MOTHER OF MAN - 3.2 million years ago

“One fossil discovery has transformed views of how we became human.

Lucy was discovered in 1974 in a maze of ravines at Hadar in northern Ethiopia.

Johanson and Gray were out searching the scorched when they spotted a tiny fragment of arm bone.

Johanson named the fossil skeleton Lucy

Discovery of a lifetime

Johanson immediately recognised it as belonging to a hominid. They looked up the slope, and they saw more bone fragments: ribs, vertebrae, thighbones and a partial jawbone.

They unearthed 47 bones of a hominid, or humanlike creature, that lived around 3.2 million years ago.

Because of its small size, and pelvic shape, they concluded it was female and named it 'Lucy'

An upright chimp

Like a chimpanzee, Lucy had a small brain, long, dangly arms, short legs and a cone-shaped thorax with a large belly. But the structure of her knee and pelvis show that she routinely walked upright on two legs, like us.

This form of locomotion, known as 'bipedalism' placed Lucy firmly within the human family.

Admired from Afar

Johanson named Lucy's species Australopithecus afarensis, which means 'southern ape of Afar', after the Ethiopian region where Hadar is located.

3.5 million years ago, Australopithecus afarensis foraged for fruit, nuts and seeds in a mixture of savannah and woodland. It may also have obtained animal protein from termites or birds' eggs”.