Olduvai Gorge: Marking the 60 years of the discovery of the skull of Early Man

0a1a-8
0a1a-8

For many years, we have been trying to solve a big question about our origin or the origin of man and the secrets behind creation of humans which we all belong.

But the discovery of the skull of Early Man in Tanzania 60 years ago had proved that the first human being probably evolved in Africa with a testimony that the Early Man was of African origin.
0a1a1 | eTurboNews | eTN

In July 17th this year scientists and pre-history enthusiasts will celebrate the 60th year after of the discovery of a skull of an early man at the Olduvai Gorge in Ngorongoro Conservation Area, northern Tanzania.

Olduvai Gorge is like the Biblical Garden of Eden where the first man in this planet is believed to have been created. It is the site where famous paleoanthropologists and archaeologists Dr. Louis Leakey and his wife Dr. Mary Leakey made a milestone discovery of a skull of the early man.

Louis and Mary Leakey were living in Kenya before moving to Olduvai Gorge with their family to carry out excavations there. Dr. Louis Leakey was born in Kabete, in the then colonial Kenya. He was the son of Harry and Mary Bazett Leakey.

A visit to Olduvai excavation site is a lifelong and a thrilling moment to remind us of our early life, not only that, but our origin which scientists and historians believe could have started there.

This historical site and its neighbouring Laetoli footprint area are prominent pre-historical sites where our early ancestors walked, gathering and hunting the many wildlife in Ngorongoro Conservation Area.

Now, scientists, pre-history researchers and tourists will be gathering in Tanzaniaโ€™s northern city of Arusha, then at Olduvai Gorge to celebrate 60 years of the discovery of the skull of Early Man from July 17th this year.
It was on 17th July 1959 when Mary Leakey discovered a well preserved hominid cranium at Olduvai Gorge that was later carbon dated to approximately 1.75 million years ago. They called it โ€œZinjanthropusโ€ or the Eastern Man.

Mary stumbled on a small part of the bone behind the ear which had been partly exposed by erosion. Extensive digging at the Olduvai Gorge revealed what was then the earliest known living floor of the primitive man, the Zinjathropus.
The skull was later named Australopithecus Boisei in honour of Charles Boise who funded the Leakeysโ€™ research.
Fifteen years later, in 1974, Mary discovered hominid footprints at Laetoli, south of Olduvai, dated at 3.5 to 4 million years old.

The skull and the footprints proved that human evolution began, not in Asia as previously thought, but in Africa. Today, Olduvai Gorge is known as the cradle of mankind.

The Director General of the National Museum of Tanzania, Prof Audax Mabula, said that various activities, ranging from scientific seminars, site visits, cultural performances and discussions will mark the 60 years of the milestone discovery of the skull of the early man.

โ€œWe are now looking to award Leakeyโ€™s family for their role in the discovery of the first hominid skull in Tanzania, which, we all believe to be of the early man in this planetโ€, Prof. Mabula said.

Most exciting, Prof. Mabula said, will be the opening up of walking trails in Olduvai and Laetoli excavation sites where tourists could walk the same paths that our early ancestors walked.

โ€œWalking from the excavation site to the Olduvai Gorge Museum, a visitor will exhilarate the feelings of the early man who roamed this place peacefully, hunting and gathering within the areaโ€, Prof. Mabula said.

Located in the wilderness, the Olduvai Museum is the largest natural history educational and scientific facility of its kind in Africa where you can learn the history of the evolution of man.

Inside the Museum, visitors get an opportunity to see the pre-historic remains of early man. From there, visitors can make walking safaris following the trails of the early man, now under demarcation or setting up.

Prof. Mabula further said that visitors to the Olduvai Museum can as well, get the first hand information about the evolution of man through information provided there.

Tanzanian government is as well, revamping Dr. Mary Leakeyโ€™s Camp into a full museum to be named โ€œMary Leakey Living Museumโ€. This new and independent museum will feature Dr. Mary Leakeyโ€™s living room, her table, an oven, a windmill (for electricity generation), an old Land Rover and other personal items she has been using during those days.
Mary Leakeyโ€™s old Land Rover is still seen at the excavation site, now preserved in the new museum.

He said that the Leakeyโ€™s family in Kenya is working closely with conservation authorities in Ngorongoro to make the 60th Anniversary of the discovery of the early manโ€™s skull a success story. Leakeyโ€™s family in Nairobi is expected to attend the event.

Indigenous people of the Olduvai Gorge; the Tatoga and Hazable tribes have been invited to showcase their cultural heritage, Prof. Mabula said.

Prof. Mabula noted that revamping the camp would allow tourists and researchers who want to sleep in, do so and learn a number of things of the earliest man on Earth.

The Tatoga and Hazable communities are more or less, living almost the same lifestyle like the early man. These minority tribes are hunters and gatherers, living near Lake Eyasi and other localities neighbouring Ngorongoro Conservation Area.

Olduvai area was occupied by the Tatoga and Hazabe tribes, the indigenous people in Tanzania, now living as hunters and gatherers near Lake Eyasi, neighbor to Ngorongoro Conservation Area.

The fierce Maasai invaded the area about 300 years ago then chased away the indigenous Tatoga and Hazabe communities from the pasture-rich Ngorongoro plains.

According to the Olduvai Gorge Museum curators, the discovery of the origin of man at Olduvai Gorge is an interesting history which scientists wanted to make. It is a place of diversified history of both human beings and other mammal species.

A German butterfly collector, Professor Kattwinke, way back in 1911 found a number of fossil bones of the extinct three-toed horse, Hipparion, which he took back with him to Berlin in Germany for scientific research.

Professor Kattwinke aroused great interest in Germany and later inspired Professor Hans Reck to make an expedition to Olduvai site in 1923. He stayed in the site for three months then collected a great number of important mammal fossil remains.

Dr. Louis Leakey had seen the collections from Olduvai Gorge in the Berlin Museum. In 1931, after the World War 1, he organized an expedition to the Gorge and invited professor Reck to be a member of the party.

The Leakeysโ€™ work in Tanzania changed the knowledge of the evolution of mankind and the entire history of man.
Today, the Olduvai Gorge is a place of early history of the evolution of man and which attracts thousands of visitors each year to see the origin of our biological ancestors.

Discovery of the origin of man at Olduvai Gorge, the large numbers of wildlife in the Ngorongoro Crater and the presence of Maasai cattle herders within the plains have all, made Ngorongoro Conservation Area best known as the โ€œLast Garden of Edenโ€ and the โ€œEighth Wonder of the World.โ€

Natural history scientists believe that the earliest man had a brain about 40 percent (40%) the size of modern man, more muscular, measured about four to four-and-a-half feet tall. They may have primarily lived in wooded areas, eating grubs, meat, and plants.

Visiting Olduvai Gorge is such a lifetime moment where you can see, experience and touch the ground where genetic and fossil evidence of the archaic Homo sapiens evolved to anatomically modern humans solely in Africa, between 200,000 and 100,000 years ago, with members of one branch leaving Africa by 60,000 years ago and over time replacing earlier human populations such as Neanderthals and Homo erectus.

Olduvai Gorge also remains the national and international icon of human origin studies and has been declared by the United Nations Educational and Scientific Organization (UNESCO) as a world heritage site.

The Olduvai Gorge, which is located some 250 kilometers west of northern Tanzaniaโ€™s tourist hub of Arusha and roughly between the Ngorongoro crater and Serengeti National Park, attracts about 60,000 visitors a year, most of them researchers and students from across the world.

โ€œWe are naturally proud that Tanzania was the site of this significant discovery,โ€ once said Dr. Freddy Manongi, the Chief Conservator for the Ngorongoro Conservation Area where excavations are still taking place.

Tourists, academicians, researchers, students and primary school children from around the world pay several visits to the excavation site at Olduvai Gorge, the actual place of the discovery of the remains of the early man.

Ngorongoro was established in 1959 and was the working home for its founder and famous German zoologist, Dr. Bernhard Grzimeck, and his son Michael who together filmed the entire and modern conservation area then produced the thrilling wildlife film and a book, all with a title: โ€œSerengeti Shall Not Die.โ€

The area supports high densities of wildlife throughout the year and contains the most visible population of the remaining black rhino in Tanzania. The NCA has over 25,000 large mammal including the black rhinos, elephants, wildebeests, hippos, zebras, giraffes, buffaloes, gazelles, and lions.

The crater is steep, 600 meters in depth, made by high natural walls that survived the volcanoโ€™s subsidence or caldera. It covers 264 square kilometers, making it one of the largest, intact, and unflooded calderas in the world.

About the author

Avatar of Apolinari Tairo - eTN Tanzania

Apolinari Tairo - eTN Tanzania

Share to...