'Lucy' finder visits UCM

WARRENSBURG — Paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson spent the better part of Wednesday sharing experiences from his more than 40 years of studying the origins of human beings with students at the University of Central Missouri.

Johanson, a professor with the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University, rose to prominence in the field of human evolution after his 1974 discovery of a 3.2 million-year-old female Australopithecus afarensis skeleton — dubbed “Lucy” by Johanson, who took the name from the Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.”

Considered a key find, the skeleton, discovered in the Afar region of Ethiopia, had apelike features, including a projecting face and a small brain, but also had the anatomy and bone structure of a creature who walked upright.

Speaking to a crowd of 300 in UCM’s Hendricks Hall on Wednesday evening, Johanson said he was on his way back to camp after a day of surveying the fossil-rich area and noticed the fragment of an elbow that had to come from a bipedal, or upright walking, animal.

“The first thought that came to me … I realized my childhood dream was there at my feet. It was a life-changing moment,” Johanson said. “After 3.2 million years this creature was sort of reanimated. She would never know what impact her death would have.”

Born to first-generation Swedish immigrant parents, Johanson would eventually move to Connecticut, where he would come to know a neighbor who was himself an anthropologist. It was there that he was exposed to the works of Charles Darwin, whose 1859 book “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection” created what Johanson called the “grand unified theory of biology,” namely, that all animals, including humans, are a product of evolution.

Darwin, and his friend and public face, Thomas Henry Huxley, would go on to rock the science of human origins by further postulating that humans and African apes shared a common, ancient ancestor, and that ancestor had likely arisen in Africa.

Their theory was later proved when the first fossilized pre-human remains were found in Africa in the early part of the 20th century.

Subsequent discoveries by researchers, including Johanson and the Leakey family in Tanzania would go on to confirm that human beings shared a multibranched family tree that diverged from that of the chimpanzees about 6 million years ago.

“Extinction is the rule, survival is the exception,” Johanson said.

Though many species died out, at least one found a suitable niche for survival and procreation and would pass its genes down through millions of years until the emergence of physically modern humans about 200,000 years ago.

“It is obvious when you go to the zoo ... that there is not only a whole host of anatomical similarities — same number of teeth, same number of bones in the body, the same arrangement of bones and muscles. There are just too many things to say that these things evolved independently and separately.”

In addition to physical similarities, Johanson noted the work of chimpanzee expert Jane Goodall, whose research found that chimps — with whom human beings share about 98 percent identical DNA — “also experience many of the same emotions.”

Looking back over Lucy’s legacy, Johanson told the crowd her story reflects the commonality of all people.

“Africa was the crucible,” Johanson said. “No matter where you grasp a branch on that family tree, the roots are in Africa. Not only do we have a common ancestry, but we are united by that common ancestry.

“It is my sense the species … needs to look at itself and its place in nature and the decisions we are making so we make the right decisions, so we will be able to leave descendants who will be able to look back at their ancestors,” Johanson said.

Krista Pezley, 21, a 2011 UCM graduate with a bachelor of science in anthropology, met Johanson during his visit.

“His story is really captivating. He talked about some things I am very passionate about, especially biology and evolution in particular,” Pezley said. “I came from a small school in a small town, and we didn’t talk about evolution. When I came to college this whole new world was opened up to me.”

Pezley said she agreed with Johanson that teaching evolution is a key part of fostering a new generation of scientists, biologists and other professionals.

“It is a really important idea and one that students need to be exposed to,” Pezley said.