Africa's Olduvai Gorge is considered one of the
most important paleoanthropological sites in the world. It is located in the
Eastern Serengeti in Northern Tanzania, within the Ngorongoro Conservation
Area.
The Gorge is a long ravine, forming
part of Africa's Great Rift Valley. This Rift Valley stretches from the Red Sea
through East Africa to the southern end of Mozambique and is characterized by uninhabitable
desert and fertile farmland, flat arid plains and steep escarpments. It is also
the only major land feature on earth visible with the naked eye from the moon.
The name is an early misspelling of Oldupai
Gorge, which was adopted as its official name in 2005. Oldupai is the Masai word
for the wild sisal that grows there.
Over time, a series of fault lines,
along with centuries of erosion, has revealed fossils and remnants of early
humankind in Olduvai Gorge, which have been instrumental in furthering the
understanding of human evolution.
Excavations in the early twentieth century by the famous archaeologist,
Dr Louis Leakey, uncovered some of the earliest remains of fossil hominids at
Olduvai.
Seventeen years after the first discovery of human forms, Leakey’s
wife, Mary, discovered the unmistakable fossilized footprints of a human
ancestor who had walked along a riverbank three million years ago.
Skull of extinct giraffe
Since then, excavators
working in Olduvai have
found skeletal remains
of
a number of
ancient hominids,
including Homo habilis,
Homo erectus and
Australopithecus Boisei.
The Monolith
This archaeological evidence convinced
most paleontolgists that humans originally evolved in Africa, and led to
Olduvai Gorge being dubbed "The Cradle of Mankind'.
We came upon Olduvai in 2006 as we made our way from the Masai Mara in
Kenya to Tanzania's Serengeti.
When our driver stopped at a
small, shabby museum, we were surprised by its simplicity...it
seemed an unlikely holder of this area's rich
history.
Seated on small benches overlooking
the Gorge, we listened attentively as a native guide explained the significance
of the site.
It was only when we were leaving that
I realized not all in our group were impressed. The two twenty-something girls with
us rolled their eyes in boredom and asked why we'd stopped to look at "a
big hole in the ground". Having never heard of the Leakey family or of Olduvai
Gorge, and being unable to follow the guide's broken English, it must have
seemed an odd thing to be sitting there, indeed.
Never underestimate the importance of
context!
We shared our picnic lunch with a
number of tiny birds that occupy the site.
I am linking this post to ABC Wednesday, and suggest you drop by and check out other takes on the letter'O'...
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