Download the high-resolution image here

Lucy, the Australopithecus

November 24th, 1974 Lucy, an Australopithecus fossil was discovered in Hadar, Ethiopia by Donald Johanson. According to Johanson, he was playing the Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" while he was digging, and decided to call the fossil remains after the song.

Source: Durant, Will, The Story of Civilization, Vol. 1: Our Oriental Heritage, A history of civilization in Egypt and the Near East to the Death of Alexander, and in India, China, and Japan from the beginning. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1954.

Lucy the Australopithecus
Skeletal reconstruction of a female Australopithecus afarensis ( "Lucy" ), found in Hadar ( Ethiopia ) in 1974.
Image by Wolfgang Sauber under CC BY-SA 4.0 license

Back to archive



Full disclosure, I may occasionally borrow a sentence from Will Durant's Story of Civilization. I absolutely love that collection!