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Lucy Catalog no. AL 288-1 Common name Lucy Species Australopithecus afarensis Age 3.2 million years Place discovered Afar Depression, Ethiopia Date discovered November 24, 1974 ; 50 years ago (1974-11-24) Discovered by Donald Johanson Maurice Taieb Yves Coppens Tom Gray AL 288-1, commonly known as Lucy or Dinkʼinesh, is a collection of several hundred pieces of fossilized bone comprising 40 ...
Lucy is the most famous fossil to have been found at Hadar. Lucy is among the oldest hominin fossils ever discovered [6] and was later given the taxonomic classification Australopithecus afarensis. (The name 'Lucy' was inspired by the song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" by The Beatles, which happened to be playing on the radio at base camp.)
Australopithecus afarensis at National Museum of Ethiopia. In 1974, American paleoanthropologist Donald Johnson excavated a 3.2-million-year-old early female Australopithecus afarensis (nicknamed "Lucy") in Hadar in the Awash Valley. Ethiopians refer to the fossil as "Dinqnesh". Lucy weighed about 60 pounds and stood three and a half feet tall. [3]
Lucy’s discovery transformed our understanding of human origins. Don Johanson, who unearthed the Australopithecus afarensis remains in 1974, recalls the moment he found the iconic fossil.
The scientific community took 20 more years to widely accept Australopithecus as a member of the human family tree. In 1997, an almost complete Australopithecus skeleton with skull was found in the Sterkfontein caves of Gauteng, South Africa. It is now called "Little Foot" and it is around 3.7 million years old.
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The team returned for the second field season in the following year and found hominid jaws. Then, on the morning of November 24, 1974, Johanson and Gray were searching in a gully about two and a half kilometres from the site where the knee joint had been discovered, where Johanson found the first fossil fragment of Lucy (Australopithecus). [3]
In 1974, scientists in Ethiopia, Africa, discover a skeleton of Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy) from around 3.2 million years ago. Lucy's ancestors had existed in a forested environment for 50 million years, living mainly on fruit.