NYT Nickname for a 3.2 million-year-old Australopithecus skeleton discovered in 1974 Crossword Clue Puzzle Answer from June 21, 2024

Nickname for a 3.2 million-year-old Australopithecus skeleton discovered in 1974 NYT Crossword Clue Answer

Let’s find the answers to Nickname for a 3.2 million-year-old Australopithecus skeleton discovered in 1974 NYT for the 21 June 2024 edition of NYT crossword puzzle. Answer Contains 4 letters. Start with L and end with Y, and the possible solutions are LAZY,LACY,LUCY.

Answer to the NYT crossword clue Nickname for a 3.2 million-year-old Australopithecus skeleton discovered in 1974 featured in the NYT puzzle is LUCY.

The nickname "Lucy" refers to the fossilized remains of a female Australopithecus afarensis, discovered in 1974 in Ethiopia by paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson and his team. This discovery is significant because Lucy is one of the most complete skeletons of an early hominid ever found, dating back approximately 3.2 million years.

The name "Lucy" was inspired by the Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," which was playing at the camp during the evening when the discovery was made. It quickly became the informal name used to refer to this ancient human ancestor. The skeleton of Lucy provided crucial insights into early human evolution, including bipedalism (walking on two legs) and other physical characteristics that distinguish humans from apes.

Since her discovery, Lucy has become an iconic figure in paleoanthropology, offering valuable evidence about the origins and development of early hominids and their place in the evolutionary tree leading to modern humans.