The pace of discovery of important clues to the earliest phases of human evolution has quickened in recent years. At the site of Hadar, Ethiopia, also the home of "Lucy", field work conducted by the Institute of Human Origins since 1990 has added 70 fossil specimens to the species Australopithecus afarensis, now dated to between 3.0 and 3.4 millions years old. The new fossils include the first nearly complete skull of "Lucy's" species. Recent investigations at Hadar have also shed light on a more recent geological period, between 2 and 2.5 million years ago, in which the roots of our own genus, Homo, lie. The 1994 discovery of a fossil jaw of early Homo associated with crude stone tools promises to provide new insights into this poorly known period of human evolution.