Olduvai Gorge

One of the most significant prehistoric sites in the world, the Olduvai Gorge is located in northern Tanzania, at the border of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and the Serengeti National Park. The steep sided gorge is about 48 km (30 mi) long and is situated on a series of fault lines, which, thanks to centuries of erosion, have yielded an unequalled treasure trove of fossilized bones, teeth, tools, flora and fauna.



The Olduvai Gorge or Oldupai Gorge is commonly referred to as "The Cradle of Mankind." It is a steep-sided ravine in the Great Rift Valley, which stretches along eastern Africa. Olduvai is in the eastern Serengeti Plains in northern Tanzania and is about 30 miles (48 km) long. The gorge is named after the Maasai word for the wild sisal plant Sansevieria ehrenbergii, commonly called Oldupaai.

The land is now semi-desert, but thousands of years ago it was covered with lush forest, fed by streams flowing into the Olduvai Lake. Successive layers of volcanic ash and stones covered the area, but exposed fossil deposits show seven distinct layers, covering a time span from about 2.1 million to 15,000 years ago.

Louis and Mary Leakey began excavations here in the 1950s, and work continues to this day. The earliest discoveries showed that primitive hominids lived here in small camps, hunting for food and using stone tools made of flakes of basalt and quartz. These tools were named Oldowan as this is the first site in which they were ever found.

The skeletal remains of various early hominids have been found here, up to and including one complete skeleton of Homo sapiens, dated to 17,000 years ago. Possibly the greatest discovery of all was made by Mary Leakey, when she found fossilized footprints dating to 3.75 million years ago, proving that our prehuman ancestors walked in an upright position.

On the edge of the gorge is a museum, founded by Mary Leakey in the late 1970s, and centred around the paleoanthropological artefacts discovered in the area. Some 20 years later it was renovated and added to by the J. Paul Getty Museum. The discoveries at Olduvai Gorge have been instrumental in furthering our understanding of early human evolution.