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Ethiopia - Birthplace of our earliest ancestors
In 1974, in the Afar region of Ethiopia, archaeologists discovered
part of a female skeleton, believed to be more than three million
years old, which added dramatic new evidence to the story of human
evolution. She was called Dinqenesh, which means ‘you are amazing’,
by the Ethiopians, and ‘Lucy’ by Dr Donald Johanson, who
discovered her. Her Latin name is Australopithecus afarensis.
Lucy’s bones are now in the Ethiopian National Museum.
Further archaelogical finds in 1994 supported the theory that our
earliest ancestors, the first to walk on two legs and to evolve
away from the apes, were born four million years ago along the African
Rift Valley, which passes through Ethiopia and continues
southwards to Mozambique.
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