Johanson, Donald Carl (1943-…), an American anthropologist, is an expert on human origins. Johanson is also one of the world’s most successful fossil hunters. In 1974, an expedition led by Johanson at Hadar, Ethiopia, discovered the fossilized remains of what is now commonly regarded as one of the earliest types of humanlike creatures that walked fully upright. The fossils, from a creature nicknamed “Lucy,” are between 3 million and 3.6 million years old. They are classified in the species Australopithecus afarensis.
Johanson also has added to knowledge of Homo habilis, a species that many anthropologists consider one of the oldest members of the genus (group) to which modern humans belong. In 1986, a team of anthropologists that Johanson led to Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, discovered the first set of skull and limb bones belonging to a single Homo habilis individual.
Johanson was born on June 28, 1943, in Chicago. In 1981, he founded the Institute of Human Origins in Berkeley, California (now in Tempe, Arizona). He is the coauthor of Lucy: The Beginnings of Mankind (1981) Lucy’s Child: The Search for Our Origins (1989), From Lucy to Language (1996), and Lucy’s Legacy: The Quest for Human Origins (2009).
See also Australopithecus; Prehistoric people (The australopithecines).
