Lucy’s Legacy
Subtitle
The Quest for Human Origins
In his New York Times bestseller, "Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind," renowned paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson told the incredible story of his discovery of a partial female fossil skeleton that revolutionized the study of human origins. Lucy literally changed our understanding of our world and who we come from. Since that dramatic find in 1974, there has been heated debate and — most important — more groundbreaking discoveries that have further transformed our understanding of when and how humans evolved.
In "Lucy’s Legacy," Johanson takes readers on a fascinating tour of the last three decades of study — the most exciting period of paleoanthropologic investigation thus far. In that time, Johanson and his colleagues have uncovered a total over 500 specimens of Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy’s species, a transitional creature between apes and humans), spanning 400,000 years. As a result, we now have a unique fossil record of one branch of our family tree — that family being humanity — a tree that is believed to date back a staggering seven million years.
Donald Johanson is a passionate guide on an extraordinary journey from the ancient landscape of Hadar, Ethiopia—where Lucy was unearthed and where many other exciting fossil discoveries have since been made — to a seaside cave in South Africa that once sheltered early members of our own species and many other significant sites. Many years after Lucy, Johanson continues to enthusiastically probe the origins of our species and what it means to be human.
Bio
Donald C. Johanson is a renowned paleoanthropologist, founding director of the Institute of Human Origins and Virginia M. Ullman Chair in Human Origins in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change. He discovered the fossil skeleton popularly known as “Lucy” and has written nine books and numerous scientific and popular articles. He lectures in the U.S. and abroad.
Praise for this book
Very engaging, 'Lucy’s Legacy' communicates the poignancy of Johanson’s occasionally nerve-wracking return to the birthplace of his career with something of the verve and suspense of an Indiana Jones movie. Hooked by that adventurous beginning and introduced to many of the figures whose work preoccupies what follows, many will continue with the book’s real meat, which literally argues that far from there being no missing link between apes and humans, there are several, complicatedly related, with more being found and likely to be found in the foreseeable future.
Booklist (starred review)
