About 3.2 million years ago, among the prehistoric forests of what is now Ethiopia, a small human was folded into the fossil record. No one knows for sure what killed them. Perhaps it was a fall from a tree.

Lucy may be the best-known prehuman fossil in the world. But other famous fossils have given us important insight into our evolutionary history.

Paleoanthropologists have learned a lot about Lucy, the world’s most famous hominin fossil, since she was discovered in 1974. And her fossils are still yielding new insights

A collection of 3-million-year-old bones unearthed 50 years ago in Ethiopia changed our understanding of human origins.

Paleontologists unearthed the iconic fossil in 1974. Today, her legacy remains just as much cultural as it is scientific.