Sahleselasie Melaku, 31, Head of the Department and Research Associate of the Paleontology and Paleoanthropology collections, holds a wooden box containing bone fragments of the fossil skeleton of 'Lucy' at the National Museum of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa, on November 19, 2024. She was, for a while, the oldest known member of the human family. Fifty years after the discovery of Lucy in Ethiopia, the remarkable remains continue to yield theories and questions. In a non-descript room in the National Museum of Ethiopia, the 3.18-million-year-old bones are delicately removed from a safe and placed on a long table. The 52 bone fragments, amounting to some 40 percent of Lucy's skeleton, was, at the time, the most complete ever found, and revolutionised the understanding of our ancestors. (Photo by Amanuel Sileshi / AFP)