Modeling three-dimensional sculptures of australopithecines (Australopithecus afarensis) for the Museum of Natural History of Vienna (Austria): the post-cranial hypothesis.
In March 1999, E. Daynes, a sculptor specializing in fossil hominid reconstruction, asked C. Berge to take over the scientific supervision of the reconstruction of two australopithecine post-crania. The heads had been modeled from two skulls found in Hadar (AL 444-2, AL 417). The sculptures were to be represented in a walking stance. The female proportions (AL 417) are estimated from the skeleton of 'Lucy' (AL 288), and the male proportions (AL 444-2) extrapolated from the female ones. Biomechanical and anatomical data (comparison with great apes and humans) are used to reconstruct both dynamic equilibrium and muscular systems. The reconstruction suggests that the fossils moved the pelvis and shoulders extensively when they walked. The hindlimb muscles (such as adductors, gluteal muscles and calf) are fleshy and not or very little tendinous. As indicated by the Laetoli step prints (belonging to a close and contemporaneous species), the foot is adducted during the walk and the support is internal just before take off. In spite of inevitable approximations, such a reconstruction appears to be particularly helpful to bring out morphological and functional traits of the first hominids which are both close to and different from modern humans.
Berge
C
C
UMR 85 70, CNRS, Laboratoire d'Anatomie Comparée, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, 55 rue Buffon, 75005 Paris, France. berge@mnhn.fr
Daynes
E
E
D000818:Animals; D000883:Anthropology; D001824:Body Constitution; D001827:Body Height; D005260:Female; D005528:Foot / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D015186:Hominidae; D006801:Humans; D008124:Locomotion; D008297:Male; D008953:Models, Anatomic; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D009144:Museums