No stone tools, not even fragments, have survived at the stratum where Lucy and her contemporaries were found. But, from all appearances, Lucy and the other hominids whose remains were found at the site were walking upright, although their brains were barely larger than those of the chimpanzee. The previously accepted account of human evolution had proposed that a strain of primates with larger brains evolved, became capable of making tools, and began walking upright to free up their hands. Over 40 percent of the Lucy skeleton had been preserved, enough to provide the anthropological world with some startling insights. Until then, paleoanthropologists had had to content themselves with the most fragmentary remnants of our pre-human ancestors. There, in 1974, he found the fossilized remains of a female hominid the world came to know as Lucy. It was at the Hadar site, in the Afar region of Ethiopia that Johanson made the discovery that changed our understanding of human origins forever. Donald Johanson with the Lucy skeleton, the discovery that changed our understanding of human origins forever. His first trip to Africa came in 1970 he has participated in expeditions in South Africa, Tanzania and, most famously, Ethiopia. (ASU)Īs a professor of anthropology, his career took him from Case Western University, to Kent State, to Stanford, but his reputation is based on his archaeological work in the field, which began while he was still an undergraduate. 1974: Donald Johanson assembles the Lucy skeleton for the first time with French colleague Maurice Taieb. He went on to earn his master’s and Ph.D.

With Howell’s support, Johanson transferred to the University of Chicago, where he received his bachelor’s degree in 1966. Since one of the leading scholars in the field, Clark Howell, was at the University of Chicago, Johanson wrote to him and arranged a meeting. He was determined to become an anthropologist and specialize in the study of human origins. Johanson.Īlthough Johanson did poorly on the Standardized Aptitude Test, an anthropologist neighbor encouraged him in his ambitions to become a scientist, and he was accepted to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 1972: French anthropologist and the director of the Hadar expedition, Yves Coppens, with Donald C. Johanson’s mother worked as a cleaning lady to support them in far more modest circumstances, but always encouraged Johanson to study and prepare himself for a rewarding career. His father died, leaving the family without any means of support. Although his parents were Swedish immigrants with little education, his father, a barber, supported the family in relative comfort.

Continental Drift by James D. Houston