Olduvai Gorge

Deep cleft in the Serengeti steppe, Tanzania, where Louis and Mary Leakey found prehistoric stone tools in the 1930s. They discovered Pleistocene remains of early hominids and animals 1958–59. The gorge has given its name to the Olduvai culture, a simple stone-tool culture of prehistoric hominids, dating from 2–0.5 million years ago.

The Pleistocene remains include sheep the size of a large horse, pigs as big as rhinoceroses, and a gorilla-sized baboon. The skull of an early hominid (1.75 million years old), Australopithecus boisei (its massive teeth earned it the nickname ‘Nutcracker Man’), was also found here, as well as remains of Homo habilis and primitive types of Homo erectus.