Discovery of Selam

Selam, nicknamed Lucy's baby, is the fossil skeleton of a young Australopithecus afarensis child, about three years old when she died, found at Dikika in the Afar region of Ethiopia. The paleoanthropologist Zeresenay Alemseged and his team found the first bones in 2000, but it took years of careful work to free them from the hard sandstone, and the discovery was announced in 2006. She lived around 3.3 million years ago, making Selam the oldest and most complete skeleton of an early hominin child. The skeleton includes the skull, torso and parts of the limbs and a rare hyoid bone. Her anatomy combined a body suited to walking upright with shoulder blades and arms useful for climbing. The name means peace in several Ethiopian languages.

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