Afarensis is a 3.5-2.8 million year old hominin from the Kada Hadar member of the Hadar formation in the Middle Awash, Ethiopia. He is approximately 41 inches tall, weighs approximately 60 pounds and has a cranial capacity of a whopping 410 cc (approximately). Afarensis is currently considered to be transitional between apes and humans and displays some traits of both. Since he spends a lot of time on the couch watching monster movies, some observers question whether he is an obligate biped (although no one has observed him climbing a tree). He also has a blog called 
This article is interesting from a forensic anthropology point of view. Hunters do tend to find a large number of skeletal remains and frequently bring them to the attention of the authorities.
When I was at the University of Tennessee we would occasionally have someone come in bearing a bone or bones they had found while out hunting, hiking or fishing. Dr. Bass is well known in the state of Tennessee, to the point that a lot of peopled willed their body to his research facility. Naturally when someone found a bone they would take it to UT and Dr. Bass. For the most part the bone turned out to be a deer metacarpal - which are quite long and could be mistaken for a human long bone - which disappointed the person bringing it. Another leading cause of bones, or skeletons, being found are dogs. Whether they be from people taking their dog to the park or rural residents letting their dog out, quite a few dogs come back with a bone in their mouth. If it turns out to be human the fun part of actually finding where the dog got the bone from begins.
Over and above the scientific value of places like Dr. Bass' facility, the good they do also comes from letting people know where to go with bones they have found. Ultimately, this ends in a positive identification of the remains and the arrest of the killer. Sometimes it doesn't, sometimes we can never put a name to the remains. Dr. Bass had several cases like that and I can vouch for the fact that he still thought about them. The same could be said for countless other forensic anthropologists around the country. A small consolation is that at least you know and care about the nameless victim and have done your best to tell that persons story.
Pity St. Louis doesn't have a facility like that...
Humanities & Social Science
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Swedish burnt-bone osteology took off in the 50s after a worker at a garbage incineration plant pulled something he thought was a murdered child out of his incinerator. Prof. Nils-Gustav Gejvall showed that the burnt remains actually belonged to a cow fetus.
Posted by: Martin R | November 16, 2007 1:08 PM