Arizona State paleontologist talks about 50-year anniversary of his Lucy skeleton discovery [Video]

TEMPE, AZ (AZFamily) — Fifty years ago, Arizona State Professor Donald Johanson discovered the Lucy fossil skeleton—dated at over 3 million years old.

The finding has been revolutionary for those who study human evolution, and it is still spawning new research to this day.

Johanson, a paleontologist, is the founding director of ASU’s Institute of Human Origins. He joined Good Morning Arizona on Thursday to reflect on his discovery half a century ago in Ethiopia.

“What I remember is it was the defining moment of my entire career,” Johanson said of the discovery. “I was out in this landscape you see behind me searching for fossils, and there I spotted a little piece of arm bone, and that led to 40% of a skeleton 3,200,000 years old that opened up a whole new vista on our understanding of human evolution.”

The Institute of Human Origins tries to find where we came from and how we became human. Lucy is the entry …