Since her public debut in 1978, Lucy has been on a first-name basis with the world. Not bad for someone from rural Ethiopia who had been an unknown for 3.2 million years or so.
Paleoanthropologists Donald Johanson and Tom Gray had discovered Lucy’s fossilized bones a few years earlier (SN: 1/4/75, p. 4). That spectacular moment 50 years ago quickly upended how many scientists thought about human evolution.
Log in
Subscribers, enter your e-mail address for full access to the Science News archives and digital editions.
