Lucy Discovered in Ethiopia: 3 Million Years of Evolution
Donald Johanson discovered the fossil skeleton he named Lucy in the Afar Depression of Ethiopia on November 30, 1974. The 3.2-million-year-old Australopithecus afarensis skeleton was roughly 40% complete, making it the most complete early hominin fossil found at that time. The team named her Lucy because 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' was playing on repeat at camp that night. Standing about 3 feet 7 inches tall, Lucy's pelvis, femur, and tibia showed she walked upright, proving bipedalism preceded significant brain expansion by over a million years. Her brain was roughly the size of a chimpanzee's. The discovery forced paleoanthropologists to rethink the relationship between walking upright and intelligence: humans evolved legs before they evolved minds. Lucy is housed at the National Museum of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa.
November 30, 1974
52 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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