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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 ...
AL 129-1 is a fossilized knee joint of the species Australopithecus afarensis. It was discovered in Hadar, Ethiopia by Donald Johanson in November 1973. [2] [3] [4] It is estimated to be 3.4 million years old. [1] Its characteristics include an elliptical Lateral condyle and an oblique femoral shaft like that found in humans, indicating bipedalism.
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.
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.)
The whole team including Johanson concluded from Lucy's rib that she ate a plant-based diet and from her curved finger bones that she was probably still at home in trees. They did not immediately see Lucy as a separate species, but considered her an older member of Australopithecus africanus.
Yves Coppens (9 August 1934 – 22 June 2022) [1] was a French anthropologist and co-discoverer of "Lucy". A graduate from the University of Rennes and the Sorbonne, he studied ancient hominids and had multiple published works on this topic, and also produced a film.
Lovejoy is most well known for his work on reconstructing Lucy (Australopithecus)—a near-complete fossil of a human ancestor that walked upright more than three million years ago. His research has covered a broad spectrum of human biological areas from eukaryotic mutations to ectocranial suture closures.
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.