Sunday will mark 50 years since the discovery of the "Lucy" fossil in Ethiopia, a 3.2-million-year-old specimen whose rare completeness has made it the reference point for subsequent hominin fossil discoveries. The 3.5-foot-tall, 40% complete Australopithecus afarensis fossil is currently housed in the National Museum of Ethiopia (see facts and photos).
Paleoanthropologists first discovered her elbow Nov. 24, 1974, at an excavation site in Hadar, Ethiopia, eventually identifying and arranging over 40 skeletal parts. Named after a Beatles song, she was the first hominin fossil to surpass 3 million years in age and proved our human ancestors evolved to walk on two legs prior to our increase in brain size. For decades, she was believed to be the earliest known ancestor of our genus and held up as the matriarch of humanity.
Older, less complete hominin specimens have since been identified, prompting debate over which species is most closely linked to modern humans. Read about more recent discoveries here.
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