We emerged from the shade of the lake fringe and crossed some low, gray sand dunes. Soon an Afar boy and girl came with their herd of goats to investigate.

The team would give the new hominid the name Ardipithecus ramidus. (Ardi means "ground" or "floor" in Afar, and ramid, "root.")

To avoid trouble, we would first pay a diplomatic visit to their village of Adgantole, bringing the six Afar policemen along.

And our Australopithecus afarensis ancestors apparently felt the same way.

But future expeditions will look for evidence for any attempts at shaping stones into kitchen utensils. Because after 3.4 million years, Lucy and her fellow afarensis keep surprising us.