4 MILLION YEAR OLD BONES FOUND IN ETHIOPIA [LUCY]

                                                                       

Johanson finds 4 million-year-old Lucy1974 Photo: X-ray photo of the "Lucy skeleton.   In 1973, Donald Johanson was in the Afar, part of the Hadar region of Ethiopia, with the International Afar Research Expedition. He made a dramatic fossil find -- the leg bones of 3-million-year-old hominid. The bones' size and shape indicated that this individual walked upright, making it the oldest hominid on record to do so. This discovery helped Johanson raise enough money to continue the expedition in the Afar. On November 30, 1974, Johanson and another member of the expedition discovered small bones from one individual -- it was a hominid, but looked different from any they were familiar with. Everyone at the site joined in the search for more of this specimen and collected hundreds of pieces. The pieces did appear to be from the same individual, and made up 40 percent of a skeleton. The pelvis showed it had been a female, and the team named her Lucy after the Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." Lucy had a small brain and was only about one meter tall. Since bones from both left and right sides were found, mirror images could be constructed to put together 70 percent of her skeleton. More than one dating technique put her age at about 3.5 million years. (Johanson's earlier leg bone find was dated at 4 million years old.) The team kept working at the site and found other, more modern hominids together with stone tools. By 1976, however, Ethiopia's political situation was unstable, making further excavations unsafe or impossible. - PBS.ORG