San Francisco, Fifty years ago, scientists discovered a nearly complete fossilized skull and hundreds of bone pieces from a 3.2-million-year-old female specimen of the genus Australopithecus afarensis, often described as “the mother of us all.” During a celebration following her discovery, she was named "Lucy," after the Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds."
Although Lucy has solved some evolutionary puzzles, what she looks like remains an ancient secret.
Popular depictions of her dress her in thick reddish-brown fur, with her face, hands, feet, and breasts peeking out from denser bushes. It turns out this furry image of Lucy might be wrong.
Technological advances in genetic analysis suggest that Lucy may have been naked, or at least much more thinly veiled.
According to the coevolutionary history of humans and their lice, our immediate ancestors lost most of their body fur 3 or 4 million years ago and did not put on clothes until 83,000 to 170,000 years ago. That means that for more than 2, 5 million years ago, early humans and their ancestors were simply naked.
As a philosopher, I am interested in how modern culture influences representations of the past. And the way Lucy has been portrayed in newspapers, textbooks and museums may reveal more about us than about her.
From nakedness to shameThe loss of body hair in early humans was likely influenced by a combination of factors, including thermoregulation, delayed physiological development, attraction to sexual partners, and protection from parasites. Environmental, social, and cultural factors may have encouraged the eventual adoption of clothing.
Both areas of research (when and why hominids shed their body hair and when and why they eventually clothed themselves) emphasize the large size of the brain, which takes years to nourish and requires a disproportionate amount of energy to sustain compared to other parts. of the brain. the body.
Because human babies require a long period of care before they can survive on their own, interdisciplinary evolutionary researchers have theorized that early humans adopted the pair-bonding strategy: a man and a woman partnering after forming a strong affinity with each other. By working together, the two of you can more easily manage years of parental care. However, pair bonding comes with risks.
Because humans are social and live in large groups, they are likely to be tempted to break the monogamy pact, which would make raising children more difficult.
Some mechanism was needed to ensure the social-sexual pact. That mechanism was probably a shame. In the documentary "What's the Problem with Nudity?" Evolutionary anthropologist Daniel M.T. Fessler explains the evolution of shame: “The human body is a supreme sexual advertisement... Nudity is a threat to the basic social contract, because it is an invitation to defection... Shame encourages us to remain faithful to our partners. and share the responsibility of raising our children.”
Boundaries between the body and the world
Humans, aptly described as “naked apes,” are unique for their lack of skin and systematic adoption of clothing. Only with the prohibition of nudity did “nudity” become a reality. As human civilization developed, measures had to be implemented to enforce the social contract (punitive penalties, laws, social dictates), especially with respect to women.
Thus was born the relationship between shame and human nudity. Being naked is breaking social rules and regulations. Therefore, you are prone to feeling shame.
However, what is considered nude in one context may not be so in another. Bare ankles in Victorian England, for example, caused a scandal. Nowadays, naked tops on a French Mediterranean beach are commonplace.
When it comes to nudity, art doesn't necessarily imitate life.
In his critique of the European oil painting tradition, art critic John Berger distinguishes between nudity – “being yourself” without clothes – and “the nude,” an art form that transforms a woman's naked body. into a pleasurable spectacle for men.Feminist critics such as Ruth Barcan complicated Berger's distinction between nakedness and nakedness, insisting that nakedness is already shaped by idealized representations.
In “Nudity: A Cultural Anatomy,” Barcan demonstrates how nudity is not a neutral state but is loaded with meaning and expectations. She describes "feeling naked" as "the heightened perception of temperature and air movement, the loss of the familiar boundary between body and world, as well as the effects of the actual gaze of others" or "the internalized gaze of an imagined other". "
Nudity can provoke a range of feelings, from eroticism and intimacy to vulnerability, fear and shame. But there is no such thing as nudity outside of social norms and cultural practices.Lucy's Veils
Regardless of the density of her fur, Lucy was not naked.
But just as the nude is a kind of dress, Lucy, since her discovery, has been presented in ways that reflect historical assumptions about motherhood and the nuclear family. For example, Lucy is depicted alone with a male companion or with a male companion and children. Their facial expressions are warm and content or protective, and reflect idealized images of motherhood. The modern quest to visualize our distant ancestors has been criticized as a kind of “erotic fantasy science,” in which scientists try to fill in the gaps. of the past based on their own assumptions about women, men, and their relationships with each other.
In their 2021 paper “Visual Representations of Our Evolutionary Past,” an interdisciplinary team of researchers attempted a different approach. They detail their own reconstruction of Lucy's fossil, highlighting her methods, the relationship between art and science, and the decisions made to fill in gaps in scientific knowledge.
Their process contrasts with other hominid reconstructions, which often lack strong empirical justifications and perpetuate misogynistic and racialized misconceptions about human evolution. Historically, illustrations of the stages of human evolution have tended to culminate in a white European male. And many reconstructions of female hominids exaggerate traits offensively associated with black women. One of the co-authors of “Visual Depictions,” sculptor Gabriel Viñas, offers a visual clarification of the reconstruction of Lucy in “Santa Lucía”: a marble sculpture of Lucy as a naked figure wrapped in translucent fabric, representing the artist's own and Lucy's uncertainties. mysterious appearance.
Veiled Lucy speaks to the complex relationships between nudity, covering, sex and shame. But he also presents Lucy as a veiled virgin, a figure revered for her sexual “purity.”
And yet, I can't help but imagine Lucy beyond the fabric, a Lucy who is neither in heaven with diamonds nor frozen in maternal idealization: a Lucy becoming "Apeshit" because of the veils that cover her, a Lucy who she might be forced to wear a Guerrilla Girls mask, if anything. (The conversation) RUPRUP
Although Lucy has solved some evolutionary puzzles, what she looks like remains an ancient secret.
Popular depictions of her dress her in thick reddish-brown fur, with her face, hands, feet, and breasts peeking out from denser bushes. It turns out this furry image of Lucy might be wrong.
Technological advances in genetic analysis suggest that Lucy may have been naked, or at least much more thinly veiled.
According to the coevolutionary history of humans and their lice, our immediate ancestors lost most of their body fur 3 or 4 million years ago and did not put on clothes until 83,000 to 170,000 years ago. That means that for more than 2, 5 million years ago, early humans and their ancestors were simply naked.
As a philosopher, I am interested in how modern culture influences representations of the past. And the way Lucy has been portrayed in newspapers, textbooks and museums may reveal more about us than about her.
From nakedness to shameThe loss of body hair in early humans was likely influenced by a combination of factors, including thermoregulation, delayed physiological development, attraction to sexual partners, and protection from parasites. Environmental, social, and cultural factors may have encouraged the eventual adoption of clothing.
Both areas of research (when and why hominids shed their body hair and when and why they eventually clothed themselves) emphasize the large size of the brain, which takes years to nourish and requires a disproportionate amount of energy to sustain compared to other parts. of the brain. the body.
Because human babies require a long period of care before they can survive on their own, interdisciplinary evolutionary researchers have theorized that early humans adopted the pair-bonding strategy: a man and a woman partnering after forming a strong affinity with each other. By working together, the two of you can more easily manage years of parental care. However, pair bonding comes with risks.
Because humans are social and live in large groups, they are likely to be tempted to break the monogamy pact, which would make raising children more difficult.
Some mechanism was needed to ensure the social-sexual pact. That mechanism was probably a shame. In the documentary "What's the Problem with Nudity?" Evolutionary anthropologist Daniel M.T. Fessler explains the evolution of shame: “The human body is a supreme sexual advertisement... Nudity is a threat to the basic social contract, because it is an invitation to defection... Shame encourages us to remain faithful to our partners. and share the responsibility of raising our children.”
Boundaries between the body and the world
Humans, aptly described as “naked apes,” are unique for their lack of skin and systematic adoption of clothing. Only with the prohibition of nudity did “nudity” become a reality. As human civilization developed, measures had to be implemented to enforce the social contract (punitive penalties, laws, social dictates), especially with respect to women.
Thus was born the relationship between shame and human nudity. Being naked is breaking social rules and regulations. Therefore, you are prone to feeling shame.
However, what is considered nude in one context may not be so in another. Bare ankles in Victorian England, for example, caused a scandal. Nowadays, naked tops on a French Mediterranean beach are commonplace.
When it comes to nudity, art doesn't necessarily imitate life.
In his critique of the European oil painting tradition, art critic John Berger distinguishes between nudity – “being yourself” without clothes – and “the nude,” an art form that transforms a woman's naked body. into a pleasurable spectacle for men.Feminist critics such as Ruth Barcan complicated Berger's distinction between nakedness and nakedness, insisting that nakedness is already shaped by idealized representations.
In “Nudity: A Cultural Anatomy,” Barcan demonstrates how nudity is not a neutral state but is loaded with meaning and expectations. She describes "feeling naked" as "the heightened perception of temperature and air movement, the loss of the familiar boundary between body and world, as well as the effects of the actual gaze of others" or "the internalized gaze of an imagined other". "
Nudity can provoke a range of feelings, from eroticism and intimacy to vulnerability, fear and shame. But there is no such thing as nudity outside of social norms and cultural practices.Lucy's Veils
Regardless of the density of her fur, Lucy was not naked.
But just as the nude is a kind of dress, Lucy, since her discovery, has been presented in ways that reflect historical assumptions about motherhood and the nuclear family. For example, Lucy is depicted alone with a male companion or with a male companion and children. Their facial expressions are warm and content or protective, and reflect idealized images of motherhood. The modern quest to visualize our distant ancestors has been criticized as a kind of “erotic fantasy science,” in which scientists try to fill in the gaps. of the past based on their own assumptions about women, men, and their relationships with each other.
In their 2021 paper “Visual Representations of Our Evolutionary Past,” an interdisciplinary team of researchers attempted a different approach. They detail their own reconstruction of Lucy's fossil, highlighting her methods, the relationship between art and science, and the decisions made to fill in gaps in scientific knowledge.
Their process contrasts with other hominid reconstructions, which often lack strong empirical justifications and perpetuate misogynistic and racialized misconceptions about human evolution. Historically, illustrations of the stages of human evolution have tended to culminate in a white European male. And many reconstructions of female hominids exaggerate traits offensively associated with black women. One of the co-authors of “Visual Depictions,” sculptor Gabriel Viñas, offers a visual clarification of the reconstruction of Lucy in “Santa Lucía”: a marble sculpture of Lucy as a naked figure wrapped in translucent fabric, representing the artist's own and Lucy's uncertainties. mysterious appearance.
Veiled Lucy speaks to the complex relationships between nudity, covering, sex and shame. But he also presents Lucy as a veiled virgin, a figure revered for her sexual “purity.”
And yet, I can't help but imagine Lucy beyond the fabric, a Lucy who is neither in heaven with diamonds nor frozen in maternal idealization: a Lucy becoming "Apeshit" because of the veils that cover her, a Lucy who she might be forced to wear a Guerrilla Girls mask, if anything. (The conversation) RUPRUP
