Olduvai Gorge In Human History

Olduvai Gorge is a site in Tanzania that holds the earliest evidence of the existence of human ancestors. Paleoanthropologists have found hundreds of fossilized bones and stone tools in the area dating back millions of years, leading them to conclude that humans evolved in Africa.

Olduvai is a misspelling of Oldupai, a Maasai word for a wild sisal plant that grows in the area. The gorge is located in the Great Rift Valley, between the Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti National Park. It is 30 miles from Laetoli, another fossil-rich area. Olduvai Gorge was formed about 30,000 years ago, the result of aggressive geological activity and streams.

German neurologist Wilhelm Kattwinkel traveled to Olduvai Gorge in 1911, where he observed many fossil bones of an extinct three-toed horse. Inspired by Kattwinkel's discovery, German geologist Hans Reck led a team to Olduvai in 1913. 

There, he found hominin remains, but the start of World War I halted his research. In 1929, Louis Leakey visited Reck and viewed the Olduvai fossils; he became convinced that Olduvai Gorge held critical information on human origins, and he proceeded to mount an expedition there.

Louis and Mary Leakey are responsible for most of the excavations and discoveries of the hominin fossils in Olduvai Gorge. Their finds and research in East Africa and the prior work of Raymond Dart and Robert Broom in south Africa eventually convinced most paleoanthropologists that humans did indeed evolve in Africa. In 1959, at the Frida Leakey Korongo (FLK) site (named after Louis' first wife), Mary Leakey found remains of the robust australopithecine Zinjanthropus boisei (now known as Paranthropus boisei)—which she dubbed the "Nutcracker Man"; its age, 1.75 million years, radically altered accepted ideas about the time scale of human evolution. In addition to an abundance of faunal remains the Leakeys found more than 2,000 stone tools and lithic flakes, most of which they classified as Oldowan (of Olduvai) tools. In 1960, the Leakeys' son Jonathan found a jaw fragment that proved to be the first fossil specimen of Homo habilis.