Donald Johanson

When the skeleton of this animal was first discovered, it was given a rather more catchy name, Lucy.

And the man who found her was Don Johanson.

Here was a specimen that opened up for all of us, but especially me, an exceptional opportunity, an opportunity to describe a new species of human ancestor.

Not only was it an associated skeleton, bits of arms associated with bits of legs, a pelvis, part of the rib cage, part of the skull, a complete lower jaw, but it was more than three million years old.

By the 1960s and 70s the evidence was becoming overwhelming.

louis and mary leakey's excavations at aldivai gorge in tanzania were uncovering layers of human evolution like pages in a history book they found homo habilis the first species in our genus dated to about two four million years ago they found stone tools alongside animal bones evidence of butchery and food processing they found living floors where ancient humans had camped made tools and eaten meals all of it in africa all of it older than anything found anywhere else then came lucy In 1974, Donald Johanson and his team discovered a nearly complete skeleton in Ethiopia.

Australopithecus afarensis.

Three.

And the main guy who discovered Lucy was religiously motivated as an atheist against a divine creator.

So let's talk about Donald Johanson for a second.

Johanson was the, is the paleo-- He's still alive.

He, he was the guy who discovered Lucy in nineteen seventy-four, and he said in twenty fourteen himself, "I have always been an atheist." He described himself as sort of a free-thinking kinda dude and said that as a young man, he became skeptical of the idea of an invisible creator watching and judging human beings, and this was primarily due to how many different creation stories there are throughout the world, e-even though they are all creation stories.

Don't worry about it.

Well, guess what? Another Australopithecus was found in 1974 by Donald Johanson, and he named her Lucy.

[laughs] And you all know her.

We've all studied with her through school.