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required his team to describe the finds at a press conference before it left. He did not want to botch his first important fossil interpretation, but he would not be allowed to take the fossil away for study unless he gave a description. That second evening he remembered a nearby ruin of an Afar burial mound. Comparison of the fossil finds with modern bones exposed by the collapsed side of the mound showed that, except for size, the bones were indeed virtually identical.
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This was an immensely important find, as it would be the first showing upright walking hominids from 3.4 million years ago. On the day after finding the fossil
Johanson was beginning to doubt his certainty, and there was an urgent need for confirmation as their agreement with the Ethiopian government
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rib. He found that it was actually a fossil of a proximal tibia, the upper end of a shinbone. From its small size, he thought it was a monkey, and decided to collect it. While he was writing it up, he noticed a few yards away a distal femur, the lower end of a thighbone. This was split between the
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The team returned for the second field season in the following year and found hominid jaws. Then, on the morning of
November 24, 1974, Johanson and Gray were searching in a gully about two and a half kilometres from the site where the knee joint had been discovered, where Johanson found the first
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The other condyle lay next to it, and when he fitted them together and to the proximal tibia, the angle that the femur and tibia formed at the knee joint clearly showed that this was an upright walking
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They found numerous fossils, but at first no hominids. Then, in
November 1973, near the end of the first field season, Johanson tapped a fossil fragment he thought was a
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walked up, and when shown the tibia on its own, thought it was a monkey, but when shown the angle formed with the tibia, agreed that this was from a hominid.
188:, to co-direct the research. An expedition was formed with four American and seven French participants, and in the fall of 1973 the team surveyed
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A preliminary anatomical diagnosis of the first plio/pleistocene hominid discoveries in the central Afar, Ethiopia.
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discovered the Hadar
Formation in 1968. He then formed the IARE, inviting notably Johanson, an
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It is estimated to be 3.4 million years old. Its characteristics include an elliptical
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344:"Lucy's Knee Joint, Letter from Donald Johanson, August 8, 1989"
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for fossils and artifacts related to the origin of humans.
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200:condyles, or lumps making the knee joint.
161:and founding director of the Institute of
109:is a fossilized knee joint of the species
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304:"Australopithecus afarensis: AL 129-1"
138:like that found in humans, indicating
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260:Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 45: 217-234.
256:Johanson, D. C. and T. Taieb, 1976.
242:List of hominina (hominid) fossils
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469:from the original on 11 July 2006
269:Lucy, the Beginnings of Humankind
402:from the original on 23 May 2007
379:from the original on 7 June 2007
392:"Biographies: Donald Johanson"
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369:"Prominent Hominid Fossils"
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112:Australopithecus afarensis
58:Australopithecus afarensis
267:; Edey, Maitland (1981),
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491:Australopithecus fossils
447:Johanson & Edey 1981
435:Johanson & Edey 1981
420:Johanson & Edey 1981
324:Johanson & Edey 1981
167:Arizona State University
222:Lucy (Australopithecus)
115:. It was discovered in
271:, St Albans: Granada,
496:Neogene fossil record
306:. University of Texas
237:(with link directory)
463:"Images of AL 129-1"
234:List of fossil sites
396:TalkOrigins Archive
390:Foley, Jim (1998).
373:TalkOrigins Archive
367:Foley, Jim (2004).
348:TalkOrigins Archive
220:fossil fragment of
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186:Collège de France
184:now based at the
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169:; Jon Kalb, an
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132:Lateral condyle
125:Donald Johanson
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87:Date discovered
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20:Johanson's Knee
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197:hippopotamus
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178:Yves Coppens
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45:Common name
485:Categories
473:2006-07-12
406:2007-06-03
383:2007-06-03
353:2007-06-03
310:2013-04-12
286:References
140:bipedalism
174:geologist
146:Discovery
467:Archived
400:Archived
377:Archived
342:(1989).
228:See also
210:Tom Gray
171:American
156:American
121:Ethiopia
107:AL 129-1
81:Ethiopia
40:AL 129-1
34:Catalog
206:hominid
68:3.4 mya
53:Species
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176:; and
117:Hadar
77:Hadar
273:ISBN
90:1973
165:of
123:by
65:Age
36:no.
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