A Child 3M Years Old

Scientists today released information on what may be the fossil find of the decade: the skeleton of a 3-year-old female from Africa who lived, it is estimated, 3.3 million years ago. The child is an amazingly complete specimen of Australopithecus afarensis, the ancient hominin most famously known from the fossil named "Lucy." Will Harcourt-Smith of the American Museum of Natural History said, "It's a pretty unbelievable discovery... It's sensational." Scientists have spend five painstaking years freeing remains from the sandstone that encased them, and have years of additional work still to go. The fossil may settle many questions, including whether this species retained some of its ancestors' tree-climbing adaptations.