Lucy is the common name of AL 288-1, several hundred pieces of bone representing about 40% of the skeleton of an individual Australopithecus afarensis

Australopithecus afarensis

Australopithecus afarensis is an extinct hominid that lived between 3.9 and 2.9 million years ago. A. afarensis was slenderly built, like the younger Australopithecus africanus. It is thought that A...

. The specimen was discovered in 1974 at Hadar

Hadar, Ethiopia

Hadar is a village in Ethiopia, on the southern edge of the Afar Triangle with a latitude and longitude of approximately . The village is known for the nearby archaeological site....

 in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia

Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

's Afar Depression

Afar Depression

The Afar Triangle is a geological depression that is caused by the Afar Triple Junction which is part of the Great Rift Valley. It overlaps Eritrea, Djibouti and the entire Afar Region of Ethiopia. The Afar Triangle includes the Danakil Depression and the lowest point in Africa, Lake Asal...

. Lucy is estimated to have lived 3.2 million years ago. The discovery of this hominid

Hominini

Hominini is the tribe of Homininae that comprises Homo, and the two species of the genus Pan , their ancestors, and the extinct lineages of their common ancestor . Members of the tribe are called hominins...

 was significant as the skeleton shows evidence of small skull capacity akin to that of ape

Ape

Apes are Old World anthropoid mammals, more specifically a clade of tailless catarrhine primates, belonging to the biological superfamily Hominoidea. The apes are native to Africa and South-east Asia, although in relatively recent times humans have spread all over the world...

s and of bipedal upright walk akin to that of humans

Homo (genus)

Homo is the genus that includes modern humans and species closely related to them. The genus is estimated to be about 2.3 to 2.4 million years old, evolving from australopithecine ancestors with the appearance of Homo habilis....

, providing further evidence supporting the view that bipedalism preceded increase in brain size in human evolution, though other findings have been interpreted as suggesting that Australopithecus afarensis was not directly ancestral to humans.