Anthropologist Donald Johanson and student Tom Gray were working as part of an expedition to survey the fossil-rich Hadar Formation in the Afar Depression in Ethiopia. Re-checking a gully on a hunch, Gray noticed an arm-bone fragment. A hurried search soon revealed more bone. The whole expedition was diverted to the site, and for the next three weeks the area was combed for fossil bone. On the first night after the initial discovery, the Beatles’ hit Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was playing loudly on a tape-recorder in the camp, so the fossil hominin was nicknamed Lucy. Her scientific name is AL 288-1.
