Download Olduvai Gorge in East Africa had been the site of many exciting

The Big Discovery
 Olduvai Gorge in East Africa had been the site of many exciting fossil finds.
 Mary and Louis Leakey had spent their lives there for evidence of our origins. The search
began in 1931, the first most important piece was found in 1959, when Mary spotted part
of a skull and 2 premolars stuck in the side of the cliff at a site called Frieda Leakey
Korongo.
 They excavated more than 400 fragments of bones and when the put the pieces together,
they formed a large skull of a heavily-built adult australopithecine. They found it to be
1.79 million years-old through the potassium-argon dating technique.
 They named it “The Nutcracker Boy” due to the huge cheek teeth. Other names they had
for it was “Zinj” and “Dear Boy”.
Importance to Social Science Studies
• Mary brought to light the footprints of individuals walking upright
• The morphology of the feet (short toes, close together) and the distribution of the body
weight in relation to the arch of the foot shows the signs of the modern man.
• However, the study of the articulations of the feet, hands, elbows and knees and the
muscular links show that the Australopithecus afarensis could walk and climb.
• Mary found fossils and tools and other evidence of prehistoric human beings in Africa.
• Louis Leakey and the other scientists named the discovery Homo habilis, a fossil group
now considered by most anthropologists to be the remains of one of the earliest types of
human beings.
Louis Leakey
Born: 1903
Where: Near Nairobi, Kenya
Education: went to school at Cambridge University, majoring in Anthropology and graduating in
1926.
Occupation: a British anthropologist
Work: after graduation, he got a job as an Africa expert on an archaeological mission to Tanzania.
- In the early 1960’s, a Leaky expedition to the Olduvai Gorge uncovered human fossils.
Louis Leakey Died at the age of 69 in 1972 from a heart attack.
Name: Mary Douglas Nicol Leakey
Born: February 6, 1913
Where: London, England
Education: her mother sent her to a Catholic convent where she was expelled.
Occupation: a British archaeologist and anthropologist.
Work: Mary and Louis spent from 1935-1959 at Olduvai Gorge in the Seregeti Plains of northern
Tanzania.
- In October of 1947, while on Rusinga Island, Mary unearths a Profconsul skull, which
was the first skull of an ape to ever be found. There are only three others that are known.
- In 1955, Mary and Louis were awarded the Stopes Medal from the Geological
Association for their hard work and discoveries.
- A 1.75 million year-old Australopithecus Boisei skull was uncovered in 1959.
- She discovered Homo fossils at Laetoli which were more than 3.75 million years old, 15
new species and one new genus.
Mary Leakey died on Monday, December 9th, 1996 at the age of 83.
Richard Leakey (son of Louis and Mary)
- He is the world’s best-known paleontologist
- He was credited with some of the most significant fossil discoveries of the 20th century.
- In 1984, his team found the most impressive fossil.
- They following year supplied another major find, WT 17000, the first skull of the species
Australopithecus aethiopicus