Johanson, Donald C.

Johanson, Donald C. (Carl)

(1943– ) physical anthropologist; born in Chicago, Ill. He was curator of physical anthropology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History (1972–81) before becoming founding director of the Institute of Human Origins, Berkeley, Calif. (1981). His explorations of the Afar Triangle, Ethiopia, led to his revolutionary discovery of "Lucy" (1974), the oldest (c. 3.5 million years) and most complete human skeleton fossil known to anthropologists.