Fifty years after a fossil skeleton of Australopithecus afarensis was unearthed in Ethiopia, we know so much more about how ...

A collection of 3-million-year-old bones unearthed 50 years ago in Ethiopia changed our understanding of human origins.

The 3.2-million-year-old fossil, discovered 50 years ago, is considered to be one of the most significant early hominin ...

Paleoanthropologists have learned a lot about Lucy, the world’s most famous hominin fossil, since she was discovered in 1974.

On the anniversary of Lucy’s discovery, paleoanthropologists reflect on what she means to science, and what she taught us ...

Lucy’s discovery transformed our understanding of human origins. Don Johanson, who unearthed the Australopithecus afarensis ...

Lucy lived in a wide range of habitats from northern Ethiopia to northern Kenya. Researchers now believe she wasn't the only ...

Perhaps most importantly, Lucy’s discovery foreshadowed a series of fossil finds that filled in the scientific picture of her species. By 1978, enough evidence had accumulated to establish Lucy as the ...

The modern story of Lucy began on Nov. 24, 1974, in Hadar, Ethiopia. Johanson and then-graduate student Tom Gray stumbled upon a bone poking out of a gully. Following two weeks of careful ...

Very few people had been to this region of Ethiopia, and people began launching their own expeditions and finding even more exciting things in some ways. But I think that Lucy was the spark.

An old photo of Donald Johanson sitting in the dirt and excavating a bone The modern story of Lucy began on Nov. 24, 1974, in Hadar, Ethiopia. Johanson and then-graduate student Tom Gray stumbled ...

They call them Denisovans. How have views of Lucy changed over the last 50 years? Donald Johanson is pictured here in Hadar, Ethiopia, in 1974. - Courtesy Institute of Human Origins/Arizona State ...