(26 Aug 2025)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Prague, Czech Republic – 25 August 2025
1. Fossil skeleton of ‘Lucy’
2. Close of fossil ‘Lucy’
3. Fossil of ‘Selam’
4. Close of the skull of ‘Selam’
5. SOUNDBITE (Czech) Petr Fiala, Czech Prime Minister:
"Both skeletons are among the rarest exhibits of world heritage. They are over three million years old and appear in a European country for the first time."
6. Various of models of Lucy and Selam
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Donald Johanson, paleoanthropologist who discovered ‘Lucy’:
"Lucy’s species, that tongue twister, Australopithecus afarensis, lived for almost a million years. We have been around for a couple of hundred thousand years. If we were going to equal the time that she walked the planet Earth, we would have to live 9,000 more centuries. And yet here, at the beginning of the third millennium, we are questioning the validity and the length, and survival of our own environment."
8. Various of the exhibition where fossil skeletons will be displayed
9. Replica of the skeleton of the "Lucy" fossil
10. Close of the skeleton replica
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – 13 August 2025
11. Various of the bones of "Lucy" fossil on display at National Museum of Ethiopia
12. Various of tourist looking at "Lucy" at the National Museum of Ethiopia
13. Various of "Selam" fossils in display case
STORYLINE:
LEADIN:
The world’s most famous paleoanthropological fossils have travelled to Europe for the first time.
‘Lucy’ and ‘Selam’ have made their way from Ethiopia and are now on show at the National Museum in Prague.
STORYLINE:
Meet Lucy.
She’s 3.2 million years old and hails from Ethiopia.
She’s not your normal Prague tourist — she’s an extinct primate, an early hominin, that was found back in 1974.
Her discovery was particularly significant because her bones exhibit signs of bipedalism, a defining characteristic of human evolution.
In 2000, the fossilized remains of a small child of the same species, called ‘Selam’, were found nearby.
Now, both of these Australopithecus afarensis specimens are in the Czech capital for all to see.
The exhibition is part of a new permanent exhibition, "People and Their Ancestors," which traces the evolution of humans over nearly seven million years.
Visitors can see various fossils, models of Lucy and Selam, and artefacts that show how humans evolved.
Some think Lucy’s story and that of her species offers a warning to mankind.
"If we were going to equal the time that Lucy walked on planet Earth, we would have to live 9,000 more centuries," says Donald Johanson, the paleoanthropologist who discovered ‘Lucy’.
"Yet here, at the beginning of the third millennium, we are questioning the validity and the length, and survival of our own environment."
AP video by Stanislav Hodina
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