Overview

• The National Museum of Prague opens an exhibition Monday featuring 52 original fragments of the 3.18‑million‑year‑old Australopithecus afarensis specimen, including teeth, skull, pelvis and femur.
• It is Lucy’s first trip to Europe and only her second journey outside Ethiopia, following a U.S. tour from 2007 to 2013, timed as the 50th anniversary of her 1974 discovery is commemorated.
• The display also includes Selam, a nearly complete juvenile australopith discovered in 2000 that had never previously left Ethiopia.
• Discoverer Donald Johanson is attending the opening alongside Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala and Ethiopia’s tourism minister Selamawit Kassa.
• Ethiopian heritage officials hail Lucy as an ambassador for the country’s origins research, as scientists continue to reassess her life and lineage, including a 2016 Nature study indicating extensive tree use and a probable fatal fall.