http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141127-lucy-fossil-revealed-our-origins

The "Lucy" Fossil Rewrote The Story of Humanity

November 27 2014 

Melissa Hoggenbom

Summary: I have chosen an article about a skeleton discovered that was around 3.2 million years old which the scientists on the team named Lucy because it looked female due to the size of the skeleton. Lucy was part of a new specie classified officially as Austrolopithecus Afarensis. Scientists who discovered the fossils noticed that the brain size was considerably larger than that of a baboon's and the teeth were more like that of a human child, rather than a Chimpanzee. They also concluded that this new specie walked upright due to the location of the foramen magnum. The skeleton of Lucy was described to be more ape like than other Austrolopithecus which means she could be the earliest human skeleton that we have ever found. Studies have shown the reason she became a biped was because she was expanding her diet and was able to access food that apes weren't able to get. 

Connection: This connects to evolution because the discovery of a species this closely related to human suggests where the human race actually originated from. At the time of the discovery of the African skull in 1925 the most popular belief was that the human race was changed influentially in Asia and Europe, and was discredited as just another chimp that was unimportant. The finding of a new species in Africa in between human and chimp that dates back 2.8 million years is a crucial piece of evidence in order for us to know how we became like we are today. It also showed that we became bipeds because because of the expansion of the diet that would've been near impossible as a quadraped. Lucy may be the key o discovering how humans came to be.