Donald C. Johanson, Ph.D. - Academy of Achievement

<!doctype html> <html lang="en-US" prefix="og: http://ogp.me/ns#"> <head><script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/bundle-playback.js?v=HxkREWBo" charset="utf-8"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/wombat.js?v=txqj7nKC" charset="utf-8"></script> <script>window.RufflePlayer=window.RufflePlayer||{};window.RufflePlayer.config={"autoplay":"on","unmuteOverlay":"hidden"};</script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/ruffle/ruffle.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> __wm.init("https://web.archive.org/web"); __wm.wombat("http://www.achievement.org:80/achiever/donald-c-johanson/","20181225135423","https://web.archive.org/","web","/_static/", "1545746063"); </script> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/_static/css/banner-styles.css?v=S1zqJCYt" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/_static/css/iconochive.css?v=3PDvdIFv" />  <meta charset="utf-8"> <meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="ie=edge"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="57x57" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-57x57.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="114x114" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-114x114.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="72x72" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-72x72.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="144x144" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-144x144.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="60x60" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-60x60.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="120x120" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-120x120.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="76x76" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-76x76.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="152x152" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-152x152.png"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-196x196.png" sizes="196x196"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-96x96.png" sizes="96x96"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-32x32.png" sizes="32x32"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-16x16.png" sizes="16x16"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-128.png" sizes="128x128"/> <meta name="application-name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta name="msapplication-TileColor" content="#000000"/> <meta name="msapplication-TileImage" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-144x144.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square70x70logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-70x70.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square150x150logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-150x150.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-wide310x150logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-310x150.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square310x310logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-310x310.png"/> <link href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423cs_/https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Source+Sans+Pro:400,600,400italic,600italic,700,700italic" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"> <title>Donald C. Johanson, Ph.D. - Academy of Achievement</title>  <meta name="description" content="When he was in high school, Donald Johanson was told by his guidance counselor to forget about going to college. The only son of a widowed immigrant mother who worked as a cleaning lady, Johanson had done so poorly on his SATs that the counselor did not believe he was capable of performing college-level work. Johanson ignored the counselor's advice, pursued higher education, and received his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Chicago. Within a year of earning his doctorate, he made news around the world with a discovery that dramatically altered our understanding of human evolution. The fossilized bones of a creature Johanson called "Lucy" constitute the oldest, most complete specimen of an extinct species which was not human, but from which the human race may be descended. While Johanson's interpretation of his discoveries has provoked controversy in scientific circles, Johanson has become one of the dominant figures in the world of paleoanthropology, and his books and television appearances have given a mass audience a tantalizing glimpse of the mysterious origin of our species."/> <link rel="canonical" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/donald-c-johanson/"/> <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US"/> <meta property="og:type" content="article"/> <meta property="og:title" content="Donald C. Johanson, Ph.D. - Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:description" content="<p class="inputTextFirst">When he was in high school, Donald Johanson was told by his guidance counselor to forget about going to college. The only son of a widowed immigrant mother who worked as a cleaning lady, Johanson had done so poorly on his SATs that the counselor did not believe he was capable of performing college-level work.</p> <p class="inputText">Johanson ignored the counselor's advice, pursued higher education, and received his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Chicago. Within a year of earning his doctorate, he made news around the world with a discovery that dramatically altered our understanding of human evolution. The fossilized bones of a creature Johanson called "Lucy" constitute the oldest, most complete specimen of an extinct species which was not human, but from which the human race may be descended.</p> <p class="inputText">While Johanson's interpretation of his discoveries has provoked controversy in scientific circles, Johanson has become one of the dominant figures in the world of paleoanthropology, and his books and television appearances have given a mass audience a tantalizing glimpse of the mysterious origin of our species.</p>"/> <meta property="og:url" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/donald-c-johanson/"/> <meta property="og:site_name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:image" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/johnason-side-Feature-Image-2800x1120.jpg"/> <meta property="og:image:width" content="2800"/> <meta property="og:image:height" content="1120"/> <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary"/> <meta name="twitter:description" content="<p class="inputTextFirst">When he was in high school, Donald Johanson was told by his guidance counselor to forget about going to college. The only son of a widowed immigrant mother who worked as a cleaning lady, Johanson had done so poorly on his SATs that the counselor did not believe he was capable of performing college-level work.</p> <p class="inputText">Johanson ignored the counselor's advice, pursued higher education, and received his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Chicago. Within a year of earning his doctorate, he made news around the world with a discovery that dramatically altered our understanding of human evolution. The fossilized bones of a creature Johanson called "Lucy" constitute the oldest, most complete specimen of an extinct species which was not human, but from which the human race may be descended.</p> <p class="inputText">While Johanson's interpretation of his discoveries has provoked controversy in scientific circles, Johanson has become one of the dominant figures in the world of paleoanthropology, and his books and television appearances have given a mass audience a tantalizing glimpse of the mysterious origin of our species.</p>"/> <meta name="twitter:title" content="Donald C. 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ratio-container__text container"> <div class="feature-area__text-inner text-white"> <h2 class="serif-8 feature-area__text-subhead back"><a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever">All achievers</a></h2> <h1 class="serif-1 entry-title feature-area__text-headline">Donald C. Johanson, Ph.D.</h1> <h5 class="sans-6 feature-area__blurb">Discoverer of Lucy</h5> </div> </figcaption> </div> </div> </figure> </header> </div>  <nav class="in-page-nav row fixedsticky"> <ul class="nav text-xs-center clearfix" role="tablist"> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link active" data-toggle="tab" href="#biography" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Biography">Biography</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#profile" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Profile">Profile</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#interview" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Interview">Interview</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#gallery" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Gallery">Gallery</a> </li> </ul> </nav> <article class="post-2568 achiever type-achiever status-publish has-post-thumbnail hentry careers-science-exploration"> <div class="entry-content container clearfix">  <div class="tab-content"> <div class="tab-pane fade in active" id="biography" role="tabpanel"> <section class="achiever--biography"> <div class="row"> <header class="editorial-article__header col-md-8 col-md-offset-2 text-xs-center"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> <h3 class="serif-3 quote-marks">If we succeeded, I knew that there would be a downside to it. And the downside was that I upset the apple cart. But I've always felt that risk-taking is an important part of what it means to be a human being.</h3> </header> </div> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar clearfix"> <h2 class="serif-3 p-b-1">The Quest for Human Origins</h2> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> June 28, 1943 </dd> </div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><p>Donald C. Johanson was born in Chicago, Illinois. Although his parents were Swedish immigrants with little education, his father, a barber, supported the family in relative comfort. All that changed when Johanson was two. His father died, leaving the family without any means of support. Johanson’s mother worked as a cleaning lady to support them in far more modest circumstances, but always encouraged Johanson to study and prepare himself for a rewarding career.</p> <figure id="attachment_29711" style="width: 1500px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-29711 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/coppens-johanson-1972.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-29711 size-full lazyload" alt="1972: French anthropologist and the director of the Hadar expedition, Yves Coppens, with Donald Johanson." width="1500" height="990" data-sizes="(max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px" data-srcset="/web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/coppens-johanson-1972.jpg 1500w, /web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/coppens-johanson-1972-380x251.jpg 380w, /web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/coppens-johanson-1972-760x502.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/coppens-johanson-1972.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1972: French anthropologist and the director of the Hadar expedition, Yves Coppens, with Donald C. Johanson.</figcaption></figure><p>Although Johanson did poorly on the Standardized Aptitude Test, an anthropologist neighbor encouraged him in his ambitions to become a scientist, and he was accepted to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He was determined to become an anthropologist and specialize in the study of human origins. Since one of the leading scholars in the field, Clark Howell, was at the University of Chicago, Johanson wrote to him and arranged a meeting. With Howell’s support, Johanson transferred to the University of Chicago, where he received his bachelor’s degree in 1966. He went on to earn his master’s and Ph.D. at the same institution.</p> <figure id="attachment_29735" style="width: 1267px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-29735 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/johanson-taieb-Lucy-au-camp-1974.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-29735 size-full lazyload" alt="Donald Johanson (left) assembles the Lucy skeleton for the first time with French colleague Maurice Taieb. (Courtesy Institute of Human Origins, Arizona State University)" width="1267" height="836" data-sizes="(max-width: 1267px) 100vw, 1267px" data-srcset="/web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/johanson-taieb-Lucy-au-camp-1974.jpg 1267w, /web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/johanson-taieb-Lucy-au-camp-1974-380x251.jpg 380w, /web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/johanson-taieb-Lucy-au-camp-1974-760x501.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/johanson-taieb-Lucy-au-camp-1974.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1974: Donald Johanson assembles the Lucy skeleton for the first time with French colleague Maurice Taieb. (ASU)</figcaption></figure><p>As a professor of anthropology, his career took him from Case Western University, to Kent State, to Stanford, but his reputation is based on his archaeological work in the field, which began while he was still an undergraduate. His first trip to Africa came in 1970; he has participated in expeditions in South Africa, Tanzania and, most famously, Ethiopia.</p> <figure id="attachment_29767" style="width: 630px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-29767 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/1.16379-Corbis-BB001174.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-29767 size-full lazyload" alt="Donald Johanson with the Lucy skeleton." width="630" height="424" data-sizes="(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px" data-srcset="/web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/1.16379-Corbis-BB001174.jpg 630w, /web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/1.16379-Corbis-BB001174-380x256.jpg 380w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/1.16379-Corbis-BB001174.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Donald Johanson with the Lucy skeleton, the discovery that changed our understanding of human origins forever.</figcaption></figure><p>It was at the Hadar site, in the Afar region of Ethiopia that Johanson made the discovery that changed our understanding of human origins forever. There, in 1974, he found the fossilized remains of a female hominid the world came to know as Lucy. Until then, paleoanthropologists had had to content themselves with the most fragmentary remnants of our pre-human ancestors. Over 40 percent of the Lucy skeleton had been preserved, enough to provide the anthropological world with some startling insights. The previously accepted account of human evolution had proposed that a strain of primates with larger brains evolved, became capable of making tools, and began walking upright to free up their hands. But, from all appearances, Lucy and the other hominids whose remains were found at the site were walking upright, although their brains were barely larger than those of the chimpanzee. No stone tools, not even fragments, have survived at the stratum where Lucy and her contemporaries were found. From this, it may be inferred that our ancestors walked upright for another reason. They may have used their hands to carry food gathered for their offspring, and engaged in more elaborate cooperative behavior than one finds among creatures who walk on all fours.</p> <figure id="attachment_29737" style="width: 1368px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-29737 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lucy.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-29737 size-full lazyload" alt="A sculptor's rendering of Lucy when she was alive, displayed at the Houston Museum of Natural Science in Texas. (Dave Einsel/Getty Images)" width="1368" height="954" data-sizes="(max-width: 1368px) 100vw, 1368px" data-srcset="/web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lucy.jpg 1368w, /web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lucy-380x265.jpg 380w, /web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lucy-760x530.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lucy.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">A sculptor’s rendering of Lucy when she was alive, displayed at the Houston Museum of Natural Science in Texas.</figcaption></figure><p>At first, many scholars believed these remains were specimens of a previously identified species, <em>Australopithecus africanus, </em>but after years of studying the staggering assortment of fossils found at the Hadar site, Johanson came to another conclusion. In 1978, he shocked the scientific community with an assertion that the remains belonged to another distinct species, which he named <em>Australopithecus afarensis.</em></p> <figure id="attachment_29739" style="width: 1400px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-29739 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lucy-the-beginnings-of-human-kind.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-29739 size-full lazyload" alt=""Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind" by Maitland Edey and Donald Johanson. When Donald Johanson found a partial skeleton, approximately 3.5 million years old, in a remote region of Ethiopia in 1974, a headline-making controversy was launched that continues on today. Bursting with all the suspense and intrigue of a fast-paced adventure novel, here is Johanson’s lively account of the extraordinary discovery of “Lucy.” By expounding the controversial change Lucy makes in our view of human origins, Johanson provides a vivid, behind-the-scenes account of the history of pealeoanthropology and the colorful, eccentric characters who were and are a part of it." width="1400" height="2155" data-sizes="(max-width: 1400px) 100vw, 1400px" data-srcset="/web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lucy-the-beginnings-of-human-kind.jpg 1400w, /web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lucy-the-beginnings-of-human-kind-247x380.jpg 247w, /web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lucy-the-beginnings-of-human-kind-494x760.jpg 494w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lucy-the-beginnings-of-human-kind.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text"><em>Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind</em> by Maitland Edey and Donald Johanson. When Donald Johanson found a partial skeleton, approximately 3.5 million years old, in a remote region of Ethiopia in 1974, a headline-making controversy was launched that continues on today. Bursting with all the suspense and intrigue of a fast-paced adventure novel, here is Johanson’s lively account of the extraordinary discovery of “Lucy.” By expounding the controversial change Lucy makes in our view of human origins, Johanson provides a vivid, behind-the-scenes account of the history of paleoanthropology and the colorful, eccentric characters who were and are a part of it.</figcaption></figure><p>Throughout the 1980s, the turbulent political situation in Ethiopia barred Johanson and his colleagues from returning to the site. In 1990, the fossil hunters were allowed to return, and by 1992 had found a large portion of an <em>afarensis</em> skull. The reconstruction of the head silenced most of Johanson’s critics, and <em>afarensis</em> is now widely recognized as the ancestor of both <em>Australopithecus africanus</em> and modern man, <em>Homo sapiens. </em>Books Johanson has co-authored include: <em>Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind; Blueprints: Solving the Mystery of Evolution; Lucy’s Child: The Discovery of a Human Ancestor; Journey From the Dawn: Life With the World’s First Family; Ancestors: In Search of Human Origins</em>; <em>From Lucy to Language</em> and <em>Lucy’s Legacy: The Quest for Human Origins</em>.</p> <figure id="attachment_29709" style="width: 1280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-29709 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/2003academy1124.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-29709 lazyload" alt="" width="1280" height="1024" data-sizes="(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px" data-srcset="/web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/2003academy1124.jpg 1280w, /web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/2003academy1124-380x304.jpg 380w, /web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/2003academy1124-760x608.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/2003academy1124.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Awards Council member Donald Johanson presents the Golden Plate Award to Dr. Margaret W. Conkey, President of the Society for American Archaeology and a pioneering archaeologist who explores the issues of gender and feminist perspectives in past human societies, at the 2003 International Achievement Summit in Washington, D.C.</figcaption></figure><p>Since 1980, Johanson has participated in the production of more than one documentary series for Public Television. He appeared as the on-screen host of a 13-part series for <em>Nature</em> in 1982, and for the <em>Nova</em> series in 1994.</p> <figure id="attachment_29740" style="width: 1279px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-29740 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/original.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-29740 size-full lazyload" alt="Donald C. Johanson is the director of the Institute of Human Origins." width="1279" height="853" data-sizes="(max-width: 1279px) 100vw, 1279px" data-srcset="/web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/original.jpg 1279w, /web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/original-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/original-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/original.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">2015: Donald C. Johanson is the Founding Director of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University.</figcaption></figure><p>Today, Donald Johanson is a professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University as well as the Founding Director of the Institute of Human Origins. He divides his time between his homes in San Francisco and Tempe, Arizona.</p></body></html> <div class="clearfix"> </div> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane fade" id="profile" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <header class="editorial-article__header"> <figure class="text-xs-center"> <img class="inductee-badge" src="/web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/inducted-badge@2x.png" alt="Inducted Badge" width="120" height="120"/> <figcaption class="serif-3 text-brand-primary"> Inducted in 1976 </figcaption> </figure> </header> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <dl class="clearfix m-b-0"> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Career</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> <div><a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.science-exploration">Science & Exploration</a></div> </dd> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> June 28, 1943 </dd> </div> </dl> </aside> <article class="col-md-8 editorial-article clearfix"> <p class="inputTextFirst">When he was in high school, Donald Johanson was told by his guidance counselor to forget about going to college. The only son of a widowed immigrant mother who worked as a cleaning lady, Johanson had done so poorly on his SATs that the counselor did not believe he was capable of performing college-level work.</p> <p class="inputText">Johanson ignored the counselor’s advice, pursued higher education, and received his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Chicago. Within a year of earning his doctorate, he made news around the world with a discovery that dramatically altered our understanding of human evolution. The fossilized bones of a creature Johanson called “Lucy” constitute the oldest, most complete specimen of an extinct species which was not human, but from which the human race may be descended.</p> <p class="inputText">While Johanson’s interpretation of his discoveries has provoked controversy in scientific circles, Johanson has become one of the dominant figures in the world of paleoanthropology, and his books and television appearances have given a mass audience a tantalizing glimpse of the mysterious origin of our species.</p> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane fade" id="interview" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <div class="col-md-12 interview-feature-video"> <figure> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/0ors85OQWP0?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Johanson-Donald-1991-MasterEdit.00_33_44_16.Still009-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Johanson-Donald-1991-MasterEdit.00_33_44_16.Still009-760x428.jpg"></div> <div class="video-tag sans-4"> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> <div class="video-tag__text">Watch full interview</div> </div> </div> </figure> </div> <header class="col-md-12 text-xs-center m-b-2"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> </header> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <h2 class="serif-3 achiever--biography-subtitle">The Quest for Human Origins</h2> <div class="sans-2">Berkeley, California</div> <div class="sans-2">January 25, 1991</div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8">   <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><p><strong>Let’s talk about the amazing discovery of Lucy. First of all, how and when did you realize what you had found?</strong></p> <figure id="attachment_29719" style="width: 1322px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-29719 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson138.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-29719 size-full lazyload" alt="Hadar, where the Lucy fossils were found. (Institute of Human Origins, Nanci Kahn)" width="1322" height="900" data-sizes="(max-width: 1322px) 100vw, 1322px" data-srcset="/web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson138.jpg 1322w, /web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson138-380x259.jpg 380w, /web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson138-760x517.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson138.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Hadar, in Ethiopia’s Afar Region, where the Lucy fossils were discovered by Donald C. Johanson in 1974. (N. Kahn)</figcaption></figure></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/CThb-Fh5r30?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Johanson-Donald-1991-MasterEdit.01_44_10_09.Still020-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Johanson-Donald-1991-MasterEdit.01_44_10_09.Still020-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Donald Johanson: When I found Lucy in 1974, I was walking in a very desolate, remote part of Ethiopia known as Hadar. At the Hadar site we had found fossilized remains of all kinds of animals. Elephants, rhinos, gazelles, monkeys, and so on. But our main goal, of course, was to find as many human ancestor fossils as we could. We had found some things in 1973 that titillated us and alerted us to the fact that these geological deposits would, in fact, have human ancestor fossils. On this November morning, it was about noon, I was heading back to my Land Rover to drive back to camp. And I happened to look over my right shoulder. And as I did so, I saw a fragment of a bone which I recognized as coming from the elbow region in a skeleton, and that it was too small to be anything but one of these hominids. And the anatomy was right. And almost instantaneously, I was with a student of mine at that time, Tom Gray, we realized that there were fragments of her, of this skeleton, that were distributed along a slope. There was a piece of a leg, there was a piece of a pelvis, there was a piece of a jaw, there was a piece of a skull. And I realized almost instantaneously that we had part of a skeleton. Normally, we are happy to find a fragment of jaw, a few isolated teeth, a bit of an arm, a bit of a skull. But to find associated body parts is extremely rare. I realized that no matter what it was, even if it was from a creature that we already knew about, another kind of human ancestor that had already been studied and named and so on, it was going to be important because so few discoveries had arms associated with legs, bits of skull associated with a pelvis. I realized immediately that this was a terribly important find, a terribly important discovery, but I didn’t realize at the moment how important it would be until we had spent a lot of time in the laboratory studying it.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><figure id="attachment_29733" style="width: 960px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-29733 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/johanson_19743.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-29733 size-full lazyload" alt="1974: ASU paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson with the Lucy skeleton in the field." width="960" height="960" data-sizes="(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px" data-srcset="/web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/johanson_19743.jpg 960w, /web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/johanson_19743-190x190.jpg 190w, /web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/johanson_19743-380x380.jpg 380w, /web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/johanson_19743-760x760.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/johanson_19743.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">November 1974: Paleoanthropologist Donald C. Johanson with the Lucy skeleton in the field at Hadar in Ethiopia.</figcaption></figure><p><strong>How did you feel that day?</strong></p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/z4cEL4IF2Oc?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Johanson-Donald-1991-MasterEdit.01_08_43_10.Still013-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Johanson-Donald-1991-MasterEdit.01_08_43_10.Still013-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Donald Johanson: Looking at my diaries and reading what I’ve written in more popular books, I am reminded of the fact that it was a moment of just absolute exhilaration. This was the most important discovery I had ever made in my life. It was a discovery which has irrevocably changed my whole life’s direction. It immediately elevated me to the status of one of the world’s important and leading anthropologists. I felt a moment of tremendous achievement, tremendous success. I knew that this was an important key to becoming recognized as an important anthropologist. Particularly because that year, my National Science Foundation grant was just running out. When I applied for my first grant to do field research, it was turned down initially by the National Science Foundation, because I didn’t have my doctorate degree, the Ph.D. And I had really very little field experience. People wondered, “Who is this guy who’s making all these claims that IF he is given the money, IF he is given the opportunity to go there, he is going to make major discoveries?” This was a vindication of a tremendous risk that I took in putting all of this in writing. I knew that that was extremely important to my professional career. I also knew it was going to open up doors for me that to that point had been closed, but I didn’t really know that some of those doors I’d wish had remained closed. It also elevated me in the public eye, also. All of a sudden, even though I had spent all of my academic years training to be a scientist, I now had to become an effective communicator to the public about the importance and excitement of these discoveries.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><figure id="attachment_29738" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-29738 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Lucy-bones.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-29738 lazyload" alt="The remains of an adult female Australopithecus afarensis, known to all the world as "Lucy." With a mixture of ape and human features — including long dangling arms, but pelvic, spine, foot, and leg bones suited to walking upright — slender Lucy stood three-and-a-half feet (107 centimeters) tall. (© Institute of Human Origins)" width="2280" height="945" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Lucy-bones.jpg 2280w, /web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Lucy-bones-380x158.jpg 380w, /web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Lucy-bones-760x315.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Lucy-bones.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">The remains of an adult female Australopithecus afarensis, known to all the world as Lucy. With a mixture of ape and human features — including long dangling arms, but pelvic, spine, foot, and leg bones suited to walking upright — slender Lucy stood three-and-a-half feet (107 centimeters) tall. (ASU, The Institute of Human Origins)</figcaption></figure><p><strong>You also lost some privacy. What was the atmosphere like in that camp? Were you having a great time? Or was it very intense scholarly research? Was there camaraderie?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: A field expedition, like the ones we’ve led to Hadar, are international endeavors with specialists from all kinds of fields. There are people who are interested in horse evolution, people who are interested in hippo evolution, people who are interested in the stratigraphy and geology, people who are collecting samples for dating, so we can establish the age of the site, and so on. There is a great deal of science which goes on in an expedition like this, and you are doing it the whole time you are there. The first thing that happens in the morning is you make decisions about where certain teams will go, what kinds of work they will do. You come back at lunch, discuss details of discoveries that you made, or problems that you encountered, and develop new strategies to attack various issues that are facing you. Work in the afternoon in the geology or paleontology tent, working on your discoveries, cleaning fossils, identifying them, cataloguing, and so on.</p> <p>But there is also an opportunity for enjoying oneself in the field. At dinner, for example, sitting around after dinner and telling stories, listening to music and so on. Of course, everyone shares in the excitement of discovery.</p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/_9N2HpwY7Hk?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Johanson-Donald-1991-MasterEdit.00_20_35_12.Still006-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Johanson-Donald-1991-MasterEdit.00_20_35_12.Still006-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>When Lucy was found, the camp really, literally went wild. When we drove into camp, my student was honking the horn of the Land Rover, and they knew something was up right away. So everyone, even though they weren’t specialists in anthropology, people who might have been doing something in geology or paleontology, came running up, saying, “What did you find?” And I’ll never forget, this student said, “We found the whole damn thing!” They said, “What do you mean?” And he said, “We found a skeleton!” That was just like some sort of elixir that infected everyone. The whole camp was immediately brought up and excited. We all drove out to the site and stood around and looked at the bones that were on the slope, and developed a strategy for what to do. That night, when we were in camp, that’s all we could talk about, was the discovery of this specimen. And, you know, “What do you think it is, Don? Do you think it’s a male or a female?” I thought it was a female because of the small size. And we were listening to Beatles tapes. I have been, still am, a great Beatles fan. One of the songs that was playing was “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” And we thought that instead of calling her, “the partial <em>Australopithecus</em> skeleton from locality 288″ that she needed some name. Something that would be easier to refer to her. And I jokingly said, “Why don’t we call her Lucy?” And little did I know that that would catch on. Once that name was uttered, once it was associated with the skeleton, there was no way to erase it. The next morning at breakfast, my students would say to me, “When are we going to the Lucy site? Do you think we will find more of Lucy’s skull? Do you think we will be able to get the rest of Lucy’s leg?” She developed right from the outset, you could see inklings of a personality, that she was becoming more than just a bunch of dry old bones that were collected in this remote part of the world. She, herself, was being identified as a very important element in our understanding of human origins. The excitement was quite extraordinary, and involved everyone, not just the person who found her, but everyone who worked on the expedition.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><figure id="attachment_29712" style="width: 1145px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-29712 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/DCJ-Tom-Gray-1974.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-29712 size-full lazyload" alt="1974: Donald Johanson and Tom Gray at Hadar. Lucy was found by Donald Johanson and Tom Gray on November 24, 1974, at the site of Hadar in Ethiopia. They had taken a Land Rover out that day to map in another locality. After a long, hot morning of mapping and surveying for fossils, they decided to head back to the vehicle. Johanson suggested taking an alternate route back to the Land Rover, through a nearby gully. Within moments, he spotted a right proximal ulna (forearm bone) and quickly identified it as a hominid. Shortly thereafter, he saw an occipital (skull) bone, then a femur, some ribs, a pelvis, and the lower jaw. Two weeks later, after many hours of excavation, screening, and sorting, several hundred fragments of bone had been recovered, representing 40 percent of a single hominid skeleton. (Courtesy Institute of Human Origins, Arizona State University)" width="1145" height="1525" data-sizes="(max-width: 1145px) 100vw, 1145px" data-srcset="/web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/DCJ-Tom-Gray-1974.jpg 1145w, /web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/DCJ-Tom-Gray-1974-285x380.jpg 285w, /web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/DCJ-Tom-Gray-1974-571x760.jpg 571w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/DCJ-Tom-Gray-1974.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1974: Lucy was found by Donald Johanson and Tom Gray on November 24, 1974 at the site of Hadar in Ethiopia. They had taken a Land Rover out that day to map in another locality. After a long, hot morning of mapping and surveying for fossils, they decided to head back to the vehicle. Johanson suggested taking an alternate route back to the Land Rover, through a nearby gully. Within moments, he spotted a right proximal ulna (forearm bone) and quickly identified it as a hominid. Shortly thereafter, he saw an occipital (skull) bone, then a femur, some ribs, a pelvis, and the lower jaw. Two weeks later, after many hours of excavation, screening, and sorting, several hundred fragments of bone had been recovered, representing 40 percent of a single hominid skeleton. (ASU)</figcaption></figure><p><strong>To a layperson, it’s something of a miracle that you could see some stray bones on a slope and A, know that they were human, B, know that they were connected to the same body. How did you know they were part of one person, and how did you determine that these were the oldest bones of such a creature ever found?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: Any endeavor like this is really multi-disciplinary. It takes the dedicated effort of a group of specialists to understand the meaning of a fossil like this. It’s not enough to make the discovery, but to understand that discovery in terms of the geological setting in which it is found, where she sits in the time scale of human evolution, and how to interpret the specimen.</p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/0W2wqYBqr5E?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Johanson-Donald-1991-MasterEdit.00_47_50_05.Still011-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Johanson-Donald-1991-MasterEdit.00_47_50_05.Still011-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/preparation/">Preparation</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>We are very carefully trained, as students in anthropology, in human anatomy. In fact, in the anatomy of a diverse set of animals. So that we learn the diagnostic features of teeth, and jaws, and various bones of the body. For example, when we are in the field, we are constantly looking at the surface of the ground for fossils which have eroded out of these ancient deposits. You can make decisions right away as to whether or not it’s an antelope or a baboon or a carnivore, or whatever. Because each one has its own diagnostic anatomy. And it’s something we spend a lot of time doing in school, training to identify these various things. And then of course going into the field and applying it, and even expanding our understanding of anatomical variation more, even more than we did in graduate school.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><p>Knowing that she represented a single individual was very important, if you are going to make decisions about her anatomy. What are the relationships between upper and lower limbs? Her arms are relatively long, compared to her lower limbs. Our upper arm bone is only about 70 percent the length of our thighbone. In Lucy’s case, it was about 90 percent the length of her thighbone. Which meant she had relatively long arms. Which she probably inherited from her ancestors who lived in trees. If it’s more than one individual, you might be confusing the arms and legs of different individuals. In this case, there was no duplication of body parts. There weren’t two right arms, or two left legs, or two fragments of a left jaw. There was only one of each. Also, the bone is all of the same fossilization or color, so we were able to make the decision that it belonged to a single specimen.</p> <figure id="attachment_29731" style="width: 1469px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-29731 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Johanson-Donald400.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-29731 size-full lazyload" alt="Donald Johanson with "Lucy." (© Institute of Human Origins. Nanci Kahn)" width="1469" height="1889" data-sizes="(max-width: 1469px) 100vw, 1469px" data-srcset="/web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Johanson-Donald400.jpg 1469w, /web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Johanson-Donald400-296x380.jpg 296w, /web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Johanson-Donald400-591x760.jpg 591w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Johanson-Donald400.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Donald Johanson with Lucy, which was a revolutionary step in understanding our human origins. (Nancy Kahn)</figcaption></figure><p><strong>When you happened to look over your shoulder and see this fossil, how soon was it, in terms of minutes and hours, before you knew that she was one person, and that she would revolutionize anthropology?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: We knew within five minutes that this was an important discovery, that there was a lot of a single skeleton here. The explosion was instantaneous. But there was a question in our minds: Do these body parts represent more than one individual? And if they do, how are we going to sort them out? So many questions depend on what bones go with what bones. As we were collecting her over the next several weeks, we realized that there was only one individual. 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.</p> <p>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. It brought with it a tremendous amount of responsibility, because I had to be correct. If I made a mistake at this point, and someone came along and proved me to be wrong, I would lose tremendous respect from my colleagues. This was taking a tremendous risk.</p> <figure id="attachment_29768" style="width: 2684px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-29768 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/8f18778fce2acae66c2ddee0ec557b4a.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-29768 size-full lazyload" alt="An artist's conception shows human ancestors from a long-extinct species called Australopithecus afarensis. The first specimen of the species, known as Lucy, was discovered 40 years ago. (Michael Hagelberg/ASU Research Magazine)" width="2684" height="3385" data-sizes="(max-width: 2684px) 100vw, 2684px" data-srcset="/web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/8f18778fce2acae66c2ddee0ec557b4a.jpg 2684w, /web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/8f18778fce2acae66c2ddee0ec557b4a-301x380.jpg 301w, /web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/8f18778fce2acae66c2ddee0ec557b4a-603x760.jpg 603w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/8f18778fce2acae66c2ddee0ec557b4a.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">An artist’s conception shows human ancestors from a long-extinct species called Australopithecus afarensis. The first specimen of the species, known as Lucy, was discovered more than 40 years ago. (ASU Research Magazine)</figcaption></figure><p>I worked very hard with a number of scientific colleagues, particularly Tim White. The two of us made this decision that Lucy and other fossils which we found in Ethiopia represented a very distinct and different species of <em>Australopithecus</em> — a species which was more primitive, more generalized, than any other species of <em>Australopithecus</em> that had ever been found. We named it <em>Australopithecus afarensis</em>, after the Afar region of Ethiopia.</p> <p>Not only did it have important implications for the number of species in the fossil record, but the next step was even scarier. If that’s true, then it’s going to strongly influence the way we view the family tree. For example, here was a creature that we felt was fully upright, bipedal, walking on two legs, that had a brain that was the size of a chimpanzee. This was really as close to “the ape that stood up” as anything that anyone had ever found. And there have been many people who have suggested that our ancestors stood up so that we could use our hands to make and use tools. Yet we hadn’t found a single stone tool, and never have, in those deposits. I knew it was going to generate a whole new series of controversies about our ancestors. And I felt that this was a tremendous responsibility.</p> <figure id="attachment_29728" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-29728 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/from-lucy-to-language.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-29728 size-full lazyload" alt="1996: "From Lucy to Language" by Donald Johanson and Blake Edgar." width="2280" height="3147" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/from-lucy-to-language.jpg 2280w, /web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/from-lucy-to-language-275x380.jpg 275w, /web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/from-lucy-to-language-551x760.jpg 551w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/from-lucy-to-language.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1996: <em>From Lucy to Language,</em> by Donald Johanson and Blake Edgar, presenting the evidence for human evolution.</figcaption></figure><p>So it was an electric time in my life. At that point I was invited to Sweden, which had also important emotional implications to me, because my mother and father were born and raised in Sweden, so I had a very strong tie to Sweden. My father’s brothers and sister were still alive in Sweden.</p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/8F3UvEZ5WQA?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Johanson-Donald-1991-MasterEdit.00_11_37_16.Still004-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Johanson-Donald-1991-MasterEdit.00_11_37_16.Still004-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/courage/">Courage</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>I had an invitation to go to Sweden to participate in a Nobel symposium. And I decided this was the venue, this was the place, where I wanted to announce the new species. And I thought how substantial an impact this is going to have, and I went to this Nobel symposium, and there were very few people at the symposium who knew it was going to be announced. There were only two or three people in the audience who knew that it was going to be a new species. When I made the announcement, you could hear a pin drop in the room. I mean, here was assembled 15 of the world’s specialists in human evolutionary studies. Richard Leakey was there, Mary Leakey was there, a whole host of people, from prestigious universities, who were published widely, and here I was — 1978 — I was at that time a young scholar, 35 years old, making this announcement. And furthermore, I presented a new view of how the family tree looked. I thought that this was going to generate enormous discussion. I finished my paper, and there was a question-and-answer period, and nobody asked a question. They broke for tea, people left the room, and only one scientist came up to me afterwards, and said, “It’s unbelievable.” They were so taken aback by this that they didn’t even want to discuss it. During the week’s discussion, whenever people would start debating a family tree, I would say, “What about my family tree? What about what I’m suggesting?” Some people deliberately tried to ignore it and not consider it because it really upset their views of human evolution. They found it very difficult to subsume that into their view of human origins. So this was a high-risk time in my life. We keep going back to the strength which I had throughout my career. I must admit it was one of the times when I really had to dig deep, take a deep breath, and say, “I believe I’m right. I believe that I will be vindicated. Lucy will be accepted as <em>Australopithecus afarensis</em>, and she will alter everyone’s views of how we got here.”</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><figure id="attachment_9799" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-9799 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/leakey-johanson-WhiteLeakWoodJohans0340-09E.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-9799 size-full lazyload" alt="Tim White, Richard Leakey, Bernard Wood and Donald Johanson examine Johanson's newly discovered Australopithecus fossils at the National Museum of Kenya. (© 1976 David L. Brill, Brill Atlanta)" width="2280" height="1511" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/leakey-johanson-WhiteLeakWoodJohans0340-09E.jpg 2280w, /web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/leakey-johanson-WhiteLeakWoodJohans0340-09E-380x252.jpg 380w, /web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/leakey-johanson-WhiteLeakWoodJohans0340-09E-760x504.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/leakey-johanson-WhiteLeakWoodJohans0340-09E.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1976: Internationally renowned paleoanthropologists Tim White, Richard Leakey, Bernard Wood and Donald Johanson examine Johanson’s newly discovered Australopithecus fossils at the National Museum of Kenya.</figcaption></figure><p><strong>Did the doubts of your colleagues cause you to have doubts about yourself? Was there ever a time when you wondered, “Have I gotten way off the track here? Am I barking up the wrong tree?”</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: My test to that question came before I announced her. Scientists are very afraid of being proven wrong. Some people who have held onto a particular view, whatever it is, and have had to change that on the basis of new evidence, have been reluctant to do so, because they feel very vulnerable. How could I be proven wrong? When we first made these discoveries in Ethiopia, I interpreted the collection of hundreds of fossil specimens as representing two different kinds of human ancestors: a larger form of human ancestor, which led more to modern humans; and the <em>Australopithecus</em> line, that was a side branch.</p> <figure id="attachment_29761" style="width: 2064px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-29761 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Johanson-Leakey-19.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-29761 size-full lazyload" alt="May 7, 2011: Famed paleoanthropologists Donald Johanson and Richard Leakey convened at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City to discuss human origins. It is the first time Leakey and Johanson —longtime rivals — have shared a stage since a public falling out in 1981. (Frank L. Kollman)" width="2064" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2064px) 100vw, 2064px" data-srcset="/web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Johanson-Leakey-19.jpg 2064w, /web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Johanson-Leakey-19-380x280.jpg 380w, /web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Johanson-Leakey-19-760x560.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Johanson-Leakey-19.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">2011: Donald Johanson and Richard Leakey at the American Museum of Natural History to discuss human origins. It is the first time Leakey and Johanson — longtime rivals — have shared a stage since a public falling out in 1981.</figcaption></figure></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181225135423if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/pGuTbUZbMUU?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Donald-Johanson-13.00_02_08_08.Still002-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Donald-Johanson-13.00_02_08_08.Still002-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/integrity/">Integrity</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>I suggested in the first paper I published that there were at least two different kinds of hominids at this site. And I very soon thereafter began an extensive period of research with my colleague Tim White. And I remember the nights of argument in the laboratory in Cleveland, when we would literally be screaming at each other. Because he said: “There is only one species here. The big ones are males, the little ones are females. And if you lay them all out on the table, you have a gradual change from small, to larger, to larger, to largest. And there’s no significant anatomical difference between the individuals in this collection. It represents only a single species, and the sooner you recognize that, the better off you are going to be.” He was very forceful in his arguments. And I would go home and think about it, and go back the next morning and take out the jaws and see if I could establish a series of features that would vindicate me, and substantiate my view that there were two species. And, slowly this idea was eroded away, and I had to admit that what I had published was wrong. It was incorrect. I had made a mistake.</p> </div> </div>     <aside class="collapse" id="full-interview">    <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p>So after this long period of argumentation, and debate, I was better prepared to face critics who said, “Don, I think there really are two species in the collection, and you’ve made a mistake. I think the big ones are one species and the little ones are another species. What do you think about that?” I had already prepared my list of answers before that question even came up. We scientists, even though we think that we live in this ivory tower of truth, have to be prepared for the unanticipated. We have to be prepared to alter our views, to change or ideas, to make major changes in the way we view our own discipline. That was an extremely important learning experience for me. To this day, for example, I strongly believe that we have a pretty good idea of what the human family tree looks like. I think that many of my ideas are correct, but I’ll bet you, before my death other discoveries will be made that will prompt me to alter various ideas I have about human evolution.</p> <p><strong>So you not only have to take a lot of risks, but you really have to force yourself to be open-minded, and not be married to any one way of seeing things.</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: Absolutely.</p> <p><strong>I am very struck in reading about your achievements over the last 15 years or so, how early they came, relatively speaking, in your career. When did you first realize that you wanted to pursue anthropology? Did someone in particular help pique that interest?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: In fact, there was one individual who became my mentor very early on. My father died when I was two years old, so I had no strong male image or personality in my life.</p> <p>As a young boy, at about age eight, I met an anthropologist, who was out walking his dog. He was teaching at a theological seminary in Hartford, Connecticut. And, as I often jokingly say, his dog introduced me to him. And I became introduced because of that to anthropology. Something that probably most of us don’t even hear about until we are in college and take an introductory anthropology course, or whatever. But Paul Lazer, deceased now, was regularly going to Africa to pursue his area of work. He was a social-cultural anthropologist, in places like Tanzania, and Malawi, and so on. And I was thrilled as a young boy to sit with him, surrounded by his library of knowledge and to talk to him about his adventures in Africa. And I became very interested in Africa. I became very intrigued by the idea of going to a place as foreign and remote as Africa.</p> <p>At the same time, I was particularly interested in biology. I had a huge butterfly collection. I went out and identified plants and insects, and so on. When the first fossils began to be found in eastern Africa, in the late 1950s, I thought, what a wonderful marriage this was, biology and anthropology. I was around 16 years old when I made this particular choice of academic pursuit. It was something I wanted to do more than anything else. I had a broad range of interests, biology and astronomy. But this was something that particularly intrigued me because of the personal contact I had with someone who I respected more than anyone else. What he was doing, to me, appeared to be extremely exciting. And I thought, wouldn’t it be marvelous if I could grow up to be an anthropologist. So my interest in evolution began in, of all places, a theological seminary.</p> <p><strong>Did you ever stop to wonder, if that dog hadn’t introduced you to the anthropologist, whether you would be doing something else today? Or do you think you would have found this field anyway?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: I suspect that if I had not met Paul Lazer, if I had not had his remarkable influence, I would certainly have been doing something else. I think that, in fact, as I look back there was a very interesting thing which happened when I was a senior in high school. My first two years of high school, I was not a very good student. I was much more interested in what was going on outside of school. I was not stimulated to perform by the regular curriculum of high school. We didn’t have astronomy courses. We didn’t have courses in natural history, and there were so many other things I was interested in that schoolwork sort of got in the way and I did very poorly my first two years. After my sophomore year, Paul told me, “If you want to go to college, if you want to pursue an advanced degree, in whatever field it is you want, you need to get cracking in your school work.” I worked very hard the last two years of high school. In fact, I graduated something like 26 out of 300, did very well, but I did very poorly on examinations, Scholastic Aptitude Tests, for example. The reason I did so poorly was because I had read papers, which, of course, most students had not read, about the fact that these tests are highly biased. It really depends on one’s background. Taking a scholastic aptitude test that’s designed for a white Anglo-Saxon group of people and applying that to another group of people, these other people come out scoring very low, and the interpretation is that they’re not very bright. There’s a sense that they’re not terribly good, certainly weren’t at that time, very good ways to accurately reflect one’s intellectual capabilities, so I didn’t take them very seriously. As a result I did very poorly on them. There was a tremendous effort, or emphasis, placed on these examinations for entry to college. And when I went to the high school counselor, Mr. Olson, to discuss my college applications, he said, “Young man, I think you should apply to a trade school.” He said, “You’re not college material.” And Paul, at that point — I came back with this story. I was practically in tears, as you might imagine. Paul reiterated that these tests are not accurate tests of one’s capabilities and intelligence, and that I should apply. And I applied to several colleges and did get in. That sort of influence was terribly important to me because if I had not met him, and didn’t have that sort of influence in my life, I might have ended up going to trade school, becoming a plumber, or an electrician, or something else.</p> <p><strong>Were there particular books you read growing up that led you into this area?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: I was particularly intrigued with astronomy. So I read a lot of books on astronomy. I read Lowell’s book on Mars, for example. I was very intrigued with the “canals” of Mars. But one of the books that played the largest role in my decision to become an anthropologist was a book written by Huxley in the late 1800s. Huxley was, as he is often called, Darwin’s bulldog. Charles Darwin formulated one of the most extraordinary ideas of the Western mind, the idea of evolution by means of natural selection. It’s interesting that today we have physicists trying to develop what they call the “grand unified theory,” something that would unify all aspects of the physical universe. We have spent billions of dollars sending telescopes into outer space, building radio telescopes, designing laboratory experiments to get down to things like the Z particle, and mu mesons, and all of these things that happen in cloud chambers, and so on.</p> <p>Here was a guy, Charles Darwin, in the middle 1800’s who sat in a little home in Kent at Down and because of his five-year experience on the Beagle, traveling around the world as a naturalist, designed an idea of evolutionary change which is the grand unifying theory of biology. Today, even though biology is leaps and bounds beyond Darwin in 1859, when he published <em>The Origin of Species,</em> the basic core of biology is still natural selection. But, Darwin was a very retiring person. He didn’t want to go out and defend his theories when he was being attacked by, particularly by the church, but by other scientists. But, Huxley, one of his colleagues, really became the defender of his ideas. He wrote a book with a wonderful title, <em>Man’s Place In Nature. </em>Of course, the terrible thing that Darwin did was he removed humans from the center of the biological universe. He said that humans and human ancestors must have been susceptible to the same forces, the same whims and caprices of climatic change, evolutionary change, as any and all other living organisms. What Huxley tried to do in this book, was to really put man in his place in the natural world. I thought this was a brilliant idea. This was something that intrigued me, to realize that the same sort of plants and animals and insects that I was studying and was interested in — that we were there for the same reasons that they were. The same process of evolutionary change that brought about the Monarch butterfly, or the rabbits that I was observing in the neighborhood and so on, was the same process that brought us to where we are today.</p> <p><strong>Were you aware, when you were close to Paul Lazer as a young man, that there could be any kind of dichotomy or conflict between the seminary and the theory of evolution, the work that you were starting to do?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: 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. I was aware of the conflict, but on the one hand, I felt that religion was pretty much based on an individual’s faith. I had colleagues in high school who were devout Catholics, who went to church regularly, who went to confession regularly, who really had religion play a large role in their lives. I felt that was their own personal belief. That was not something that I should necessarily tinker with or tamper with, or challenge. Because that was a personally held belief. But on the other hand, I thought that natural selection made so much sense, from the scientific viewpoint, that this was really something that one should evaluate in an entirely different realm, in the realm of science, which is very different from the realm of religion. So I was aware of it, but it did not cause me a great deal of conflict.</p> <p><strong>What was it about anthropology that attracted you so powerfully?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: There is a tremendous amount of romanticism which surrounds going off on expeditions to remote parts of the world and camping in tents, and living in a desert and struggling with all of the trials and tribulations that one encounters. But, I think that what really intrigued me was the fact that I felt that this was and still is really, a science, a form of inquiry, which is still in its infancy. That there were so many things yet to be discovered, that the science itself would have, in my lifetime, still lots of surprises.</p> <p>I was very strongly influenced by Paul not to go into anthropology. He said to me, “This is the age of science. Anthropology is sort of a 19th century study. The opportunities in biology, chemistry and physics are so enormous. We’re putting satellites in space. Computers are beginning to take over everything. You ought to go into something more practical than anthropology.”</p> <p>I was a chemistry major for two years. But the whole time, I was still reading anthropology. I was going over to the anthropology department; I had taken some anthropology courses. It was still a love of mine, but I listened very closely to what Paul said: “You’d better do something that is going to pay off, something that is practical.”</p> <p>Donald Johanson: One day I was sitting in — I believe it was organic chemistry class — and I realized that the 500 or so people who were in this lecture hall would all go home that night and solve the same problems and come up with the same answers. And those problems were the same problems that were answered by the class the last year and the year before. What I wanted to do was, I wanted to explore problems and areas where we didn’t have answers. In fact, where we didn’t even know the right questions to ask. Because often, the questions we ask, we found out were the wrong questions. We came up with new evidence that totally changed our whole view of what we thought about human evolution.</p> <p>Paul and I started to have a long exchange of letters, back and forth, and I ultimately declared a major in anthropology. This was probably the only time I ever really disobeyed him. He died a few years ago, but before he died, I had the opportunity to make phenomenal discoveries in East Africa. I’ll never forget the afternoon when I arrived in Hartford, Connecticut and came to his apartment with the fossils I had found in Ethiopia, and unwrapped them. We sat on his living room floor and looked at them.</p> <p><strong>He must have been very proud.</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: Indeed he was. Yes.</p> <p><strong>You sound like you had the mind and the soul of a scientist almost from the beginning. Where did this come from? What kind of professions did your parents have? Were they in scientific fields?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: No, not at all. My father, my real father died when I was two years old so I never knew him. He was a barber. He was a barber in Chicago. My mother had no formal education whatsoever. A very, very bright woman, very intelligent woman, but a woman when she was 16 years old living in Sweden, decided that the place where things were happening was the United States. It wasn’t in the old world as it was called. It wasn’t in Sweden. She wanted to be part of the new world. She borrowed money from her father. She didn’t speak any English. She left Sweden and came to the United States, landed in New York City and got a job in an ice cream parlor. Learned English, then went back and got the man she wanted to marry, who was my father. Once my father died, in 1945, my mother had a very difficult time financially. She spent her career being a domestic, being a cleaning lady. She earned enough money to support the two of us, and to assist me in my attempts to go to college. So there was a tremendous work ethic, which she had, and had a tremendous influence on me in terms of, if you want to do something, you can do it. There really are few obstacles that are going to prevent you from doing it. She was a very important role model for me, for very different reasons.</p> <p><strong>Still, anthropology didn’t sound like a terribly practical profession. Did she encourage you? Was she excited about this, or was she concerned about the practical aspects?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: She was more supportive of my pursuing a career in chemistry. I had done very well in chemistry in high school; it was one of the things that really excited me. I was president of the Chemistry Club, and spent a lot of time in the lab doing all sorts of experiments. She could see a real practical application of this, so she encouraged me to do something in the more scientific realm. But when I changed to anthropology, she was supportive of that also. She never stood in the way. She encouraged me. I think she would have been happier had I done something more practical, but she was very supportive the whole way through. She just died this past year, at 88.</p> <p><strong>I’m sorry to hear that. She lived long enough to enjoy a lot of your triumphs. What were her reactions?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: She was overwhelmed with the success I had, particularly success at such an early age. I had just finished my doctoral dissertation at the University of Chicago, that summer of 1974, and then went off to Ethiopia in September. In November of that year, I made a discovery which not only changed the course of anthropological theory and ideas, but changed my life’s direction enormously. This was tremendously gratifying to her, and she was very proud of what I had done. To see her son on the evening newscast with Walter Cronkite, or in the newspaper… She was extremely proud and gratified to know that I had made such a wonderful achievement.</p> <p><strong>You lost your father when you were still a toddler. What role do you think that loss played in your life?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: Potentially, it could have been very damaging. I think it is important to have both a male and a female role model in one’s life. If I had not met Paul Lazer, I think my life would have been very different. I certainly would not have been as successful as I am now. When I was 13 years old, going through puberty, certain things would happen, and my mother would get very upset. Paul would come in and say, “Never hold a 13 year-old responsible for anything he did last week, because this week he is a different person.” He had a real understanding of the changes that we go through when we mature from a child to an adult. He played a very important role in my emotional development. And I think it is important to have both a male and a female role model in one’s life.</p> <p><strong>You were lucky in that. After you became an advanced student, was there anyone who gave you your first professional break?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: Yes, there was. As an undergraduate, I had an opportunity to go on a number of archeological digs. So I had experience excavating, digging up remains of ancient Indian villages in the Midwest and in the Southwest. I was being channeled in that direction of North American archeology. But what really excited me was the idea that humans had a tremendous pre-history that went back millions of years. I wanted to go to Africa to find some of these creatures. I was at the University of Illinois, and there was no one there who was doing this kind of research, either in the field or in the laboratory. I was almost a year into my graduate work as an archeologist when I decided I really wanted an opportunity to work in Africa.</p> <p>There was one man, Professor Clark Howell, who is now at the University of California at Berkeley, who was teaching at the University of Chicago. He is sort of the father of paleoanthropology, the study of human origins. He developed the whole multi-interdisciplinary approach to doing the sort of work we do in the field. He was at that time, working in southern Ethiopia at a site known as the Omo. I remember talking to my fellow graduate students about the fact that, “This is really what I want to do. I want to pursue human evolutionary studies, and I want to work with Clark Howell.” They said, “How are you going to do that?” I said well, “I have to meet the guy.” And they said, “How are you going to do that?” And I said, “I’m going to call him.” I called him at the University of Chicago. I called the anthropology department and was transferred to his office. He picked up the phone, and I told him who I was and that I was a student in Champaign-Urbana, and that I wanted to come to Chicago to meet him. He said that would be fine, and we set up an appointment. Here was sort of the Dean of American paleoanthropology who, you know, we had read about. Every student read his works. He was more influential really than any other individual in the United States and I had an appointment to see him. And I remember walking to his office the very first time – very cordial, very approachable man, and we sat down and talked. And then he said, finally he said, “What do you really want to do?” I said, “I’d like to go to Africa and find human ancestor fossils.” And he said, “Well, you know, a lot of people want to do that.”</p> <p>He looked at me with a little grin, sort of telling me that this is not an easy thing. If we look at the number of people who are working in the field of human origins, in Africa, you can count them on one hand. The window of opportunity there is very small.</p> <p>After this discussion, he invited me to come to the University of Chicago as an exchange student, for a half a year. I knew this was an opportunity that I had to seize, an opportunity that I had to devote myself to 110 percent. I worked very hard in the courses I took from him, and other professors, and after my first series of courses there, they asked me if I wanted to stay on as a permanent graduate student. There was a fellowship available that would support my work as a graduate student, so I left the University of Illinois and went to Chicago.</p> <p>As a student, I was supported with a National Institutes of Dental Research Traineeship, so I was expected to do something in the area of teeth. And since teeth are the things that preserve the best in the fossil record, it was appropriate to do this sort of study. I did a long, very boring thesis on chimpanzee teeth. I traveled all over Europe and looked at museum collections, and published — or produced — a very thick thesis on all the detail of chimpanzee teeth. And that prepared me for understanding the teeth of our human ancestors better than anything else I could have done. During the course of my research for my Ph.D., Clark was working in Ethiopia, and he was going to study some fossils of human ancestors in South Africa. He was particularly interested in what he could learn from the anatomy of the teeth and he asked me if I had any ideas of things that he should look for. I spent several hours with him, and he said, “Why don’t you come with me on this trip?” Of course, I was thrilled to go to Africa to see the original fossils of this terrible tongue-twister, <em>Australopithecus</em>. And then I said, “Since I’m going to South Africa, and flying through Nairobi, why can’t I come up and visit your expedition?” He gave me that break. He said, “Why don’t you come up and visit us. Why don’t you come up and see what it’s like to be in the field, finding these fossils.” That was the break that all of us dreamed of as students. That was in 1970, and since then I have worked on and off throughout the Great Rift Valley of East Africa.</p> <p><strong>You sound like you were absolutely fearless at this young age. To just go to the phone and call up the most famous person in your field! How did you have the guts to do that?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: I think a lot of this comes from what I saw in my mother. So often, personal tragedy cripples people to the point where they become emotional basket cases. They just can’t go on anymore. I saw a woman who, in spite of the most intense tragedy, had the strength to pull herself up and do something that wasn’t terribly flattering.</p> <p>She had lived a very nice life with my father. He was extremely successful in his business, and they had a lovely home. The happiest moment in their life was my birth. From what my mother and her friends said, this was really the pinnacle in his life, to have a son. And he was so supportive, so helpful, so joyful, so full of love about this, that he just infected people with it. At the height of all of that happiness, this terrible tragedy happened. This man she lived with for most of her life died at a young age, in his early forties, when I was only two years old.</p> <p>My mother was really left alone. The home had to be sold, the money that was saved in the bank had to be used, and she was faced with this problem: How did she support herself and me? She wasn’t trained, she wasn’t educated. One of the few things that she was able to do was go out and be a cleaning lady. But to her, this was not demeaning. She was still a proud person. This didn’t lower her status in her own eyes or the eyes of her friends. The people she worked for became very close to her and respected her tremendously. I still know some of these people. When they call or write a Christmas card, they always say how important an influence my mother was in their children’s growing up, because of the strength which she had.</p> <p>Because of what she did, and how she faced difficult situations, she imparted to me a great strength, which is something that you don’t learn in the classroom. It’s not something that you learn from reading books. It’s not something you learn by getting a Ph.D. It’s something you need to learn in the real world. Any day, something could happen that would change your life and move you in a direction you never anticipated. You can grasp that, and flow with that opportunity, and say something good will come of this, as she undoubtedly did. If she had not done that, she would not have imparted to me the strength to go on.</p> <p>When I was a student, and college became more and more expensive, I too had to get a job. I too had to work between midnight and four o’clock in the morning because we got 25 cents extra an hour by working the graveyard shift. So I worked for the physics department for two years and was able to finish my undergraduate work. And instead of complaining about that — instead of complaining about the fact that my roommates were all going out on Saturday night, they had say, a second-hand car, or they all went home for vacation when I stayed to make extra money so I could make it through the next semester — I faced it and embraced it as part of the learning experience. The learning experience of life. She imparted the strength which has carried me right through. That has helped me at every step in my career.</p> <p><strong>Do you think being an only child also had some effect on your fearlessness and ambition?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: I think so. I spent a great deal of time by myself as a young boy, and had a very elaborate fantasy life. A very elaborate intellectual life, I guess you might say. Developed an interest in music as a young boy, listening to the radio, and so on. And I feel that being an only child, you have a lot of downtime when you aren’t interacting with your siblings. And instead of squandering that time, I used to dedicate that time to learning something more about music, something more about astronomy, something more about chemistry, or whatever.</p> <p>I was very intellectually oriented, very early on. As an only child, I didn’t realize it at the time. I had dinner recently with some friends. One of them has four sisters, and she was telling stories about growing up with five in a family. I missed out on that. I don’t have siblings and, as I get older, I don’t have those people to fall back on, to share the common experience of how it was growing up. I have very few friends left who I knew in high school. So I am somewhat disappointed that I didn’t have siblings but, on the other hand, it gave me a lot of spare time to do other things.</p> <p><strong>Professor Clark must have seen that strength in you, to give a chance to this whippersnapper who calls him up out of the blue. He must have seen something in you that made him think, “Yes, this fellow can go far.” What do you think he saw?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: It’s a difficult question for me to answer, but I think there is a clue. He was a farm boy who grew up in Kansas. I don’t know exactly why or how he got interested in human evolutionary science, but as an undergraduate, he wrote letters to some of the giants in the field. People like Franz Weidenreich, who is long dead. He was a German scholar who was most responsible for the Peking Man fossils. He had the courage and the strength as a student to write to someone like that. He carried on a long correspondence about evolution with one of the real giants. Think about a student today who is interested in astronomy, saying, “If only I could write to Carl Sagan. If only I could meet him and talk to him.” Well, you can. You can write to these people, and very often they will write back. I get wonderful letters from grammar school students, high school students who are doing a class project on Lucy, or doing class projects on human evolution. “Could you answer these three questions for my project?” Sometimes written in little ten year-old handwriting, or whatever. I always answer them. I think that Clark saw in me some of what he had in himself, the strength that he had to pursue what intellectually excited him.</p> <p><strong>When we’re kids, so often we are told by both our parents and our teachers, “Stay in your place. Don’t make waves. Do what you are told. Do what’s practical.” You seem to have broken all those rules, all along the way, and that’s how you were successful. Taking risks seems to be a very big part of being a successful scientist.</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: It certainly is. I’m trying to think of the first major risk I took. I guess it was when I was a senior in high school. It was a very conservative public high school. If you can believe, in the late 1950s, going to a public high school, where you had separate stairways for boys and girls. Separate cafeterias. Separate biology classes. It was like going to some sort of an academy. I was a very avid amateur astronomer, and we had a little astronomy club in high school. We had a remarkable telescope at the high school. It had been made in the late 1800s when the school was first built. We used this to observe all of the wonders of the sky.</p> <p>I was talking to my physics teacher, whom I admired greatly, and he was despondent. The highway was coming through where the old high school was and there was no provision for an observatory in the plans for the new high school that was to be built. They were not going to move the telescope to the new school. I said, “They can’t do that! That’s impossible, they have to move the telescope. Who makes these decisions?” And he says, “They’ve done it. There is nothing that can be done about it. The Board of Education makes the decisions.” I found out that Board meetings were open to the public.</p> <p>I corralled a couple of my fellow classmates and we went down to the Board of Education meetings and sat there. And when there was an opportunity to ask a question, this little 17 year-old kid got up and brought up the whole subject of the telescope. And they said, “Well, we are not moving it because it’s going to cost” — I forget what it was, $25,000 or something or other — “to build it, and that was not in the budget.” And I said, “Well, you can’t do that.” I said, “It’s too important.”</p> <p>After that evening’s meeting, three or four of us got together, and I said, “Something can be done about this.” So we started writing to astronomy departments at Harvard and Yale and Princeton, and got letters of support. We delivered these letters to the Board of Education, and then we wrote a long letter to the editor of the Hartford Courant. This long letter appeared, and other letters came in supporting it, and before we knew it, the high school had to move the telescope. This was a risk, because of all the academic achievements I had made in the last two years. I was now part of the honors group and so on, even though there were people who thought I should go to trade school, because I did so poorly on my exams.</p> <p>At this point the principal, Mr. Quirk, interesting name, came under a lot of pressure from the Board of Education to silence these students. And in fact, I was called in to the principal’s office and told that this was really not my role as a student, to interfere with what adults were doing and the decisions which they had made. And once the decision was made, there was a big article in the newspaper about how these young students had begun this movement and I all of a sudden became very unpopular with Mr. Quirk and others.</p> <p>There was a really cold reception. I remember at graduation, when I did receive my prizes in a couple of different areas, they weren’t given to me as warmly as they were given to others. This was a risk I knew I was taking, because there was certainly a tremendous chance of failure, but I didn’t want to entertain the idea of failure. I said to myself, “We are going succeed at this”. If we succeeded, I knew that there would be a downside to it. And the downside was that I upset the apple cart. But I’ve always felt that risk-taking is an important part of what it means to be a human being.</p> <p><strong>As strong a confidence as you project, and as lucky as you were to meet Paul Lazer and so on, a lot of hard work has gone into the success you’ve had in this field. I wonder how you relate to the Edison quote about genius being one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: I agree with him, essentially, 100 percent. One has to devote oneself to a particular pursuit. To be successful at anything, you have to make a total commitment to it. We so often see students who would love to play baseball like one of their heroes, or would love to be on the basketball court or the football field. They don’t see the 99 percent effort that went into practicing making baskets, or practicing hitting the baseball, or practicing catching a pass on the football field. It takes a tremendous amount of perspiration, a tremendous amount of hard work that you don’t always see or appreciate in the end result. You will find this over and over. Most achievers I know are people who have made a strong and deep dedication to pursuing a particular goal. That dedication took a tremendous amount of effort. That is certainly true in my case. It took a tremendous amount of work to get from point A to point B.</p> <p><strong>Despite all that hard work, I gather there was some resentment that success came to you relatively early. There may have been a sort of reverse ageism in your career. People may have made presumptions about you because you were young, and so successful. Do you think that’s true?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: It’s partly true. There are some people in the field of anthropology who were stunned when these discoveries were made, and really stunned by the assertions which I made as a young scholar because I named a new species of human ancestor. I redrew the geometry of the family tree and overturned views of human origins which had been strongly held by individuals for, some of them, up to half a century. There was resentment that this young upstart came along, stumbled across this skeleton in the desert and now makes these tremendous assertions. And I think now, after more than a decade of debate and controversy, most of my ideas, many of my ideas, are accepted by a great majority of anthropologists. But there has been a long period of debate, a long period of controversy. And there certainly has been a certain degree of jealously, where people are stunned. “How could this person have made these discoveries? Why wasn’t it me? Why didn’t it happen to me?” And that has generated, unfortunately, a certain degree of jealousy.</p> <p><strong>Even when you’re in the upper echelons of academia and science, you are still dealing with petty jealousies. I guess you really have to form a thick skin, don’t you?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: You do. There are always going to be people who are envious of what you have done. All you can do is hope that by showing them what you are doing, and why you are doing it, and inviting them in to be a part of it, that they will change their minds, and they will see that there is an important role to be played by everyone who is interested in this particular subject, whatever subject it might be.</p> <p><strong>Do you want to talk a little bit about the Leakeys?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: Unfortunately this is one of the friendships which has dissolved over the last 15 years. It’s very unfortunate for our personal relationship, and it’s very unfortunate for the field, because we have seen different camps develop. You know, “Are you in the Leakey camp, or are you in the Johanson camp, or are you in somebody else’s camp?” I have always encouraged people within my research group to have their own ideas. There are people here at the Institute of Human Origins who disagree with various aspects of the way I interpret fossils. But I think that is extremely healthy for science. It’s unfortunate that the dissolution of our friendship has resulted in the establishment of different camps.</p> <p><strong>I take it that your inner strength, which you got from your mother, saw you through that period. It still must have been painful for you to experience this backbiting and these doubts.</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: It has been. 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.</p> <p>I feel personally hurt when someone says things about our research that are not true. For example, one of the important responsibilities that every scientist has is to share their research with everyone, and to share their ideas through publication and so on. But also to share their objects — the things they work with — with other scientists.</p> <p>In our case, finding a Lucy is unique. No one will ever find another Lucy. You can’t order one from a biological supply house. It’s a unique discovery, a unique specimen. Everyone who is studying human evolution, particularly the early stages of human evolution, wants to look at her, wants to measure her with their calipers, and observe her anatomy, and make their interpretations on the fossils. The skeleton itself was on loan to us in the United States for five years, and scientists came on a very regular basis to come and make their own observations. I allowed everyone and anyone who wanted to come, to study the original specimens, because eventually they would be returned to Ethiopia, where they are now, housed at the National Museum.</p> <p>It really hurts when you submit a grant proposal to the National Science Foundations and one of the reviews comes back, accusing you of refusing them access to the fossil. Of course these are anonymous reviews, so you don’t who wrote them. Somebody is very jealous of your accomplishments and says, “I don’t want him to get this National Science Foundation grant, so I will say that he is hiding information and refusing access.” In fact, this happened when I submitted a large proposal for the scientific evaluation of our discoveries. I had to invite the director of the National Science Foundation out to Cleveland, where I was based at that time, to show him our guest book, with two hundred signatures of people who had come to the lab. “Thanks for the opportunity to study the original fossils,” and so on.</p> <p>That really does hurt, when someone uses an opportunity like that to try to damage your professional career. Because it’s not only damaging to yourself, it’s damaging to the whole team. The success which we have had in understanding human origins, finding fossils like Lucy and interpreting those fossils, has really been a coordinated multi-interdisciplinary effort. And it’s because we’ve had a team of scientists working together. The rest of the team gets tainted with this. People say, “Are you working with the guy who is accused of hiding fossils from other scientists?” Things like that are difficult to live with. You have to try the best you can — without reacting in the way that your gut tells you to react — to sit back, take a deep breath, and say, “This is not true. How do we turn it around, and make it productive?”</p> <p><strong>You obviously went through a barrage of criticism and professional jealousy. Looking back at that difficult, turbulent time, do you think any of that criticism was justified?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: It depends. I was a very forceful young scientist. I really felt that these discoveries were of tremendous significance, would have a profound meaning for changing our whole view of human origins. I was very forceful at scientific meetings. I was sometimes very brash. I wouldn’t shout down other people, but I would certainly make an argument in a way that was so forceful that some people refused to argue with me. They didn’t want to get involved in it. I think that in some instances I was a little too aggressive. A little too right. If I had to go back, I’d probably soften some of my presentation. People criticized me, and said, “He’s really a brash young guy, who is presenting his ideas as if they are the ultimate truth.” If I could go back to do that, I would have presented them in a different way.</p> <p><strong>Why do you suppose Lucy captured the public’s imagination? It’s getting clearer and clearer why she captured anthropologists’ attention, but what about this unique set of bones is so compelling?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: I think that all of us, at some stage in our lives, asked that question, ‘Where did we come from?” We’re satisfied with different answers at different stages of our lives. When we begin to look at our own personal lives and begin to trace our own ancestry back, we are lucky if we can go a few generations. But people are really intrigued with knowing something about the earliest origins of the human family. Knowing something about the conditions, the situation, what our ancestors looked like millions of years ago. There is a real thirst and desire amongst people to know something about origins. Origins of all sorts of things, but most importantly, origins of themselves. Lucy brought with her an image of our human ancestors that you don’t get when you find a jaw or an arm bone or a leg bone. Here was 40 percent of a single skeleton. I suspect also popularizing her by giving her an affectionate name like Lucy was important because people can identify with that. If I meet someone on an airplane for example, and we get into a conversation talking about, “What do you do for a living?” and so on, and I say, “I’m an anthropologist.” “What kind of anthropology do you do?” and I say, “Well, I look for fossil in East Africa, human ancestor fossils. And they say, “Oh, did you ever find anything?” When you say, “I found a fossil called Lucy,” they immediately know. If you said, “I found a skull of <em>Australopithecus afarensis</em>,” it really wouldn’t be as attractive. But once you personalize it with a name, people identify with it immediately. So I think she is very visible because of her name and because of her completeness. She gives us a better picture of what these creatures looked like than anything that had ever been found before.</p> <p><strong>In a sense, we’ve all found a mom.</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: Well, when we think of our origins, we often think of “the mother of mankind.” The “Eve hypothesis” of the emergence of modern humans has been talked about recently. There is a comfort that people have in identifying with a female image. That may be part of it.</p> <p><strong>Was it difficult for you to deal with sudden fame? What were the challenges of that?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: The thing that I found most difficult to contend with was the fact that my life became very public. There was a piece in <em>People </em>magazine. There was a piece in the Style section of the Sunday newspaper. There were people taking pictures of me in my living room, asking me about my lifestyle. There were people following me in my laboratory. There were people who came to the field, and made movies. And I felt, “Gosh, I really would like to be left alone to pursue my own work. I’m really uncomfortable with this. I have to get up in front of an audience, and give a public lecture, something that I was not prepared for as a graduate student. I have to get on camera, and talk to people who are watching on television.” I was on the <em>Today </em>show, and <em>Good Morning America, </em>and so on. Yet, as it was happening, there was something in the back of my mind that found this attractive. I had to learn certain sorts of things, but it turned out that I was pretty good as a communicator, to bridge this big gap between the scientists and the non-scientist. I was involved in a scientific pursuit that did captivate people’s interests. People were interested in their origins. They weren’t going to sit down and read the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, and plow through all of that terminology on teeth and jaws and bones. But they wanted to know something about the importance of those discoveries for themselves. I realized that I could bring to these people the results of our scientific inquiries in a way that they could understand.</p> <p>I was on <em>Good Morning America, </em>or one of those shows, with Diane Sawyer, and after the show I received a letter from Carl Sagan. He said, “You must have converted hundreds of young people to become anthropologists.” That was a wonderful thing for Carl to do. I met him subsequently. And we’ve talked about this. His peers, astronomers who have criticized him for popularizing science, too, have criticized him. Carl and I, and other popularizers of science, don’t think that science should be a secret. Science should be available to anyone and everyone who wants to study it, or understand it. It’s our responsibility to make it understandable to them in a way that they can grasp. While I was, at the beginning, caught between these two horns of the dilemma — one being a scientist, one being a popularizer — I realized there was tremendous value in making this material available to people who really were excited about knowing more about where they came from, and how they got here.</p> <p><strong>How has Lucy changed our perceptions about the evolution of the family tree?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: The major impact which Lucy has had is on a previous scenario of human origin where people felt that there were a number of events, evolutionary changes, which all went together. That our ancestors stood up to free their hands so that they could make and use stone tools. In order to make and use stone tools, they had to have large brains. This has view has been pretty much a view that’s dominated human origin study, ever since it was suggested by Darwin in the middle 1800s. Here comes Lucy, about 3.5 million years old. She has a very small brain, not much bigger than that of a chimpanzee, and we have never found any stone tool, stone artifacts, associated with her species. Yet she is walking upright. So it appears that upright, bipedal posture and gait, walking on two legs, precedes by perhaps as much as a million and a half years, the manufacture of stone tools and the expansion of the brain. That means that there has to be a major new way of looking at what it was that sparked humans to separate from our closest relatives, the chimpanzees. What that precipitated was a whole series of changes in the way people understood the relationships between different species of human ancestors.</p> <p>For example, the Leakeys have held for over half a century now that there are two parallel lines of evolution. That there is one line of true man, or <em>Homo</em>, the larger-brain form that goes back millions and millions of years, independent of these smaller brain forms. But Lucy draws those two lines together, into a common ancestor, between three and four million years. Now, over a decade since we made that initial announcement of a new species and a new geometry to the family tree, virtually everyone who deals with reconstructing the relationships between the different kinds of fossil ancestors, places Lucy at the trunk of the tree. So she really is the mother of all mankind. She is a mother to all the various branches, some which went extinct, and one which ultimately evolved into ourselves.</p> <p>So she had a very major impact on how we understand the relationships between the different species, as well as a very major impact on our understanding of the sequence of events that led from an ape-like creature to a more human-like creature.</p> <p><strong>Why did the brain develop, if not for the reason that we all thought for so long?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: We’re getting into an area of what questions are remaining in terms of human evolution and there are so many. One of the most important ones is “Why did the brain expand?” If it wasn’t associated with stone tool manufacture, if it wasn’t to make better stone tools, why did it expand? What were the selective forces in an evolutionary perspective that selected for individuals with larger brains? There is a suggestion by primatologists, people who are studying primate societies that intelligence is a very important element of social behavior and social interaction. Those creatures that live in more complex societies, like the primates for example, monkeys, and particularly apes like chimps and gorillas, are fairly intelligent. Not because they are making and using tools, but because they live in a society where there is a complex set of relationships. There is a web of interconnectedness between individuals in a society that demands a high level of intelligence. There is a suggestion that the social milieu in which our ancestors evolved was a fairly complex one. This is one of the interpretations which has been suggested for why our ancestors became upright. They became upright because of increasing complexity in their social and physical world. There developed a whole series of relationships that were centered around the human family, in fact. Lucy may represent the first step in the evolution of the human family. The human family is a very important aspect of our adaptation. And what helps solidify that is intelligence. So that, while Lucy didn’t have a brain much bigger than that of a chimpanzee, it probably was wired somewhat differently, and was probably relatively more intelligent than that of a chimpanzee. And that was because of the sort of social life that she lived.</p> <p><strong>You seem to be implying that human psychology has been terribly important, even 3.5 million years ago.</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: Well, what we have found, subsequent to Lucy, at the site of Hadar, was a remarkable collection of over two hundred bone specimens at one fossil site. Of adults, males and females, big ones and small ones, individuals as young as two years old. A child’s skull of about four years old. Which suggests that even back then, our ancestors had to have been living in groups. Look at the size of Lucy. She was only three and one-half feet tall at the most. Very short individual, very small in size. She would not have been able to live out on the savannas by herself, without the support of a larger group. So I think there is some evidence in the fossil record also, that our ancestors were living in groups and not living as individuals or just as a pair, for example.</p> <p><strong>Has that way of looking at things also provoked controversy in your field?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: There is very little we say in our field that doesn’t provoke controversy. I gave a lecture a number of years ago at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and it was entitled “Human Origins: 3.5 Million Years of Controversy.” Because every time something new is announced in the field of anthropology, it goes through a period of controversy and conflict. Much of what I published in the late 1970s precipitated tremendous controversy. There were groups who felt that there were two different kinds of hominids at the time of Lucy, rather than one, as we suggested. That has generated enormous literature. There are some people who believe that Afarensis, the species to which Lucy belongs, was not yet fully terrestrial, and bipedal, that there are certain aspects of her anatomy, like the fairly long arms, that suggested that they were still climbing in the trees. Others say “No, absolutely not. They were wholly out of the trees. They were fully committed to terrestrial bipedal locomotion.” There are two major groups which have developed. Some of those individuals don’t even talk to one another, except in the scientific literature. So she has precipitated tremendous controversy about her origins.</p> <p><strong>You discovered Lucy in 1974. It is now 1991. What are the challenges ahead for you? What are you dying to get your hands on next?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: There are two major areas which interest me the most. One of them is between two and three millions years. This is a period of time for which we have very few fossils. We have a few specimens from East Africa. We have some from South Africa. People often talk about the missing link. Every time you find one of these fossils, it’s another link in the chain, because the chain of evolution is a long and continuous one, so each one could be called the missing link. The link between Lucy and the ones which we think are our direct ancestors is still missing. <em>Homo habilis</em>, or the handyman, as he is called, was making stone tools two million years ago, and had brains twice the size of Lucy’s. It’s very provocative to think that Lucy existed, as a species, unchanged for a million years. What stimulated that species to change? What were the climatic, environmental pressures on that species to change, and for that change to generate a tool-using, culture-bound animal. We depend totally on culture for our survival. Without culture, we wouldn’t make it. Picture yourself totally stripped of your clothes, out on the grasslands of East Africa. How would you even survive a week, without something as simple as Swiss army knife? What was it that provoked that change from a non-tool making, small-brained form, to a larger brain, stone tool-making form. And that’s a mystery. That’s still one of the most exciting periods in the human career that is as yet unsolved.</p> <p>The other one is what preceded Lucy? We can go back pretty well to about four million years. At four million years, we have bits of jaws, bits of skulls, bits of leg bones, which are virtually identical to those of Lucy. So her species went back to about four million years. Beyond that, once we dig deeper into the fossil records, we have a few molars, a little scrap of jaw, but nothing that tells us what caused the apes to go in one direction, and the humans to go in another. We know from genetic studies that humans and modern African apes are so closely related to one another, that they share 99 percent identity in their DNA. If you were to take that strand of DNA out of you or me, and stretch it out, and put next to it the DNA of the chimpanzee, there would be one percent difference. Yet look at the enormous differences there are between chimps and us. That means we must be evolutionarily closely related to the apes. That means the separation between the apes and the humans probably happened as recently as five or six million years ago. Not like people have wanted, Say 15 to 20 years ago, people believed that separation was 20 million years ago. We were comfortably separated from these “beasts.” Now we find out that they are very closely related to us. They are cousins in the true sense of the word cousins. They are remarkably close to us. The work that Jane Goodall and others have done on chimps in the wild shows that there are many behaviors which chimps have that forecast what we think of as human.</p> <p>This leads to a consideration of things like, “If they are that closely related to us, how can we keep them in tiny little cages for experiments? They must have some of the same emotions which we have.” Lucy has been important in all of this, because she has sometimes been called the ape that stood up. Here was a creature which still has in her anatomy certain evolutionary baggage which is left over from her four-legged, quadrupedal ancestors. But yet, she made that crucial step towards what it means to be human.</p> <p><strong>I find it ironic, walking in the Institute of Human Origins, that this is connected to a Christian organization. Obviously, what you have spent your life studying is in direct contradiction to some religious view of human origins. Do you have any interaction with religious groups?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: We are housed here, in Berkeley, in space which we rent from a church’s divinity school, which is an Episcopalian seminary. There really is very little interaction between their staff and our staff. We are really dealing with two different views of understanding our origins. One, as I said, is based on faith. It’s really based on what you believe in. That’s something that science should never invade. In other words, we should never take a person’s faith and subject it to scientific inquiry. You never set up a hypothesis which says: Jesus was the Son of God, true or false. There isn’t a true or false about it. You either believe it or you don’t. And you don’t take the scientific evidence and subject it to religious questions. We don’t ask the question, is gravity moral? Gravity is a fact, it’s a law. Everyone can accept that. I think that while there are, of course, conflicts and differences between the two, they deal with totally different philosophies and perspectives on how we understand the physical world around us. There are many people I know, and I’m sure you do, who are religious, who do believe in a divine creator, someone who has designed all of this, and that one aspect of that design was evolution. There is no conflict in their mind. Evolution can be accepted as a scientific fact and part of the whole glory of creation.</p> <p><strong>Were you born an anthropologist, or do you think you could have been as successful a chemist as you are an anthropologist?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: It’s an extraordinarily difficult question. I believe I have been successful in my own scientific arena, partly because of the passion which I brought to it and the dedication I brought to it. But on the other hand, being in the right place at the right time, with the right preparation, is also important. In 1971, when I was working in Ethiopia, I met a French geologist. He was looking for an anthropologist to work with him in the northern part of Ethiopia, in an area which is very rich in fossil sites. So I was in the right place, I was there at the right time, and I had the right preparation. I seized that opportunity. I have no idea whether or not the right place and the right time would have been there had I been a chemist. The passion, the drive, the ability, the sensitivity, the hope, the wish, the desire, all of those things that are important would have certainly been a part of me. So I think you can make a prediction based on that, and say, yes, I would have been successful. Whether I would have been as successful as a chemist as I am as an anthropologist, is difficult to say.</p> <p><strong>What advice would you give a student who wanted to become an anthropologist? What are the most important things to be aware of and to follow?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: For the last six years I’ve had a professorship at Stanford University. Unfortunately, because of other requirements on my time, I have had to resign this professorship. I was often asked by students who wanted to be anthropologists, “What do I have to do?” In the field of human origins studies, I’ve strongly emphasized a very substantial background in biology, in the earth sciences, particularly geology. These are the tools which one needs to interpret the evidence. There will always be very little opportunity for people to actually go to the field and find fossils. We have lots of fossils in our vaults at the moment which still need interpretation, evaluation, analysis. In the field of human origins, there are too many folks who don’t have a strong enough background, particularly in biology. Lucy, and these other creatures we spoke about, were subjected to the same forces of natural selection and evolutionary change as all the other animals and plants living at that time. The interpretation of these fossils will be based on a better understanding of biology and evolutionary change. I have suggested very strongly to these students that they develop a strong background in zoology, biology, genetics, evolution, and so on. Because there really are very few opportunities to go to the field and actually find fossils.</p> <p><strong>What personal characteristics do you think are most important for success in any career?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: One of the most important things is to choose something which is emotionally, philosophically satisfying to you, and gratifying to you. I’ve taught, off and on, for the last ten years. So many of the students I have spoken with after class, have talked about how they want to go out and make a lot of money. They want to have a big car, they want to have a wonderful house, they want to control a lot of money. Yet they don’t bring a passion to any particular subject. If you can bring your own passion, your own excitement, your own emotional commitment to something, you will be successful. And success should not be measured in a materialistic way. Because success which is measured in a materialistic way does not have the depth of success that you reach when you really do something you are committed to. I was very fortunate in being successful in an area I gave commitment to very early on. You may choose a particular profession that will produce a lot of material wealth, but the bottom line is that you enjoy doing what you are doing.</p> <p><strong>You talk about the need for a geology background in your field. Why are the fossils so rich in that particular area of Africa?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: The area of Africa where I worked since the early 1970s is known as the Great Rift Valley. The Great Rift Valley of East Africa has been developing because the horn of Africa has been slowly moving away from the bulk of Africa because of continental drift. As it has been doing so, it’s been thinning the earth’s crust and allowing volcanoes to emerge. It has had areas of subsidence, where you have had lakes and rivers. This has been an ideal environment for animals to die, fall into these lakes and rivers, and be slowly transformed into fossils. The same processes of earth movements which were going on to create this environment are still going on, and promoting a great deal of erosion. The same processes that brought about their preservation are bringing about their re-exposure on the surface. It’s an ideal environment in which to find these fossils.</p> <p><strong>What was it like for Lucy? Do you have a picture of what the earth looked like when she walked upon it?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: We do. We have done extensive studies to reconstruct the paleo-environment where she and her species lived in Ethiopia. We know that it was dominated by a very large lake, fed by rivers coming off of an escarpment, where there were heavy rains. There was a diversity of environments. There were deltaic environments around the delta of the river, there were environments along the lake margin, there were riverine forests, open grasslands, woodlands, and so on. We can reconstruct much of that environment because we have remains of the fossilized animals that lived alongside of her, the antelopes and gazelles that lived in more open areas, certain kinds of monkeys that lived in more closed areas. We even have the fossil pollen grains of these various plants. So we can say something about the specific kinds of trees and grass and so on that were available. We know what kind of a world she actually lived in.</p> <p><strong>What would you do, other than anthropology, if you had a next life? Are there other fields that seduce you?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: I have two major interests. One of them is photography. I do a lot of still photography. I bring my cameras along on these expeditions and make some nice pictures. Whenever I’m out on a photographic safari in East Africa, it’s always one of the great moments of tremendous happiness, to be out there at dawn, watch these animals, photograph them, and come back and look at these fantastic pictures. Photography is an area which I have pursued as a hobby, and have also been able to use in my own profession.</p> <p>The other area I have been very interested in is music, particularly opera. I’ve jokingly said if I ever do come back, I’d like to come back as an Italian tenor who is also a photographer. Many of us in science are dedicated to our work almost 24 hours a day. I think about my work all the time. As I’m driving home, or sitting at dinner with my wife, or going out with friends, I’m talking about my work, talking about recent discoveries, recent ideas about the fossils. It’s very important for us to take a deep breath and move away from that. Get involved in something else that is really separate from this world that captivates you all the time. Then you return to your work refreshed. In the United States, there is this terrible urge to become workaholics, to work seven days a week, to not take vacation. “Oh, I haven’t taken a vacation in five years.” When someone says that to me, that’s not a positive remark. It’s a negative remark. Last summer, I was in Europe for three weeks with my wife, and I came back totally refreshed, ready to embrace all sorts of new ideas and problems in my own science.</p> <p><strong>I’m sure. Do you have any athletics that you pursue, any sports?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: At the moment, tennis. My wife and I play tennis several days a week. She’s a better tennis player than I am, but we have a great time. I hate to keep relating it back to Lucy, and the fossils, but think about it. We’ve been here five million years. Most of that existence was spent in a very physically active world. People think human beings are the pinnacle of evolution. We have to buy videotapes, and watch some person exercising to encourage us to exercise. We have to pay money to go to an exercise club and work out during the day, when, this was part of our natural world for millions and millions of years. It is important to get out there and do something physically strenuous. It’s a way of cleansing you of all the emotional baggage that is brought about through culture, for example. Physical activity is very important for our whole functioning, our mental clarity. So I think exercise and sports are very important.</p> <p><strong>We do seem to have come a long way from Lucy. We live very different lives today. I gather from some of your writings that you are deeply concerned about man’s increasing distance from nature, and from our animal roots.</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: I am. I don’t like to take the doomsday perspective, and say, unless we do this for the environment, or this for the world, we are all going to go extinct. I think we still have the ability to make a major impact on the globe, to put something back into the environment other than pollution. We can do something to make the world a better place not only for ourselves, but for all creatures to live in. But I think part of what has happened is that we have become very dramatically separated from the world, which created us. The world of natural selection, the natural world in which Lucy and these other fossils lived is a world we lived in for millions and millions of years. Because of the development of culture, and our dependency on culture for survival, we have been removed from that environment very dramatically. I have a sense that, in our genes, we’re still programmed for living on the savannas of East Africa. Those millions of years of evolution are still part of our genetic make up. Yet culturally, we have moved so for beyond that, that there is an imbalance between our natural background, and our artificial world of culture. I think this imbalance is something you need to recognize, to overcome the problems that are associated with it.</p> <p>I don’t believe we are innately destructive animals. When we recognize certain behaviors in human societies which are destructive for the natural world, we can do something about them. We have the most intelligent brain we know of. We can use that brain to do wonderful things for this planet. It is my hope that, by understanding our ancestors, understanding where we came from, we will ourselves leave descendants who will sometimes look back and ponder their ancestors.</p> <p><strong>You talked about our self-deception, the fact that we humans think ourselves superior to other animals. That’s another idea that I think is thrown out of kilter by your research.</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: Evolution, for me, is no longer a theory. It’s virtually a law. I think that evolutionary change which was brought about by means of natural selection is, in fact just like gravity, a law. No matter what organism we look at on this planet, we can explain its existence and its origins through this process of natural selection. What this does, what this constantly does for me and what it does I think for many people who read some of the things I’ve written is be reminded of the fact that it was the natural world that was important for our origins. And we ought to be kind to that natural world, and do what we can to preserve it. Not only for ourselves, but also for all those other creatures in the natural world.</p> <p>With that comes the fact that we also are vulnerable. There is nothing in the history of this earth, for three and a half billion years that life has been on the earth,that guarantees in any way whatsoever, that we, unlike all of the other species which have gone extinct, will not go extinct. If one looks at the evolutionary record in a broader perspective, the majority of animals, organisms that have lived on this planet are extinct. There are very few that have survived, and those that survived will also go extinct. We have to think about the fact that even though the dinosaurs ruled the earth for tens, hundreds of millions of years, they too went extinct. That it is a way to remind us of our vulnerability.</p> <p><strong>In photographs of your digs, you are accompanied often by a guide carrying a gun. Why the gun?</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: The area of Ethiopia where we work is occupied by nomadic tribesmen, Afars, who wander from place to place. They have had a long-standing conflict with another tribe, and both sides carry weapons. There often are skirmishes between the groups, so one has to have some protection when we are out there.</p> <p><strong>So actually, anthropology can be quite dangerous.</strong></p> <p>Donald Johanson: It can be, but in the field where we work, we have made friends with a number of these Afar tribes. Some of them we have worked with for over 13 years, and they have become close friends to us. I don’t think we’d be able to work there if we didn’t have their trust and understanding. It’s a very special environment for us to work in.</p> <p><strong>Well, you are a lucky man, and you’ve given us a lot. It’s been great talking to you. Thanks a lot.</strong></p> <p>Thank you.</p> </div>  </aside>  <div class="read-more__toggle collapsed" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#full-interview"><a href="#" class="sans-4 btn">Read full interview</a></div> </article> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane fade" id="gallery" role="tabpanel"> <section class="isotope-wrapper">  <header class="toolbar toolbar--gallery bg-white clearfix"> <div class="col-md-6"> <div class="serif-4">Donald C. Johanson, Ph.D. Gallery</div> </div> <div class="col-md-6 text-md-right isotope-toolbar"> <ul class="list-unstyled list-inline m-b-0 text-brand-primary sans-4"> <li class="list-inline-item" data-filter=".photo"><i class="icon-icon_camera"></i>39 photos</li> </ul> </div> </header> <div class="isotope-gallery isotope-box single-achiever__gallery clearfix"> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.2603648424544" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/8f18778fce2acae66c2ddee0ec557b4a.jpg" data-image-caption="An artist's conception shows human ancestors from a long-extinct species called Australopithecus afarensis. The first specimen of the species, known as Lucy, was discovered 40 years ago. (Michael Hagelberg/ASU Research Magazine)" data-image-copyright="8f18778fce2acae66c2ddee0ec557b4a" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/8f18778fce2acae66c2ddee0ec557b4a-301x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/8f18778fce2acae66c2ddee0ec557b4a-603x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.67301587301587" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/1.16379-Corbis-BB001174.jpg" data-image-caption="Donald Johanson with the Lucy skeleton." data-image-copyright="1-16379-corbis-bb001174" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/1.16379-Corbis-BB001174-380x256.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/1.16379-Corbis-BB001174.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4643545279383" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/960x0.jpg" data-image-caption="Donald Johanson, the American scientist who discovered 3.2 million-year-old fossil "Lucy" is pictured at Addis Ababa's National Museum on May 7, 2013. The fossil, discovered in 1974 in Ethiopia's Hadar region, has returned home after a five-year tour of the U.S. It is the first time the skeleton has been on display in Ethiopia since 2000, and will be part of a temporary exhibition until May 13 before she is stored for research. Lucy is no longer the oldest-known member of the human family tree, but with 40 percent of her skeleton recovered, she is the oldest, most complete specimen of an early human species, standing about 3 feet, 6 inches tall and weighing approximately 60 pounds. She is named Lucy after the well-known Beatles tune, which her discoverers were listening to the day she was found. (Jenny Vaughn/AFP/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="960x0" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/960x0-260x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/11/960x0-519x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.73684210526316" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Johanson-Leakey-19.jpg" data-image-caption="May 7, 2011: Famed paleoanthropologists Donald Johanson and Richard Leakey convened at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City to discuss human origins. It is the first time Leakey and Johanson —longtime rivals — have shared a stage since a public falling out in 1981. (Frank L. Kollman)" data-image-copyright="johanson-leakey-19" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Johanson-Leakey-19-380x280.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Johanson-Leakey-19-760x560.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66315789473684" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/WhiteLeakWoodJohans0340-09E.jpg" data-image-caption="From L to R: Tim White, Richard Leakey, Bernard Wood and Donald Johanson examine Johanson's newly discovered Australopithecus fossils at the National Museum of Kenya. (© 1976 David L. Brill, Brill Atlanta)" data-image-copyright="whiteleakwoodjohans0340-09e" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/WhiteLeakWoodJohans0340-09E-380x252.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/WhiteLeakWoodJohans0340-09E-760x504.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/original.jpg" data-image-caption="Donald C. Johanson is the director of the Institute of Human Origins." data-image-copyright="Donald C. Johanson is the director of the Institute of Human Origins." data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/original-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/original-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.5384615384615" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lucy-the-beginnings-of-human-kind.jpg" data-image-caption=""Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind" by Maitland Edey and Donald Johanson. When Donald Johanson found a partial skeleton, approximately 3.5 million years old, in a remote region of Ethiopia in 1974, a headline-making controversy was launched that continues on today. Bursting with all the suspense and intrigue of a fast-paced adventure novel, here is Johanson’s lively account of the extraordinary discovery of “Lucy.” By expounding the controversial change Lucy makes in our view of human origins, Johanson provides a vivid, behind-the-scenes account of the history of pealeoanthropology and the colorful, eccentric characters who were and are a part of it." data-image-copyright="lucy-the-beginnings-of-human-kind" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lucy-the-beginnings-of-human-kind-247x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lucy-the-beginnings-of-human-kind-494x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.41447368421053" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Lucy-bones.jpg" data-image-caption="The remains of an adult female Australopithecus afarensis, known to all the world as "Lucy." With a mixture of ape and human features — including long dangling arms, but pelvic, spine, foot, and leg bones suited to walking upright — slender Lucy stood three-and-a-half feet (107 centimeters) tall. (© Institute of Human Origins)" data-image-copyright="lucy-bones" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Lucy-bones-380x158.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Lucy-bones-760x315.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.69736842105263" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lucy.jpg" data-image-caption="A sculptor's rendering of Lucy when she was alive, displayed at the Houston Museum of Natural Science in Texas. (Dave Einsel/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="lucy" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lucy-380x265.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lucy-760x530.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4931237721022" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Johanson-today.jpg" data-image-caption="Donald Johanson is founding director of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University. (Courtesy Institute of Human Origins, Arizona State University)" data-image-copyright="johanson-today" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Johanson-today-254x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Johanson-today-509x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.65921052631579" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/johanson-taieb-Lucy-au-camp-1974.jpg" data-image-caption="Donald Johanson (left) assembles the Lucy skeleton for the first time with French colleague Maurice Taieb. (Courtesy Institute of Human Origins, Arizona State University)" data-image-copyright="johanson-taieb-lucy-au-camp-1974" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/johanson-taieb-Lucy-au-camp-1974-380x251.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/johanson-taieb-Lucy-au-camp-1974-760x501.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.5049504950495" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/johanson-skull.jpg" data-image-caption="Donald Johanson, Professor, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Director, Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University. He discovered the 3.18 million-year-old hominid skeleton popularly known as "Lucy," and poses with a study cast of "Lucy" skeleton and study cast of "Lucy" skull." data-image-copyright="johanson-skull" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/johanson-skull-252x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/johanson-skull-505x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/johanson_19743.jpg" data-image-caption="1974: ASU paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson with the Lucy skeleton in the field." data-image-copyright="johanson_19743" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/johanson_19743-380x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/johanson_19743-760x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.3403880070547" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Johanson-Donald401.jpg" data-image-caption="Dr. Donald Johanson in Africa." data-image-copyright="johanson-donald401" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Johanson-Donald401-284x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Johanson-Donald401-567x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.2859560067682" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Johanson-Donald400.jpg" data-image-caption="Donald Johanson with "Lucy." (© Institute of Human Origins. Nanci Kahn)" data-image-copyright="johanson-donald400" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Johanson-Donald400-296x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Johanson-Donald400-591x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.75" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/IMG_1361.jpg" data-image-caption="Richard Leakey and Donald Johanson at Turkana Basin Institute." data-image-copyright="img_1361" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/IMG_1361-380x285.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/IMG_1361-760x570.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66315789473684" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Great-Rift-Valle.jpg" data-image-caption="The Great Rift Valley also known as the East African Rift Valley, is a massive trench — around 3,700 miles — and located at a tectonic plate boundary that is splitting apart. The two plates started to separate about 35 million years ago and the Rift started to form. The East African Rift Valley covers an impressive amount of land and runs from northern Jordan Rift Valley in Asia to Mozambique in South Eastern Africa. The Rift Valley has been where many hominid fossils have been found. These fossils help anthropologists understand human evolution as well as how prehistoric climate changes have affected how early hominids adapted and evolved." data-image-copyright="great-rift-valle" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Great-Rift-Valle-380x252.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Great-Rift-Valle-760x504.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.3793103448276" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/from-lucy-to-language.jpg" data-image-caption="1996: "From Lucy to Language" by Donald Johanson and Blake Edgar." data-image-copyright="Print Layout 1" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/from-lucy-to-language-275x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/from-lucy-to-language-551x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.75" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/evolution-getty-v2.jpg" data-image-caption="1935: A display of a series of skeletons showing the evolution of humans at the Peabody Museum, New Haven, Connecticut, circa 1935. (Photo by Herbert/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="T200000_P2188_164" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/evolution-getty-v2-380x285.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/evolution-getty-v2-760x570.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/don-johanson-at-olduvai-gorge.jpg" data-image-caption="2010: Dr. Donald Johanson at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. (Stefanie Payne)" data-image-copyright="2010: Dr. Don Johanson at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. (Stefanie Payne)" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/don-johanson-at-olduvai-gorge-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/don-johanson-at-olduvai-gorge-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.67763157894737" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/DONALD-C.-JOHANSON-SANG-PENEMU-“LUCY”-2.jpg" data-image-caption="2015: Donald C. Johanson visits the Sangiran Museum in Indonesia. Excavations at Sangiran Early Man Site from 1936 to 1941 led to the discovery of the first hominid fossil at this site. Later, 50 fossils of Meganthropus palaeo and Pithecanthropus erectus/Homo erectus were found — half of all the world's known hominid fossils. Inhabited for the past one-and-a-half million years, Sangiran is one of the key sites for the understanding of human evolution. Sangiran Early Man Site is situated about 15 kilometers to the north of Solo town in Central Java, Indonesia, covering an area of 5,600 hectares. It became famous after the discovery of Homo erectus remains and associated stone artifacts (well-known as Sangiran flake industry) in the 1930s. There is a very significant geological sequence from the upper Pliocene until the end of Middle Pleistocene by depicting the human, faunal, and cultural evolutions within the last 2.4 million years. The property also yields important archaeological occupation floors dating back to the Lower Pleistocene around 1.2 million years ago." data-image-copyright="donald-c-johanson-sang-penemu-lucy-2" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/DONALD-C.-JOHANSON-SANG-PENEMU-“LUCY”-2-380x258.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/DONALD-C.-JOHANSON-SANG-PENEMU-“LUCY”-2-760x515.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4990138067061" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald_Johanson_1.jpg" data-image-caption=""There is a tremendous amount of romanticism which surrounds going off on expeditions to remote parts of the world." (© Institute of Human Origins)" data-image-copyright="donald_johanson_1" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald_Johanson_1-253x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald_Johanson_1-507x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66447368421053" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald_Johanson_2009.jpg" data-image-caption="Donald Johanson" data-image-copyright="donald_johanson_2009" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald_Johanson_2009-380x252.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald_Johanson_2009-760x505.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4615384615385" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson141.jpg" data-image-caption="Some of the hundreds of hominid fossils found at the Hadar site in Ethiopia. (Institute of Human Origins, Don Johanson)" data-image-copyright="donald-johanson141" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson141-260x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson141-520x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.67763157894737" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson140.jpg" data-image-caption="Excavating in the Great Rift Valley. (Institute of Human Origins, Don Johanson)" data-image-copyright="Excavating in the Great Rift Valley. (Institute of Human Origins, Don Johanson)" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson140-380x257.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson140-760x515.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4728682170543" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson139.jpg" data-image-caption="Donald Johanson with "Lucy." Lucy was found by Donald Johanson and Tom Gray on November 24, 1974, at the site of Hadar in Ethiopia. They had taken a Land Rover out that day to map in another locality. After a long, hot morning of mapping and surveying for fossils, they decided to head back to the vehicle. Johanson suggested taking an alternate route back to the Land Rover, through a nearby gully. Within moments, he spotted a right proximal ulna (forearm bone) and quickly identified it as a hominid. Shortly thereafter, he saw an occipital (skull) bone, then a femur, some ribs, a pelvis, and the lower jaw. Two weeks later, after many hours of excavation, screening, and sorting, several hundred fragments of bone had been recovered, representing 40 percent of a single hominid skeleton. (Institute of Human Origins, Nanci Kahn)" data-image-copyright="donald-johanson139" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson139-258x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson139-516x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.68026315789474" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson138.jpg" data-image-caption="Hadar, where the Lucy fossils were found. (Institute of Human Origins, Nanci Kahn)" data-image-copyright="donald-johanson138" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson138-380x259.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson138-760x517.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.5079365079365" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson137.jpg" data-image-caption="The remains of an adult female Australopithecus afarensis, known to all the world as "Lucy." With a mixture of ape and human features — including long dangling arms, but pelvic, spine, foot, and leg bones suited to walking upright — slender Lucy stood three-and-a-half feet (107 centimeters) tall. (© Institute of Human Origins)" data-image-copyright="donald-johanson137" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson137-252x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson137-504x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66052631578947" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson136.jpg" data-image-caption="A general view of Olduvai Gorge in the dry season. This area has produced some of the most significant fossils of extinct hominids. (© Institute of Human Origins)" data-image-copyright="donald-johanson136" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson136-380x251.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson136-760x502.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4728682170543" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson135.jpg" data-image-caption=""There is very little we say in our field that doesn't provoke controversy." Johanson in his office at the Institute of Human Origins. (Institute of Human Origins, Nanci Kahn)" data-image-copyright="donald-johanson135" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson135-258x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson135-516x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4671814671815" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson134.jpg" data-image-caption=""Science should be available to anyone and everyone who wants to study it, or understand it." (Institute of Human Origins/Michael Black)" data-image-copyright="donald-johanson134" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson134-259x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson134-518x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.65921052631579" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson133.jpg" data-image-caption="Olduvai Gorge, site of some of the most famous fossil finds of the Leakey family. (Donald Johanson)" data-image-copyright="donald-johanson133" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson133-380x251.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson133-760x501.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.2947189097104" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson132.jpg" data-image-caption="Johanson with his colleagues Yoel Rak (standing), and Bill Kimbel. (Institute of Human Origins, Nanci Kahn)" data-image-copyright="donald-johanson132" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson132-294x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Donald-Johanson132-587x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.3309982486865" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/DCJ-Tom-Gray-1974.jpg" data-image-caption="1974: Donald Johanson and Tom Gray at Hadar. Lucy was found by Donald Johanson and Tom Gray on November 24, 1974 at the site of Hadar in Ethiopia. They had taken a Land Rover out that day to map in another locality. After a long, hot morning of mapping and surveying for fossils, they decided to head back to the vehicle. Johanson suggested taking an alternate route back to the Land Rover, through a nearby gully. Within moments, he spotted a right proximal ulna (forearm bone) and quickly identified it as a hominid. Shortly thereafter, he saw an occipital (skull) bone, then a femur, some ribs, a pelvis, and the lower jaw. Two weeks later, after many hours of excavation, screening, and sorting, several hundred fragments of bone had been recovered, representing 40 percent of a single hominid skeleton. (Courtesy Institute of Human Origins, Arizona State University)" data-image-copyright="dcj-tom-gray-1974" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/DCJ-Tom-Gray-1974-285x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/DCJ-Tom-Gray-1974-571x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66052631578947" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/coppens-johanson-1972.jpg" data-image-caption="1972: French anthropologist and the director of the Hadar expedition, Yves Coppens, with Donald Johanson." data-image-copyright="coppens-johanson-1972" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/coppens-johanson-1972-380x251.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/coppens-johanson-1972-760x502.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.75" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/57019180.jpg" data-image-caption="March 7, 2006: The face of "Lucy," an Australopithecus afarensis and part of the "Evolving Planet" exhibit, is displayed at the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois. The new exhibit, which opens to the public March 10, presents the evolution of life, taking a visitor through a four-billion-year journey. (Photo by Tim Boyle/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="Chicagos Field Museum Opens New Exhibit On Evolution" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/57019180-380x285.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/57019180-760x570.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.8" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/2003academy1124.jpg" data-image-caption="Donald Johanson at the 2003 International Achievement Summit in Washington, D.C." data-image-copyright="2003academy1124" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/2003academy1124-380x304.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/2003academy1124-760x608.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.75" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/33-old-dupai-gorge.jpg" data-image-caption="Olduvai Gorge, paleoanthropological site in the eastern Serengeti Plain, within the boundaries of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in northern Tanzania. It is a steep-sided ravine consisting of two branches that have a combined length of about 30 miles (48 km) and are 295 feet (90 meters) deep. Deposits exposed in the sides of the gorge cover a time span from about 2.1 million to 15,000 years ago. The deposits have yielded the fossil remains of more than 60 hominins (members of the human lineage), providing the most continuous known record of human evolution during the past 2 million years, as well as the longest known archaeological record of the development of stone-tool industries. Olduvai Gorge was designated part of a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979." data-image-copyright="33-old-dupai-gorge" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/33-old-dupai-gorge-380x285.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/33-old-dupai-gorge-760x570.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.5049504950495" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/17_7.jpg" data-image-caption="Paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson" data-image-copyright="17_7" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/17_7-253x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/17_7-505x760.jpg"></div>  </figure>    </div> </section> </div> </div> <div class="container"> <footer class="editorial-article__footer col-md-8 col-md-offset-4"> <div class="editorial-article__next-link sans-3"> <a href="#"><strong>What's next:</strong> <span class="editorial-article__next-link-title">profile</span></a> </div> <ul class="social list-unstyled list-inline ssk-group m-b-0"> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-facebook" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Facebook"><i class="icon-icon_facebook-circle"></i></a></li> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-twitter" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Twitter"><i class="icon-icon_twitter-circle"></i></a></li>  <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-email" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever via Email"><i class="icon-icon_email-circle"></i></a></li> </ul> <time class="editorial-article__last-updated sans-6">This page last revised on November 19, 2018</time> <div class="sans-4"><a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/how-to-cite" target="_blank">How to cite this page</a></div> </footer> </div> <div class="container interview-related-achievers"> <hr class="m-t-3 m-b-3"/> <footer class="clearfix small-blocks text-xs-center"> <h3 class="m-b-3 serif-3">If you are inspired by this achiever’s story, you might also enjoy:</h3> <div class="centered-blocks"> <div class="isotope-achiever science-exploration difficulty-with-school small-town-rural-upbringing ambitious analytical extroverted resourceful explore-nature " data-year-inducted="2012" data-achiever-name="Berger"> <div class="achiever-block view-grid"> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lee-r-berger-ph-d/"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/berger-new-profile-square-190x190.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/04/berger-new-profile-square-380x380.jpg"></div> <div class="achiever-block__overlay"></div> <figcaption class="text-xs-center achiever-block__text"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <div class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">Lee R. 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class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">Richard E. Leakey</div> <div class="achiever-block__known-as text-white sans-6">Paleoanthropologist and Conservationist</div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="text-white achiever-block__text--bottom"> <div class="achiever-block__year sans-4">Inducted in <span class="year-inducted">2007</span></div> </div> </figcaption> </figure> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="centered-blocks"> <div class="isotope-achiever science-exploration illness-or-disability curious explore-nature " data-year-inducted="1988" data-achiever-name="Wilson"> <div class="achiever-block view-grid"> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/edward-o-wilson-ph-d/"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/wilson-032a-1-190x190.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/wilson-032a-1-380x380.jpg"></div> <div class="achiever-block__overlay"></div> <figcaption class="text-xs-center achiever-block__text"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <div class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">Edward O. Wilson, Ph.D.</div> <div class="achiever-block__known-as text-white sans-6">Father of Sociobiology</div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="text-white achiever-block__text--bottom"> <div class="achiever-block__year sans-4">Inducted in <span class="year-inducted">1988</span></div> </div> </figcaption> </figure> </a> </div> </div> </div> </footer> </div> </div> </article> <div class="modal image-modal fade" id="imageModal" tabindex="-1" role="dialog" aria-labelledby="imageModal" aria-hidden="true"> <div class="close-container"> <div class="close icon-icon_x" data-dismiss="modal" aria-label="Close"></div> </div> <div class="modal-dialog" role="document"> <div class="modal-content"> <div class="modal-body"> <figure class="image-modal__container"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <img class="image-modal__image" src="/web/20181225135423im_/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/donald-c-johanson/" alt=""/>  <figcaption class="p-t-2 container"> <div class="image-modal__caption sans-2 text-white"></div>  </figcaption> </div> </div> </figure> </div> </div> </div> </div> </main> </div> </div> <footer class="content-info main-footer bg-black"> <div class="container"> <div class="find-achiever" id="find-achiever-list"> <div class="form-group"> <input id="find-achiever-input" class="search js-focus" placeholder="Search for an achiever"/> <i class="icon-icon_chevron-down"></i> </div> <ul class="find-achiever-list list m-b-0 list-unstyled"> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/hank-aaron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Hank Aaron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/kareem-abdul-jabbar/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Kareem Abdul-Jabbar</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lynsey-addario/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lynsey Addario</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/edward-albee/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Edward Albee</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/tenley-albright-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Tenley Albright, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/svetlana-alexievich/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Svetlana Alexievich</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/julie-andrews/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Julie Andrews</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/maya-angelou/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Maya Angelou</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/robert-d-ballard-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert D. 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Dell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ron-dennis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Dennis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/joan-didion/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joan Didion</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/david-herbert-donald-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David Herbert Donald, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/david-doubilet/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David Doubilet</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/rita-dove/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rita Dove</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sylvia-earle/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sylvia Earle, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/elbaradei/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mohamed ElBaradei</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/gertrude-elion/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Gertrude B. Elion, M.Sc.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/larry-j-ellison/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry J. Ellison</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/nora-ephron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nora Ephron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/julius-erving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Julius Erving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/tony-fadell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Tony Fadell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/paul-farmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Farmer, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/suzanne-farrell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzanne Farrell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/anthony-s-fauci-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sally-field/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally Field</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lord-norman-foster/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Norman Foster</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/aretha-franklin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Aretha Franklin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/milton-friedman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Milton Friedman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carlos-fuentes/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Fuentes</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/athol-fugard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Athol Fugard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ernest-j-gaines/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernest J. Gaines</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/william-h-gates-iii/"><span class="achiever-list-name">William H. Gates III</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/leymah-gbowee/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leymah Gbowee</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frank-gehry/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank O. Gehry</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/murray-gell-mann-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Murray Gell-Mann, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carlos-ghosn/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Ghosn</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/vince-gill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Vince Gill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ruth-bader-ginsburg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ruth Bader Ginsburg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/louise-gluck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louise Glück</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/whoopi-goldberg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Whoopi Goldberg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jane-goodall/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Jane Goodall</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/doris-kearns-goodwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mikhail-s-gorbachev/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mikhail S. Gorbachev</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/nadine-gordimer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nadine Gordimer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/stephen-jay-gould/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Jay Gould, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carol-greider-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carol Greider, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-grisham/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Grisham</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sir-john-gurdon/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir John Gurdon</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/dorothy-hamill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dorothy Hamill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/demis-hassabis-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Demis Hassabis, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lauryn-hill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lauryn Hill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sir-edmund-hillary/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Edmund Hillary</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/reid-hoffman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reid Hoffman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/khaled-hosseini/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Khaled Hosseini, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ron-howard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Howard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-hume/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Hume</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/louis-ignarro-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louis Ignarro, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/daniel-inouye/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Daniel K. Inouye</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jeremy-irons/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jeremy Irons</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-irving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Irving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/kazuo-ishiguro/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Kazuo Ishiguro</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sir-peter-jackson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Peter Jackson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/donald-c-johanson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Donald C. Johanson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frank-m-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank M. Johnson, Jr.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/philip-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Philip C. Johnson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/chuck-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Chuck Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-earl-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Earl Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/quincy-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Quincy Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/beverly-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Beverly Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/dereck-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dereck Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/paul-kagame/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Kagame</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/thomas-keller-2/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Thomas Keller</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/anthony-m-kennedy/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony M. Kennedy</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/b-b-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">B.B. King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carole-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carole King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/coretta-scott-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Coretta Scott King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/henry-kissinger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry A. Kissinger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/willem-j-kolff/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willem J. Kolff, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wendy-kopp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wendy Kopp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/henry-r-kravis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry R. Kravis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/nicholas-d-kristof/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nicholas D. Kristof</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mike-krzyzewski/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mike Krzyzewski</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ray-kurzwell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Kurzweil</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/eric-lander-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Eric S. Lander, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/robert-s-langer-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert S. Langer, Sc.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/richard-leakey/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard E. Leakey</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/leon-lederman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Lederman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/robert-lefkowitz-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/congressman-john-r-lewis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Congressman John R. Lewis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/maya-lin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Maya Lin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/george-lucas/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George Lucas</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/norman-mailer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Norman Mailer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/peyton-manning/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peyton Manning</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wynton-marsalis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wynton Marsalis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-c-mather-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John C. Mather, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/johnny-mathis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Johnny Mathis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ernst-mayr-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernst Mayr, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/willie-mays/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willie Mays</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frank-mccourt/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank McCourt</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/david-mccullough/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David McCullough</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/audra-mcdonald/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Audra McDonald</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/admiral-william-h-mcraven/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral William H. McRaven, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/w-s-merwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">W. S. Merwin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-a-michener/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James A. Michener</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/marvin-minsky-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Marvin Minsky, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mario-j-molina-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mario J. Molina, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/n-scott-momaday-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">N. Scott Momaday, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/story-musgrave/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Story Musgrave, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ralph-nader/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ralph Nader</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/peggy-noonan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peggy Noonan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jessye-norman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jessye Norman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/tommy-norris/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Thomas R. Norris, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/joyce-carol-oates/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joyce Carol Oates</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/pierre-omidyar/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pierre Omidyar</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jimmy-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jimmy Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/larry-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/arnold-palmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Arnold Palmer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/leon-panetta/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Panetta</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/rosa-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rosa Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/suzan-lori-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzan-Lori Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/linus-pauling/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Linus C. Pauling, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/shimon-peres/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Shimon Peres</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/itzhak-perlman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Itzhak Perlman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/general-david-petraeus/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General David H. Petraeus, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sidney-poitier/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sidney Poitier</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/general-colin-l-powell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General Colin L. Powell, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/harold-prince/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Harold Prince</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/venki-ramakrishnan-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Venki Ramakrishnan, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lord-martin-rees/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Martin Rees</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lloyd-richards/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lloyd Richards</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sally-ride-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally K. Ride, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sonny-rollins/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonny Rollins</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/anthony-romero/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony Romero</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-rosenquist/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Rosenquist</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/pete-rozelle/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pete Rozelle</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/bill-russell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Bill Russell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/albie-sachs/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Albie Sachs</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/oliver-sacks-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Oliver Sacks, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jonas-salk-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jonas Salk, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frederick-sanger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick Sanger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/george-b-schaller-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George B. Schaller, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/barry-scheck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Barry Scheck</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/richard-evans-schultes-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard Evans Schultes, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/general-h-norman-schwarzkopf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/stephen-schwarzman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen A. Schwarzman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/glenn-t-seaborg-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Glenn T. Seaborg, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/neil-sheehan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Neil Sheehan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/admiral-alan-shepard-jr/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral Alan B. Shepard, Jr., USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ellen-johnson-sirleaf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ellen Johnson Sirleaf</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carlos-slim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Slim Helú</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frederick-w-smith/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick W. Smith</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/stephen-sondheim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Sondheim</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sonia-sotomayor/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonia Sotomayor</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wole-soyinka/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wole Soyinka</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/esperanza-spalding/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Esperanza Spalding</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/martha-stewart/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Martha Stewart</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/admiral-james-b-stockdale/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral James B. Stockdale, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/hilary-swank/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Hilary Swank</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/amy-tan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Amy Tan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/dame-kiri-te-kanawa/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Kiri Te Kanawa</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/edward-teller-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Edward Teller, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/twyla-tharp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Twyla Tharp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wayne-thiebaud/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wayne Thiebaud</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lt-michael-e-thornton-usn/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Michael E. Thornton, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/charles-h-townes-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Charles H. Townes, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/david-trimble/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David Trimble</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ted-turner/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert Edward (Ted) Turner</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/desmond-tutu/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Archbishop Desmond Tutu</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-updike/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Updike</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/gore-vidal/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Gore Vidal</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/antonio-villaraigosa/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Antonio Villaraigosa</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lech-walesa/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lech Walesa</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/herschel-walker/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Herschel Walker</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-d-watson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James D. Watson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/andrew-weil-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Andrew Weil, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/leslie-h-wexner/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leslie H. Wexner</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/elie-wiesel/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Elie Wiesel</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/edward-o-wilson-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Edward O. Wilson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/oprah-winfrey/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Oprah Winfrey</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/tom-wolfe/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Tom Wolfe</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-wooden/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Wooden</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/bob-woodward/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Bob Woodward</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/shinya-yamanaka-m-d-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Shinya Yamanaka, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/general-chuck-yeager/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General Chuck Yeager, USAF</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181225135423/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/andrew-young/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Andrew J. 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