Fig. 2. The skeleton of one individual of Australopithecus afarensis. Members of this early hominid species were relatively small and short, with females weighing approximately 30 kg and standing about 1.05 m tall (McHenry 1991b, 1992). These early hominids were gracile with small and loosely stabilized limb and vertebral joints and distinctly curved phalanges (Stern and Susman, 1983), features that are also found in many extant apes. Like living apes, they also had relatively long upper limbs compared to the lower limbs, a condition that is also found in later australopithecines (McHenry and Berger, 1998). Many of the ape-like features of the postcranial skeleton are also found in earlier australopithecines (Ward et al., 1999). Exactly how these features should be interpreted is the subject of considerable debate (Susman et al., 1984; Latimer, 1991; Stern, 2000; Lovejoy et al., 2002; Ward, 2002), although the joint morphology suggests a different loading pattern from that found in modern humans (Stern and Susman, 1983; Schmitt et al., 1996, 1999). The image is modified from Fleagle (1999).

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