“Lucy Welcomes You Home” is written just above a picture of a skeleton walking with a confident stride. The poster is one of the first things you see when you step into the National Museum of Ethiopia, where Lucy herself—a 3.2-million-year-old hominid uncovered in the Afar Triangle in 1974—lies in the basement lab.
The earliest ancestors of everyone on Earth are said to come from this scalding expanse of volcanic dust, but unless you’re an aspiring paleontologist, the Afar Triangle is probably the last place in Ethiopia you’d ever want to go.
Read More