Lucy and friends
Upper Paleolithic period
This is dear Lucy! In 1974, a team of palaeoanthropologists (scientists for very ancient people), under the direction of Donald Johanson, found a very very very ancient skeleton in the Afar Desert of northern Aethiopia. It was a 40% complete skeleton of a lady whom they named Lucy. She had been only 3.5-4 feet tall with a slender body. She lived 3.18-3.2 million years ago. Johanson classified her as an Australopithecus afarensis (that is: a Southern monkey of Afar). Many other specimens of this species and later ones were found in Ethiopia since 1974, but none is as complete as Lucy!
Lucy's 'family' of people did not make it to the future. But we, a different one, are here today. We have to give an analogous fight for survival, never assuming, that our presence is more secure than Lucy's.
for more, go to:
O' Neil, Dennis. 'Early Hominid Evolution Discovery of Early Hominids' at the wonderful ANTHROPOLOGY TUTORIAL, Behavioural Department of Palomar College, USA. <http://anthro.palomar.edu/tutorials/> retr.2007.