Why are some fossils famous?

Author Lydia Pyne tells Steve Fast that “celebrity skeletons” such as Lucy and the infamous Piltdown Man have captures the attention of the public not because of their scientific importance but instead because they have a “good story to tell.”

Take, for instance, the impact of the hominin fossil “Lucy,” who as named after the Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.”

“She was able to offer evidence for lots of exciting scientific questions that paleoanthropology was interested in exploring,” Pyne says. “But she was also this really interesting find that sort of had a cultural life that went with her. That in her first media press release, before she even left Ethiopia , she had been given her name.”

In her book “Seven Skeletons: The Evolution of the World’s Most Famous Human Fossils,” Pyne writes about the finds with great scientific benefit, like Lucy, but also sketchy hoaxes, like Piltdown Man and the mysterious Taung Child, which went missing.

Listen to the interview: Lydia Pyne on The Steve Fast Show

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