster, never listened to Morrissey, never got to see RENT, maybe never even got to fall in love.  I wonder to myself who got the better end of the deal, her or me?