Scientists feel that human ancestor Lucy died after falling off a tree

The ancient human ancestor known as Lucy may have met her death more than 3 million years ago when she fell of a tree and crashed to the ground, a team of US researchers claim.

The researchers pointed out a number of cracks in the Lucy’s fossil bones that, according to them, match traumatic fractures in humans who suffer serious injuries from high falls. 

The paper, which was published in Nature, however, has been dismissed by scientists, who told UK’s The Guardian that a lot can happen to a skeleton in 3.2 million years. They say that the damage to the bones could be due to trampling by stampeding animals before sediments covered the bones. 

Lucy was discovered in 1974 when Donald Johanson and his student, Tom Gray, were searching for ancient animal bones on the parched terrain near the village of Hadar in northern Ethiopia. The chance finding of a piece of arm bone led them to uncover more remains of an ape-like animal.