Posted by Sarah Erdman of National Geographic Expeditions
(National Geographic) “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.
Maybe it’s Lucy, or the majestic permanence of the Great Rift Valley, but a sense of returning to the root of everything pervades the whole country. In Ethiopia, what is ancient is also alive and well. Read full story on National Geographic