According to Richard Leakey, who along with Johanson is probably the best-known fossil-anthropologist in the world, Lucy’s skull is so incomplete that most of it is ‘imagination made of plaster of paris’.1 Leakey even said in 1983 that no firm conclusion could be drawn about what species Lucy belonged to.
In reinforcement of the fact that Lucy is not a creature ‘in between’ ape and man, Dr Charles Oxnard, Professor of Anatomy and Human Biology at the University of Western Australia, said in 1987 of the australopithecines (the group to which Lucy is said to have belonged):
“‘imagination made of plaster of paris’” I liked that ,,,,,sort of like “liberal “thought”
There are hundreds of similar and related fossils. Many found and validated since 1987. If Lucy was a “one of” there would be many grounds to question her relationships but there are too many similar fossil creatures to toss her to the side. No one can yet definitely tie her to us, that’s not how it works but until someone else comes around in her time period with more human like attributes, Lucy is it.