Pre-History

Ethiopia is the place where things are begun and the place where Lucy, or Dinkenesh, walked. In the Great African Rift Valley 3.5 millions ago lived one of the earliest and internationally best known hominids, or ancestors of the human race. Now called Lucy by the outside world, she is also spoken of in Ethiopia as Dinkenesh (literally “you are Wonderful”). This internationally famous skeleton was discovered in 1974, by an American-French team, led by Donald C. Johanson of Chicago University, conducting pale anthropological research in the Ethiopian section of the African Rift Valley. Scholars, however, know her best as Australopithecus afarensis, which means southern ape from the Afar country, is exhibited in the National Museum of Ethiopia at Addis Abeba. After twenty years later, in 1994 the scientists dug up the fossilized remains of a Chimpanzee-sized ape from 4.4 million years ago at the site seventy-five kilometers south of where “Lucy” was found. The latest find, consisted of the 5.8 million years old fossil named Australopithecus ramidus.