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2Myears agoFinds c. 2–1 million years old; key discoveries 1959–1964 · Olduvai Gorge, Ngorongoro Conservation Area

Olduvai Gorge and the evidence of early human evolution

The layered walls and floor of Olduvai Gorge, seen from the museum on its rim
Photo: Noel Feans. CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Layers exposed by a ravine in northern Tanzania hold some of the oldest stone tools and hominin fossils known. Working here from 1931, Mary and Louis Leakey found the Paranthropus skull nicknamed Zinj in 1959 and the first Homo habilis fossils soon after. Their finds, with the footprints Mary Leakey's team uncovered at nearby Laetoli, placed Africa at the centre of the human story.

Sites

  1. Site 1: Olduvai Gorge Museum and overlookSite museum on the rim above the layered gorge where the Leakeys dug.Map ↗

Guides who take you there

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More from the Prehistory

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