Q&A: 'Lucy' Discoverer Donald C. Johanson
By Lauren E. Bohn Wednesday, Mar. 04, 2009
Arizona State University
Professor Donald Johnson discovered the 3.18 million year old hominid skeleton popularly known as "Lucy" and poses with a study cast
of "Lucy" skeleton and study cast of "Lucy" skull.
Paleoanthropologist Donald C. Johanson is the man who found the woman that shook up our family tree. In 1974,
Johanson discovered a 3.2 million-year-old fossil of a female skeleton in Ethiopia that would forever change our
understanding of human origins. Dubbed Australopithecus afarensis, she became known to the world as Lucy. In
the years since, Johanson and his colleagues have unearthed a total of 363 specimens of Australopithecus afarensis
that span 400,000 years. His new book, Lucy's legacy: The Quest for Human Origins picks up where his 1981 New
York Times bestseller, Lucy: The Beginning of Humankind left off — posing thoughtful questions as to what exactly
makes us who we are. TIME caught up with Dr. Johanson to discuss how our family tree has gotten a bit more
bushy.
As jargon-free as you can manage to articulate, how did Lucy revolutionize the study of human
origins?
Why, by being found after being missing for 2.3 million years [Laughs]. Lucy is still a terribly important discovery all
these years later. She appeared at just the right time, I think, in terms of paleoanthropology, in the sense that we had
very few fossils beyond three million years old at that point. Most of the evidence for human evolution older than
three million years, you could fit in the palm of your hand. One of the major things she did was open wide that
window. She showed us conclusively that upright walking and bipedalism preceded all of the other changes we'd
normally consider being human, such as tool-making. She gave us a glimpse of what older ancestors would look like.
Lucy is really at a nice point on the family tree: she sits at this pivotal point between things that are more ancient
and things that are more modern.
Since the dramatic find in 1974, what has happened? Give me a snapshot of the groundbreaking
discoveries, the heated debates. What has changed since your last book?
What's changed is we now have good anatomical, geological, archaeological evidence that Neanderthals are not our
ancestors. When I wrote Lucy, I considered Neanderthals ancestors of modern humans. We have gone back twice
the age of Lucy, six million years. And we see that upright bipedal walking goes back that far in time. We have been
surprised by the discovery of these little hobbits in Indonesia, something that nobody would have ever predicted.
There's been the wonderful discovery of the Dikika baby which is telling us interesting things about the ontogeny,
the growth and development, of our ancestors. The tree has gotten a little bushier. The story is becoming fuller and
more interesting with lots of new characters.
To set the record straight, it was the Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" that gave birth
to the hominid's name, correct?
Yes, the whole camp was listening to Beatles' tape because I was a great Beatles fan, and "Lucy in the Sky with
Diamonds" was playing and this girl said, well if you think the fossil was a female, why don't you name her Lucy?
Initially I was opposed to giving her a cute little name, but that name stuck.
Why do you think she so successfully captured the public imagination? It's not particularly common
for a fossil to become a household name.
I think she's captured the public's attention for a number of reasons. One, she's fairly complete. If you remove the
hand bones and foot bones, she's 40% complete, so one actually gets an image of an individual, of a person. It's not
just like looking at a jaw with some teeth. People can envision a little three-and-a-half foot tall female walking
around. Also, I must say, her name is one that people find easy and non-threatening. People think of her as real
personality.
Lucy's an international celebrity; she's toured museums as a good-will ambassador. As a
spokeswoman for human evolution, what does she say?
Well I think the major message she brings to all the people who have an opportunity to see her or understand who
she was is that the evidence for human evolution is irrefutable. She broadcasts that loud and clear. And not only
Lucy, but many of the other fossils that have been found since, that we are all united by our past, that we all have a
common history and though we may be vastly different, our origins all lead back to the crucible of human evolution
that is Africa. She's announcing: "You are all my descendants and regardless of who we are, we are all, in fact today,
Africans."
How do you look at her? It's almost as though throughout the book, you view her, though she's an
ancestor, as your child?
Oh, exactly. She's an acquaintance, a good friend. I think one does develop an affinity to discoveries that one makes.
She's so incredibly important in terms of our lives. How do I think of her? It's a very interesting question because if I
had the ability to travel back in time, with only one choice of a place to go, my answer is quite simple. I'd want to be
standing on the hill overlooking where Lucy and her cohorts were living when she fell into that lake and died. I'd like
to see what she looked like, though I don't think I'd want to get pretty close to her.
Here's a zinger: what makes us human?
What makes us human depends on what place on our evolutionary path we're talking about. If you go back six
million years ago, what makes us human is that we were walking up right. That's all. If you go to 2.6 million years
ago, it's the fact that we're designing and making stone tools. And at 2 million years ago what makes human is our
large brains that are at least two and half times the size of a chimp's. At twenty thousand years ago, what makes us
human is the ability to make beautiful cave art. It's all relational. And if you look at us today, I wonder if we are
human.
Where are we going as a species?
You'll have to call me after a few martinis [Laughs]. Where we are going as a species is a big question. Human
evolution certainly hasn't stopped. Every time individuals produce a new zygote, there's a reshuffling and
recombination of genes. And we don't know where all of that is going to take us.
1. Why was Lucy such an important discovery?
2. How do we know she was bipedal? Why would she still use trees?
3. What makes us human, in terms of looking at the fossil record? (What features are unique to the human line)?