Its shape indicates the diminutive, human-like species Australopithecus afarensis had arches in its feet.

BBC: Fossil find puts 'Lucy' story on firm footing

It was here he and his team unearthed the most complete skeleton of Australopithecus ever found.

CNN: African roots of the human family tree

These were Australopithecus (or Paranthropus) robustus and an early species of Homo, possibly Homo erectus.

BBC: NEWS | Science/Nature | Bones hint at first use of fire

She belonged to a species called Australopithecus afarensis, which is believed to be ancestral to modern man.

ECONOMIST: An ancient child has been discovered

It is thought to have been left by a pair of Australopithecus afarensis, vainly retreating from an erupting volcano.

BBC: NEWS | Science/Nature | Robotics show Lucy walked upright

Fossils from this ancient offshoot of the human family tree, called Australopithecus sediba, were discovered in 2008 at Malapa, near Johannesburg, South Africa.

WSJ: Creature Combined Human, Ape Traits

This contrasts sharply with the short legs and long arms of the Turkana boy's antecedent "Lucy" (Australopithecus afarensis), who lived in Ethiopia about one million years earlier.

BBC: Conflict and 'boom-bust' explain humans' rapid evolution

Over six months the team also built Nariokotome boy, a member of the species Homo erectus, and one of our earliest prehistoric ancestors - an Australopithecus afarensis named Lucy.

BBC: How scientists recreated Neanderthal man

That the end is near in a region once inhabited by some of our earliest ancestors (Australopithecus walked these very river banks) is only one reason to visit the Omo now.

FORBES: The Last Frontier: Ethiopia's Remote Omo Valley