Mood:
brightTopic: "Thy Name be Peace" (2)
Selam was only three years old when she slipped from her mother's arms, and was carried away by the raging torrent of what was probably a flash flood. The despair of her clan was heightened by the fact that her little body was never found, that is not for another 3,299,994 years.
In the Great Rift Valley of Ethiopia, an almost complete skeleton of the species Australopithecus afarensis was added to the collection that stars Lucy, discovered in the same area in 1974 by Richard Johansen. Scientists believe that Selam predates Lucy by approximately 100,000 years, which makes the find even more scientifically important, but regrettably not a reunion of mother and child (Frodo will always be the romantic, despite the odds).
The scientific debate which emanates from finds such as these is as intense as any current political struggle anywhere in the world. Some believe that Selam's comparatively long arms prove that she could not only walk upright, but that she had the capacity to swing through the trees, thereby heightening the probability that evolutionary processes can be confirmed by the fossil record. Others believe that she was either pure hominid, or pure ape. Two of the most important pieces of information will come from the reconstruction of the foot, and from the confirmed presence of a hyoid bone. The first may exhibit an opposable toe (akin to the thumb on your hand, dear reader), which would exist for climbing purposes. The second, which is a small connector of the tongue, is only the second example ever found in the fossil history of any potential human ancestor. It will indicate the proximity of the voice of Selam, be she more human than chimpanzee, or vice versa.
Frodo has a life's dream, and that dream is to someday walk in the Great Rift Valley. His scientific sense of adventure, his searching for the links to an ancient past are all factors in that great dream. The real reason is the romantic. Wouldn't it be something to find Selam's Mother, and to quiet the wailful winds that have haunted all of human history? To answer one of life's tragic mysteries.
Talk about a neat story line for "Cold Case Files."
