Lucy’s species heralded the rise of long childhoods in hominids
Prolonged brain growth was already a feature for hominids before Homo genus members appeared
A more than 3-million-year-old hominid species called Australopithecus afarensis, represented here by an adult’s reconstructed skull, foreshadowed the long period of childhood brain growth typical of people today, a new study suggests.
Lorenza photography / Alamy Stock Photo