For decades after Lucy's discovery, paleoanthropologists assumed A. afarensis was the only hominin that lived in this region during the middle Pliocene epoch (3 million to 4 million years ago).

'Lucy' is a collection of fossilised bones that once made up the skeleton of a hominid from the Australopithecus afarensis species. She lived in Ethiopia 3.2 million years ago.

A sculptor's rendering of "Lucy," Australopithecus afarensis, at the Houston Museum of Natural Science on August 28, 2007. Dave Einsel / Getty Images About 3.2 million years ago, among the ...

More than three million years after her death, the early human ancestor known as Lucy is still divulging her secrets. In 2016, an autopsy indicated that the female Australopithecus afarensis ...

The rare fossil, representing 40% of a skeleton belonging to a female Australopithecus afarensis, was named “Lucy,” for the Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.” ...

As evidence for A. afarensis grew, Lucy came to symbolize the entire species. The Hadar field team in 1974 (shown) excavated hundreds of fossil fragments belonging to Lucy’s skeleton.

Thanks to Johanson's 1974 discovery of Lucy — as well as other important findings, like the "First Family" and the footprints at Laetoli in Tanzania — we now know quite a lot about A. afarensis.

A 3D polygonal model, guided by imaging scan data and muscle scarring, reconstructing the lower limb muscles of the Australopithecus afarensis fossil AL 288-1, known as ‘Lucy’.

She was assigned to a new species, Australopithecus afarensis, and given the reference number A.L.288-1, which stands for “Afar locality 288,” the spot where she, the first hominin fossil, was ...

For decades after Lucy's discovery, paleoanthropologists assumed A. afarensis was the only hominin that lived in this region during the middle Pliocene epoch (3 million to 4 million years ago).