Donald Johanson
Donald Johanson
Donald Carl Johansonis an American paleoanthropologist. He is known for discovering the fossil of a female hominin australopithecine known as "Lucy" in the Afar Triangle region of Hadar, Ethiopia...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth28 June 1943
CountryUnited States of America
aware family grew religious social
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.
regardless
Regardless of what we look like on the outside, genetically, on the inside, everyone is an African.
I was very intellectually oriented, very early on.
early human interest specialize teenage work
I was being groomed as an undergraduate to specialize in Midwestern prehistory, but going back to my teenage days, my interest has always been in our early human ancestors. I wanted to work in Africa.
human lucy opportunity realized represent species understanding
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.
depends designing fact human million six stone
What makes us human depends on what place on our evolutionary path we're talking about. If you go back six million years ago, what makes us human is that we were walking upright. That's all. If you go to 2.6 million years ago, it's the fact that we're designing and making stone tools.
changed discovery elevated leading life status
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 leading anthropologists.
laboratory realized spent terribly time until
I realized immediately that this was a terribly important discovery, but I didn't realize how important it would be until we had spent a lot of time in the laboratory studying it.
among convey figure human information knowledge major origins people public responsibility subject thirsty tremendous
I find a tremendous receptivity among the public for the subject matter of, 'Where did we come from and how did we get here?' People are thirsty and hungry for information on our origins. I feel a responsibility as a major figure in the area... to convey to the public the knowledge of human origins in a way that is understandable to them.
best known theory
Evolution is a fact. It is the best explanation of what is known from observations. It's a theory as powerful as the theory of gravity.
You don't just magically flip some evolutionary switch somewhere and transmute a quadruped into an upright-walking bipedal human.
branches certain darwin drew family knew mammals undergo
All mammals undergo a certain degree of diversification. Darwin knew that. When he drew a family tree, it had many branches on it.
change committed hard particular
It's very hard for all of us, when we've committed ourselves to a particular interpretation, to change our minds.
detailed fossil human lab opportunity realized species until
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.