Donald Johanson
| Donald Johanson | |
|---|---|
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| Born | Donald Carl Johanson 28 June 1943 Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields | Paleoanthropology |
| Institutions | Arizona State University |
| Alma mater |
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign University of Chicago |
| Known for | Discovery of a new hominid, Australopithecus afarensis ("Lucy") |
Donald Carl Johanson (born June 28, 1943) is an American paleoanthropologist. He is known for discovering – with Yves Coppens and Maurice Taieb – the fossil of a female hominin australopithecine known as "Lucy" in the Afar Triangle region of Hadar, Ethiopia.
Johanson was born in Chicago, Illinois to Swedish parents, and is the nephew of wrestler Ivar Johansson. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1966, and his master's degree (1970) and PhD (1974) from the University of Chicago. At the time of the discovery of Lucy, he was an associate professor of anthropology at Case Western Reserve University. In 1981, he established the Institute of Human Origins in Berkeley, California which he later moved to Arizona State University in 1997. Johanson holds an honorary doctorate from Case Western Reserve University, and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Westfield State College in 2008.
Lucy was discovered in Hadar, Ethiopia on November 24, 1974, when Johanson, coaxed away from his paperwork by graduate student Tom Gray for a spur-of-the-moment survey, caught the glint of a white fossilized bone out of the corner of his eye, and recognized it as hominin. Forty percent of the skeleton was eventually recovered, and was later described as the first known member of Australopithecus afarensis. Johanson was astonished to find so much of her skeleton all at once. Pamela Alderman, a member of the expedition, suggested she be named "Lucy" after the Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" which was played repeatedly during the night of the discovery.
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