# "Lucy" the 3 million-year-old skeleton **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 29, 2005, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucy-the-3-million-year-old-skeleton/323966 "2005-09-29T02:24:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mangosteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Mangosteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangosteen)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucy-the-3-million-year-old-skeleton/323966/1 "2005-09-29T02:24:27Z")
Does anyone know why this skeleton was named after the Beatles’ song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”? ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucy-the-3-million-year-old-skeleton/323966/2 "2005-09-29T02:34:44Z")
> [@Mangosteen](#): > > Does anyone know why this skeleton was named after the Beatles’ song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”? That is how I remember it and here’s a link. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australopithecus\_afarensis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australopithecus_afarensis) ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucy-the-3-million-year-old-skeleton/323966/3 "2005-09-29T02:35:45Z")
Let me Clarify, it was playing as they confimred there incredible find. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucy-the-3-million-year-old-skeleton/323966/4 "2005-09-29T02:35:50Z")
> [@](#): > > The following year Johanson’s team discovered another fossil that is still a landmark in the story of human origins. “Lucy” – **named for the Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” which was played in the camp when the scientists celebrated their discovery** – was the most complete hominid skeleton that had been found up to that time. Although Lucy’s skull was incomplete, enough of it remained to show that she had a small, apelike brain, and other skulls of her species found at the same site confirmed it. From [here](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/07/1/l_071_01.html). Hey, paleoanthropologists like good rock. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lucy-the-3-million-year-old-skeleton/323966/5 "2005-09-29T03:23:29Z")
Yes and no. I have the book _Lucy; The Beginnings of Humankind_ by Donald Johanson & Maitland Edey in front of me. In the Prologue, page 18, I quote: “Lucy?” That is the question I always get from somebody who sees the fossil for the first time. I have to explain: “Yes, she was female. And That Beatles song. We were all sky-high, you must remember, from finding her.”… That first nightwe never went to bed at all. We talked and talked. We drank beer after beer.There was a tape recorder in the camp, and a tape of the Beatles song, _Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds_ went belting out into the night sky, and was played at full volume over and over again out of sheer exuberance. At some point during that unforgettable evening --I no longer Remember exactly when-- The new fossil picked up the name of Lucy, and has been so known ever since, although its proper name-- ts acquisition number in the Hadar collection --is AL 288-1"