An Unexpected Meeting
Today I’m writing about history, not textile history, but
human evolutionary history.
Every once in a while, you meet someone truly by
chance. Last fall we were visiting
friends in Asheville, NC. Visiting, and, of course, shopping in Historic
Biltmore Village. One of our favorite
type of retail stores is a nature-related shop. We like hunting out the squirrel-proof bird feeders, and trying
on those vests with all the pockets. We
don’t have a use for the feeders where we live now, but when we lived back east
those squirrels drove us crazy, so I guess we are drawn to them by habit.
We happened into a lovely shop, The Compleat Naturalist,
Ltd.
While browsing the book selection
(we don’t need to frustrate hungry squirrels, but I never met a book which
could not add to my intellectual curiosity) an elderly gentleman approached
us. I assumed he was a service clerk,
but as it turned out he was the owner, Hal Mahan.
He asked if I knew about “Lucy”. As we were looking in the anthropology section, I knew he meant
Lucy, one of the earliest hominids discovered, as it happened, 40 years ago.
Mr. Mahan and his wife, Laura, had retired to Asheville but he could not retire from his love of natural science. His academic studies were at Michigan State University with a
master’s and doctorate degree in zoology.
In the 1960’s Mahan, while working at Central Michigan University,
established a museum training program for graduate students who had difficulty
finding jobs in academia. He later became director of the Cleveland Museum of
Natural History. Eight of these post-graduate students eventually became
directors of museums. It was one of his
protégés that brings us to Lucy. Mahan
was to meet with Richard Leakey, the director of the Kenya Natural Museum in
Nairobi who told of his expeditions and of his interest in Mahan’s training
program. Don Johansen was recommended
to Leakey and soon he was part of a field expedition in Hadar, Ethiopia. He was soon to telegraph Mahan ( who was
doing field work in a neighboring African country) of his discovery. Lucy was found nearly 44% complete, rather
than the odd tooth or bit of bone and came to live at the Cleveland Museum for
study.
Simon and Schuster Paperbacks, New York, 1981
Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind, written by Johansen and
Maitland Edey is the story of the discovery and final accreditation of
Australopithecus afarensis, nicknamed Lucy.
Usually, these anthropologic tales are a bit too scientific
for the non-paleontologist (like me). But this is a very well written volume
that begins with the earliest finds in the 18th and 19th
C and the controversies that seem to follow every scientific discovery.
I am now immersed in the reading of Lucy, thanks to a chance
meeting with one of the most interesting persons I have encountered in quite a
while.
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