A bit about beginnings.

---

If this column deals with endings (and the difficulty of delineating them, as opposed to letting things fade away) in cyberspace, perhaps it's fitting that its date tie-in deals with beginnings.

It was on this day, in 1974, that Lucy, a more than three million year old hominid skeleton, from the genus Australopithecus, was discovered (or perhaps more accurately, "uncovered"). Lucy is no longer the oldest hominid skeleton to have been found (though at the time she was uncovered, she was). Still, if we were to ask the proverbial wo/man on the street whether they knew the names of any over-a-million year old hominid skeletons, Lucy would probably be the only one that came to his/her mind. And chances are good that she's as well known as she is because of the way she got her name.

---

Go to: On completing a web site