ARCHEOLOGICAL ATTRACTIONS

The remains of "Lucy" which date back 3.5 million years and the recent discovery of amidas, a 4.4 million year old hominid fossil, mark Ethiopia as the cradle of mankind. Both were discovered in Haddar, along the Awash river, in the east of the country. They completed the missing link between apes and men.

Melka Konturie is also an important archeological site. Here 1.5 million year old stone tools were found. Several cave paintings and stone monuments are located in different parts of the country, namely Dilla, in the South and Dire Dawa, in the east.

ETHIOPIA: AN ANCIENT LAND

Ethiopia is old beyond imagination. More then three million years ago, one of our first ancestors walked that portion of the earth that is now Ethiopia: namely, Lucy (Dinkenesh to Ethiopian), meaning ‘Thou Art Wonderful’ the remains of this ‘ firs human’ – an almost complete hominid skeleton—were discovered in 1974 at Hadar on the lower Awash River in Ethiopia’s barren and forbid ding Dankil region.

It is widely thought that Dinkenesh’s homeland—Ethiopia –holds the key to a myriad of other questions that have puzzled palaeoanthropologist about our past. To this end, palaeoanthropological and archaeological work continues at Hadar and at a number of other sites along the Ethiopia section of the Great Rift Valley and in the Omo Valley. More