Homo habilis is an extinct species of archaic human from the Early Pleistocene of East and South Africa about 2.3 million years ago to 1.65 million years ago (mya). Upon species description in 1964, H. habilis was highly contested, with many researchers recommending it be synonymised with Australopithecus africanus, the only other early hominin known at the time, but H. habilis received more recognition as time went on and more relevant discoveries were made. By the 1980s, H. habilis was proposed to have been a human ancestor, directly evolving into Homo erectus, which directly led to modern humans. This viewpoint is now debated. Several specimens with insecure species identification were assigned to H. habilis, leading to arguments for splitting, namely into "H. rudolfensis" and "H. gautengensis" of which only the former has received wide support.
Louis Seymour Bazett Leakey was a Kenyan-British palaeoanthropologist and archaeologist whose work was important in demonstrating that humans evolved in Africa, particularly through discoveries made at Olduvai Gorge with his wife, fellow palaeoanthropologist Mary Leakey. Having established a programme of palaeoanthropological inquiry in eastern Africa, he also motivated many future generations to continue this scholarly work. Several members of the Leakey family became prominent scholars themselves.
Richard Erskine Frere Leakey was a Kenyan paleoanthropologist, conservationist and politician. Leakey held a number of official positions in Kenya, mostly in institutions of archaeology and wildlife conservation. He was Director of the National Museum of Kenya, founded the NGO WildlifeDirect, and was the chairman of the Kenya Wildlife Service. Leakey served in the powerful office of cabinet secretary and head of public service during the tail end of President Daniel Toroitich Arap Moi's government.
The Olduvai Gorge or Oldupai Gorge in Tanzania is one of the most important paleoanthropological localities in the world; the many sites exposed by the gorge have proven invaluable in furthering understanding of early human evolution. A steep-sided ravine in the Great Rift Valley that stretches across East Africa, it is about 48 km long, and is located in the eastern Serengeti Plains within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in the Olbalbal ward located in Ngorongoro District of Arusha Region, about 45 kilometres from Laetoli, another important archaeological locality of early human occupation. The British/Kenyan paleoanthropologist-archeologist team of Mary and Louis Leakey established excavation and research programs at Olduvai Gorge that achieved great advances in human knowledge. The site is registered as one of the National Historic Sites of Tanzania.
Mary Douglas Leakey, FBA was a British paleoanthropologist who discovered the first fossilised Proconsul skull, an extinct ape which is now believed to be ancestral to humans. She also discovered the robust Zinjanthropus skull at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, eastern Africa. For much of her career she worked with her husband, Louis Leakey, at Olduvai Gorge, where they uncovered fossils of ancient hominines and the earliest hominins, as well as the stone tools produced by the latter group. Mary Leakey developed a system for classifying the stone tools found at Olduvai. She discovered the Laetoli footprints, and at the Laetoli site she discovered hominin fossils that were more than 3.75 million years old.
Paranthropus boisei is a species of australopithecine from the Early Pleistocene of East Africa about 2.5 to 1.15 million years ago. The holotype specimen, OH 5, was discovered by palaeoanthropologist Mary Leakey in 1959 at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania and described by her husband Louis a month later. It was originally placed into its own genus as "Zinjanthropus boisei", but is now relegated to Paranthropus along with other robust australopithecines. However, it is also argued that Paranthropus is an invalid grouping and synonymous with Australopithecus, so the species is also often classified as Australopithecus boisei.
The year 1959 in archaeology involved some significant events.
The Olduvai Gorge Museum is located in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in Northern Tanzania on the edge of the Olduvai Gorge. The museum was founded by Mary Leakey and is now under the jurisdiction of the Tanzanian government's Department of Cultural Antiquities and is managed by the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority. It is a museum dedicated to the appreciation and understanding of the Olduvai Gorge and Laetoli fossil sites.
The Peninj Mandible(Peninj 1), also called Natron mandible, is the fossilized lower jaw and teeth of an australopithecine specimen, likely that of Paranthropus boisei or a similar population. It was discovered in West Lake Natron, in Ngorongoro District of Arusha Region of Tanzania by Kamoya Kimeu, Glynn Isaac, and Richard Leakey in 1964.
The Trimates, sometimes called Leakey's Angels, is a name given to three women — Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birutė Galdikas — chosen by anthropologist Louis Leakey to study primates in their natural environments. They studied chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans, respectively.
Princess Louise de Merode is a Kenyan paleontologist and anthropologist. She conducts research and field work on human fossils in Eastern Africa.
Colin Louis Avern Leakey was a leading plant scientist in the United Kingdom, a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge and of the Institute of Biology, and a world authority on beans.
Garniss H. Curtis, was a professor of geology at the University of California, Berkeley, geochronologist, volcanologist, geophysicist, and founder of the Berkeley Geochronology Center. In 1960, Curtis and fellow UC Berkeley geophysicist Jack Evernden used potassium-argon dating methods developed by UC Berkeley physicist John Reynolds on minerals found in tephra deposits collected by Evernden to date Mary Leakey's 1959 Olduvai Gorge Bed I hominin Zinjanthropus to 1.89 to 1.57 Mya. The great age of the fossil hominid and associated stone tools in the bed pushed back the then accepted age of the Pleistocene another million years, causing a stir in the geology community. The dating of these fossil finds is considered a starting point for the collaboration of paleoanthropology and geochronology.
Hans Gottfried Reck was a German volcanologist and paleontologist. In 1913 he was the first to discover an ancient skeleton of a human in the Olduvai Gorge, in what is now Tanzania. He collaborated with Louis Leakey in a return expedition to the site in 1931.
Anna Katherine "Kay" Behrensmeyer is an American taphonomist and paleoecologist. She is a pioneer in the study of the fossil records of terrestrial ecosystems and engages in geological and paleontological field research into the ecological context of human evolution in East Africa. She is Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology in the Department of Paleobiology at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History (NMNH). At the museum, she is co-director of the Evolution of Terrestrial Ecosystems program and an associate of the Human Origins Program.
Kariandusi prehistoric site is an archaeological site in Kenya. Located on the southeastern edge of the Great Rift Valley and on Lake Elmenteita, Kariandusi is an African Early Stone Age site dating to approximately 1 million years ago.
Shirley Cameron Coryndon (1926–1976) was a British paleontologist and authority on fossil hippopotami.
Michael Herbert Day was a British anatomist and paleoanthropologist. His research concentrated on the morphology of postcranial remains to understand the evolution of locomotion in the hominin clade. He was the author of the Guide to Fossil Man, the first English publication to review the hominin fossil record. Day eventually worked in the Department of Anatomy at the Middlesex Hospital Medical School and served as the Chair of Anatomy at St. Thomas's Hospital Medical School until his retirement.
Kathy Diane Schick is an American archaeologist and paleoanthropologist. She is professor emeritus in the Cognitive Science Program at Indiana University and is a founder and co-director of the Stone Age Institute. Schick is most well known for her experimental work in taphonomy as well as her experimental work, with Nicholas Toth, on the stone tool technology of Early Stone Age hominins, including their work with the bonobo Kanzi who they taught to make and use simple stone tools similar to those made by our Early Stone Age ancestors.
Amini Aza Mturi was a Tanzanian archaeologist and director of the Tanzanian Division of Antiquities between 1968 and 1981. He has been described as "one of the founding fathers of archaeology in Tanzania".
