The Pliocene site of Hadar, central Afar, Ethiopia, has been one of the most productive hominid fossil-bearing sites in the world, yielding up such fossils as the Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy and First Family) finds. The aims of this new phase of the excavations are 1) to refine the geochronologic framework of the Hadar Formation, with special emphasis on the younger sediments; 2) to recover hominid fossils especially from these more recent levels; and 3) to document the paleoenvironments through detailed stratigraphic and sedimentologic study. There is every expectation that it will be a successful and productive expedition.
