A_Link_To_The_Past

A Link To The Past Lucy is one of the most famous archaeological specimens ever found. She is a part ape, part-human fossil that was found in the Great Rift Valley on November 30, 1974. Locating human branches of primate evolution through the findings of fossils is difficult. Lucy is the first link found to support the evolution theory and is still an important piece of data today. Donald Johanson and his team had by chance found a fossil of a knee joint on a walk through the Rift Valley. They later gathered volcanic ash from around the specimen and tested it to find the date. It turned out the fossil was over 3 million years old and there was about forty percent of the entire skeleton preserved. They called her "Lucy", after the Beatles song, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." She was the first fossil found of the species Australopithecus afarensis and with all of these factors combined, Lucy became known as one of the most remarkable finds of science. Australopithecus afarensis lived from approximately 4 to 2.7 million years ago along the northern Rift valley of east Africa, and perhaps even earlier. Fragments of more lucy, species, human, found, years, afarensis, million, hominid, about, one, fossil, australopithecus, ago, africa, upper, size, lived, even, discovered, beings, been, approximately, ape, valley, upright, time, through, teeth, social, small, skeleton, science, rift, remains, over