Customer Reviews

Olduvai Gorge: My search for early man

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"On 17 July 1959 Mary Leakey made a discovery at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania that amazed the scientific establishment. It was the fossilized skull of Australopithecus boisei: a stocky, upright-walking creature, now known to be 1.7 million years old."

"This, together with further remains discovered at Olduvai by her husband Louis and her sons Richard and Jonathan, proved beyond doubt that the early hominids are much older than archaeologists had previously thought. They demonstrate, too, that different man-like species lived at Olduvai, side-by-side."

"For the past twenty years, Mary Leakey has devoted herself almost entirely to Olduvai. Cut off from the outside world, she lives in its magnificent setting of volcanic mountains and open plains, with a surprising variety of pets, wild life, and neighbours to keep her company."

"In this book she describes her life at the gorge, and gives an account of what she and her colleagues have learned there." "She describes the different stratigraphic levels, or beds, at Olduvai; the various tool industries discovered, and the fossil flora and fauna. Most fascinating of all, she describes how the hominid remains were discovered and how they have altered current theories of human evolution."

187 pp, red cloth over board with gold details, illustrated.