The Discovery of Lucy in 1974

Donald Johanson and his colleague Tom Gray spent a sweltering morning exploring the badlands of the Afar Triangle near Hadar, Ethiopia. The date was November 30, 1974 and they were on an expedition to collect fossil hominids from rocks ranging from five to two million years old.

After several hours of tiring labor, during which only a few teeth and bone fragments of horse, monkey, pig, and antelope were found, they were ready for a break. Lunch would soon be served back in camp, where they could get out of the blazing 110 degree sun for a while.

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Donald Johanson Discovers a Hominid Arm Bone

Johanson had a peculiar feeling that today was his lucky day. On the hike back to camp, his intuition proved stunningly accurate. Not wanting to waste time walking over sediments he had already seen, he decided to take a detour through a gulley and scan the rock layers as he went. He didn’t find much bone and was about to leave the gulley when a small bone fragment caught his eye.

Johanson immediately recognized the bone as a portion of hominid arm. Soon, he and Gray found parts of a skull, leg bone, pelvis, and more. It later became obvious that all of these bones were from a single individual, since there was no duplication of bones (only one skull, for instance). They eventually recovered 40% of the skeleton.

After excitedly jumping around like two school children, Johanson realized they better stop their celebration, lest they crush a fossil in their exuberance. They marked the spot and then sped back to camp to tell the other expedition members. By afternoon, the whole team was at the fossil site, excavating this exciting new find.

Beatles Song Inspires the Name Lucy for First Specimen of Australopithecus afarensis

In camp that night, the team celebrated a find that would later rock the world – the discovery of our oldest human ancestor. Beer flowed freely and music was blasted on a tape player. One Beatles song, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, was repeatedly played, increasing the already sky-high feeling the expedition members were feeling. Sometime during all of this hoopla, someone linked the character of this song to the specimen, and perhaps the most famous fossil ever, Lucy, was officially christened.

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A year after discovering Lucy, Johanson was back in Ethiopia and recovered The First Family, a remarkable set of bones from 13 individuals. After further discoveries and countless hours poring over specimens, Johanson and colleagues gave Lucy, The First Family, and other similar fossils the scientific name Australopithecus afarensis, “the southern ape from Afar”

Donald Johanson's Career

During Johanson’s early years of research, he was a curator at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. He founded the Institute of Human Origins (IHO) in Berkeley, California in 1981. Dedicated to the recovery and analysis of fossil evidence for human evolution, the IHO remains today a major center for paleoanthropological research. In 1997, the IHO moved its headquarters to Arizona State University, with Johanson still serving as director and a professor of anthropology.

In addition to Ethiopia, Johanson has also carried out research in Tanzania, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Yemen. He is the author of numerous best-selling books and both scientific and popular articles. He is a frequent lecturer around the world and recipient of many scientific awards and prizes.

Aside from being a leading scientist, Johanson has proven to be extremely adept at popularizing his own field of paleoanthropology. During his career, he has significantly increased our knowledge of human history and development and, although his studies have taken him deep into the past, his work is tied to hopes for preserving the world for generations to come. “If we are guardians of the past,” he says, “we must also be guardians of the future.”

References
Johanson, Donald & Maitland Edey. 1981. Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind. Simon & Schuster.

Lucy (Australopithecus)

Lucy's Story