Fifty years ago, scientists discovered an almost completely fossilized skull and hundreds of bone fragments belonging to a female of this species. Australopithecus afarensis This 3.2 million-year-old creature is often called the “mother of us all.” In the celebrations following its opening, it was named “Lucy”, inspired by the Beatles’ song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”.

Although Lucy has solved some evolutionary mysteries, her appearance remains an ancestral mystery. Popular illustrations clothe him in thick, reddish-brown fur; his face, arms, legs, and chest peeking out from the thicker underbrush. Technological advances in genetic analysis suggest that Lucy may have been naked, or at least had a much thinner covering.

According to the common evolutionary history of humans and lice, our recent ancestors lost most of their body fur 3-4 million years ago and did not wear clothes until 83,000-170,000 years ago.

This means that for more than 2.5 million years, early humans and their ancestors were completely naked. As a philosopher, I am interested in how modern culture affects our perception of the past. And how Lucy is portrayed in newspapers, textbooks, and museums may say more about us than it does about her.

From nakedness to shame

Loss of body hair in early humans was likely influenced by a combination of factors such as thermoregulation, delayed physiological development, attraction to sexual partners, and defense against parasites. Environmental, social, and cultural factors may have contributed to the clothing’s eventual adoption.

Both strands of research – when and why hominins lost body hair and when and why they eventually wore clothing – highlight the enormous size of the brain, which takes years to form and requires a disproportionate amount of energy to maintain, compared to other parts of the brain. body.

Because human infants require a long period of care to survive on their own, researchers across evolutionary disciplines have theorized that early humans adopted a pair-bonding strategy in which the male and female partnered after establishing a strong affinity for each other. Working together makes it easier for them to cope with years of parental care.

But the couple’s relationship is fraught with risks.

Since humans are social and live in large groups, they will inevitably be tempted to break the monogamous agreement, which will make child rearing difficult. Some mechanism was needed to ensure the socio-sexual agreement. This mechanism must have been embarrassing.

What’s the Problem with Nudity? In his documentary, Evolutionary anthropologist Daniel MT Fessler explains the evolution of shame: “The human body is the ultimate sexual advertisement… Nudity is a threat to the basic social contract because it is an invitation to apostasy… Shame encourages us to remain faithful to our partners and share our common feelings. Responsibility of raising children”.

Boundaries between body and world

Humans, aptly called “naked apes,” are unique in that they have no fur and have systematically adopted clothing. But through the prohibition of nudity, “nudity” became a reality. As human civilization progressed, it became necessary to introduce measures to enforce the social contract (fines, laws, social commands), especially for women.

This is how the shameful attitude towards human nakedness was born. Being naked means breaking social norms and rules. Therefore, you tend to feel shame. But what is considered nudity in one context may not be considered nudity in another.

For example, in Victorian England, bare ankles caused a scandal. Today, bare tops are commonplace on the French Mediterranean coast. When it comes to nudity, art doesn’t necessarily have to imitate life.

In critiquing the European oil painting tradition, art critic John Berger distinguishes between nudism (“being yourself” without clothes) and “nudity”, an art form that transforms a woman’s naked body into a pleasing image for men.

Feminist critics such as Ruth Barkan have complicated Berger’s distinction between nudity and nakedness, insisting that nudity is already shaped by idealized representations.

In his book Nudity: A Cultural Anatomy, Barkan shows that nudity is not a neutral situation, but a situation filled with meaning and expectations. He defines the “feeling of nakedness” as “the increased perception of temperature and air movement, the loss of the usual boundary between body and world, and the effects of the actual gaze of others” or “the internalized gaze of an imaginary person.” other.” “

Nudity can evoke a variety of emotions, 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

Despite the thickness of her fur, Lucy was not naked.

But just as nudity is a form of clothing, Lucy has been represented since her discovery in ways that reflect historical assumptions about motherhood and the nuclear family. For example, Lucy is depicted either with a friend or alone with her husband and children. The facial expression is warm and content or protective and reflects the idealized image of motherhood.

The modern quest to visualize our distant ancestors has been criticized as a kind of “erotic fantasy science” in which scientists attempt to fill in the gaps of the past based on their own assumptions about women, men, and their relationships with each other.

An interdisciplinary team of researchers tried a different approach in their 2021 paper “Visual Images of Our Evolutionary Past.” They detail the reconstruction of the Lucy fossil, highlighting their methods, the relationship between art and science, and the decisions made to fill gaps in scientific knowledge.

Their processes contrast with other hominid reconstructions, which often lack strong empirical support and perpetuate misogynistic and racial misconceptions about human evolution. Historically, paintings showing stages of human evolution often ended with a white European male. And many reconstructions of female hominids exaggerate features aggressively associated with black women.

Sculptor Gabriel Vinas, one of the co-authors of Visuals, offers a visual explanation for Lucy’s reconstruction in Santa Lucia; A marble sculpture of Lucy as a nude figure wrapped in translucent cloth represents the artist’s and Lucy’s own uncertainty. mysterious appearance.

Veiled Lucy describes the complex relationship between nudity, veiling, sex and shame. But it also portrays Lucy as a virginal veil, a figure revered for her sexual “purity”.

And yet I can’t help but imagine a Lucy outside of clothes, a Lucy who isn’t in a diamond-covered sky and not frozen in her idealization of motherhood—a Lucy who will speak of the veil thrown over her, even if she may find herself having to wear a Guerrilla Girls mask.