Donald Johanson
Donald Johanson
Donald Carl Johansonis an American paleoanthropologist. He is known for discovering the fossil of a female hominin australopithecine known as "Lucy" in the Afar Triangle region of Hadar, Ethiopia...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth28 June 1943
CountryUnited States of America
aware family grew religious social
I was aware of it, but I grew up in a very a-religious family. My mother never went to church, she never had any religious training or background. It was never a part of our social interaction.
regardless
Regardless of what we look like on the outside, genetically, on the inside, everyone is an African.
scientist proven proven-wrong
Scientists are very afraid of being proven wrong.
lost-friendship close-friends difficult
There have been some friendships lost over this. That's the most difficult for me. I find it very uncomfortable to know that I was at one time close friends with someone, and because of jealousies and misunderstandings and so on, these friendships have dissolved.
elephants filled giraffes huge literally monkeys museum national room tons
If you were to go to the National Museum in Addis Ababa, you would walk into a huge room filled with literally tens of tons of fossils, and most of them would be elephants and rhinos and hippopotamus and monkeys and giraffes and antelopes and so on. Hominids are very rare in the landscape, and it's very rare to find them.
detailed fossil human lab opportunity realized species until
But it really wasn't until three to four years later, when we had an opportunity in the lab to make very detailed observations, and comparisons with other fossil discoveries, that we realized she was a new species of human ancestor.
branches certain darwin drew family knew mammals undergo
All mammals undergo a certain degree of diversification. Darwin knew that. When he drew a family tree, it had many branches on it.
laboratory realized spent terribly time until
I realized immediately that this was a terribly important discovery, but I didn't realize how important it would be until we had spent a lot of time in the laboratory studying it.
human lucy opportunity realized represent species understanding
When I realized, in 1978, that Lucy did represent a new species of human ancestor, and that I had an opportunity to name this new species, I realized this was a revolutionary step in understanding human origins.
created crucible origins
When we look for the origins of all humanity today, let's not just look at Europe, because I think Africa was the cradle, the crucible that created us as Homo sapiens.