The Cradle of Humankind
Olduvai Gorge
35 million years ago, the Earth split. In the northern part of Tanzania where the Great Rift Valley is, there is Olduvai Gorge. Now is a desert where few people live but it used to be packet with houses, animals, humans, and more.
Archaeologist Louis and Mary Leakey.
A 12 year old boy in East Africa, Louis Leakey found his 1st fossil , after that he decided to be an archaeologist. He digged and carefully looked for historical sites, fossil, pottery, building, and fossils, and his family would help him. In the 1930s the Leakey's decided to work in Olduvai Gorge but many scientists didn't agree with him. The Leakey's worked for more than 20 years, but they didn't find very important things. They mostly found tools, animal skeletons, and fossils. Then one day Louis was sick and wife saw a but section that caught her eye. She found hundreds of bones and made an early human ancestors.
Nutcracker Man
Mary Leakey was nicknamed Nutcracker Man because she would crush nut and roots in the African savannas that met forest.
Testing Evidence
The Leakey's couldn't determine the age of the fossils so they used the modern methods, some tests were to find out the chemical elements, in animals and plants, others were found in soil and rocks.
Older Than We Knew
They discovered that Mary Leakey was 1.75 million to 2 million years old and that, that Nutcracker Man was 3 times older than the human ancestor. One of the Scientist called it the "Cradle of Humankind" and soon it might be called like that.
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