Advisory: Media invited to lecture featuring Donald C. Johanson
Members of the media are invited to Wake Forest University Feb. 26 to hear world-famous paleoanthropologist Donald C. Johanson, who discovered the remains of “Lucy,” considered to be our oldest, most complete human ancestor, present the lecture “The Origin of Humankind: The View from Africa” at 7 p.m. in Wait Chapel. The talk is free and open to the public.
Johanson, the Virginia M. Ullman Chair in Human Origins and director of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University, made the dramatic discovery of the more than 3 million-year-old skeleton in the Hadar region of Ethiopia in 1974. The Lucy skeleton has had a profound impact on the understanding of early human evolution, and Johanson’s popular book, “Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind,” which he co-wrote in 1981 with Maitland Edey, won the American Book Award in Science.
The lecture is offered as part of Wake Forest’s theme year, “Fostering Dialogue: Civil Discourse in an Academic Community,” which is dedicated to exploring how free people with passionate interests and beliefs can communicate openly without turning dialogue into discord. It is sponsored by the university’s anthropology department, the Museum of Anthropology, the Comparative Medicine Clinical Research Center at the Wake Forest School of Medicine, the Divinity School, the theme year committee, the religion department, Chi Psi Fraternity and the Dean of the College.
For more information about media arrangements or to arrange an interview with Johanson, contact Jacob McConnico at mcconnjn@wfu.edu or 336-758-5237.
