No, Lucy was not a Neanderthal. Lucy, whose scientific name is Australopithecus afarensis, was a hominin species that lived approximately 3.2 million years ago. She is one of the oldest and most complete hominid skeletons ever discovered and is widely regarded as a crucial piece of evidence in understanding human evolution.
Neanderthals, or Homo neanderthalensis, on the other hand, are a distinct species that lived much later, approximately 400,000 to 40,000 years ago. They are more closely related to modern humans than to Australopithecus.
Lucy represents an earlier stage in the human evolutionary tree, while Neanderthals are a more recent branch that evolved after species like Lucy. The two species coexisted in different time frames and had different characteristics and adaptations.