Every Day Is Special: early hominids

Showing posts with label early hominids. Show all posts

June 1 - Madaraka Day in Kenya

Posted on June 1, 2022

This is an update of my post published on June 1, 2011:

This national day commemorates the day that Kenya attained self-rule in 1963. (The nation was fully independent from the United Kingdom by December of the same year.) Kenyans will celebrate the day with speeches and shows. You can get idea of the sorts of shows are being put on today by watching this short video from last year's celebration.

In Kenya, as in other countries, there are folks who
wear traditional clothing - at least at times, such as
when performing or to celebrate special days - and
folks who wear "modern" clothing that can be seen
all over the world.

Kenya - the cradle of humanity?

Many archeologists, such as Richard Leakey, believe that humanity began in what we now call Kenya, because they have found ancient human skeletons and also skeletons from pre-human ancestors. One example is Turkana boy, who was Homo erectus. Other pre-human skeletons such as Lucy, the famous Australopithecus afarensis, have been found in nearby Ethiopia. And of course, although we know from the fossil record that humankind began in Africa, there are multiple claims of exactly WHERE in this huge continent. For example:

This photo of "the cradle of [hu]mankind" was
taken in South Africa, some 4 to 5 thousand
kilometers away from Kenya!

Read about early pre-humans and prehistoric humans with this video.

Learn more...

Here's a quick quiz about Kenya.

Here's a map game about all of Africa.

International Children's Day in Croatia

Clean Air Day in Canada
(First Wednesday in June)

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest boards for:

June holidays

June birthdays

Historical anniversaries in June

And here are my Pinterest boards for:

November 24, 2012 - Anniversary of the Discovery of “Lucy”

Lucy is one of the most famous of our long-ago ancestors. I'm not talking about a human named Lucy, I'm talking a LOT longer ago than that!

Lucy lived more than three million years ago!

Lucy is the name for the collection of several hundred pieces of bones that once made up almost half of a hominin (ancestor of modern humans) that we call Australopithecus afarensis. She and others of her kind were a bit taller than a yardstick (or meter stick)—Lucy is estimated to have been 3 feet 7 inches tall—and to weigh 60 to 70 pounds (around 29 kilograms). They walked upright like modern humans but had small brains like non-human apes.

Lucy was found on this date in 1974, in Ethiopia, in Africa.

Donald Johanson and other scientists made the discovery, which was quickly and widely publicized. Why did the archeologists call the skeleton Lucy? At the time of the discovery, the Beatles song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was playing loudly and repeatedly on a tape player at the archeological camp.

Check out...