Lucy
She was a young Ethiopian, fully mature, adult of about 25 years when she died; of the species Australopithecus afarensis
French geologist Maurice Taieb discovered the Hadar Formation in the Afar Triangle of Ethiopia in 1972.
He then formed the International Afar Research Expedition (IARE), inviting three scientists from three countries to co-direct the research.
Lucy was found by Donald Johanson and Tom Gray on the November 24, 1974, at the site of Hadar in Ethiopia. They had taken a Land Rover out that day to map in another locality. After a long, hot morning of mapping and surveying for fossils, they decided to head back to the vehicle. Johanson suggested taking an alternate route back to the Land Rover, through a nearby gully. Within moments, he spotted a right proximal ulna (forearm bone) and quickly identified it as a hominid. Shortly thereafter, he saw an occipital (skull) bone, then a femur, some ribs, a pelvis, and the lower jaw. Two weeks later, after many hours of excavation, screening, and sorting, several hundred fragments of bone had been recovered, representing 40 percent of a single hominid skeleton.
Later in the night of November 24, there was much celebration and excitement over the discovery of what looked like a fairly complete hominid skeleton. There was drinking, dancing, and singing; the Beatles’ song “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” was playing over and over. At some point during that night, no one remembers when or by whom, the skeleton was given the name “Lucy.” The name has stuck.
Under an agreement with the government of Ethiopia, Johanson brought the skeleton back to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History in Cleveland where it was reconstructed by Owen Lovejoy. It was returned to us, Ethiopia according to agreement some 9 years later. Lucy as a fossil hominid captured public notice, becoming almost a household name at the time.
Using 40Ar/39Ar (Argon-Argon) dating technique of the volcanic ash deposits, Lucy is dated to 3.2 million years old.
Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds - The Beatles (lyrics)
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