A 4.4 million years old hominid fossil, are discovered in Haddar, along the Awash River, eastern part of Ethiopia. New fossils discovered in the Afar desert of eastern Ethiopia are a missing link between our ape-man ancestors who existed some 3.5 million years ago and more primitive hominids a million years older, Hominid Australopithecus has often been called an ape-man because, though short-statured, small-brained and big-toothed, it walked on two legs unlike the great apes. More primitive hominids in the genus Ardipithecus date from between 4.4 million and 7 million years ago and were much more ape-like, though they, too, walked on two legs.

Lucy
Lucy, 3.5 million years old, is the common name of AL 288-1, the 40% complete skeleton of an Australopithecus afarensis specimen discovered in 1974 at Hadar in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia's Afar Depression. The discovery of this hominin was significant as the skeleton shows evidence of small skull capacity akin to that of apes and of bipedal upright walk akin to that of humans, providing further evidence that bipedalism preceded increase in brain size in human evolution