In 1972, Taieb invited Yves Coppens, a French paleontologist, Jon Kalb, an American geologist, and Donald Johanson, an American anthropologist, to survey the region in order to appraise the area’s field exploration potential.
Among the latter A Species Odyssey, Homo sapiens and The Rise of Man, dedicated to prehistory and human evolution with scientis Yves Coppens as a consultant, had a wide audience with the general public.
Yves Saint Laurent | Yves Saint Laurent (brand) | Yves Montand | Yves Klein | Yves Saint Laurent (designer) | Yves Leterme | Yves Coppens | Yves Tanguy | Yves Séguin | Yves Rocher | Yves Frémion | Yves Cochet | Jean-Yves Thériault | Yves Robert | Yves Pelletier | Yves Netzhammer | Yves Meyer | Yves Lévesque | Yves Larock | Yves Ducharme | Yves Camdeborde | Yves Angelo | Yves-André Hubert | Saint-Yves | Yves Guérin-Sérac | Yves Colin de Verdière | Yves Bot | José Yves Limantour | Jo Coppens | Jean-Yves Ollivier |
Along with Maurice Taieb and Yves Coppens, he is known for discovering the fossil of a female hominid australopithecine known as "Lucy" in the Afar Triangle region of Hadar, Ethiopia.
Taieb, along with co-directors of IARE Donald Johanson and Yves Coppens played a key role in identifying the geology and history of the Afar region, which has yielded hominid specimens back to 6 million years old.