Abstract
The palaeoanthropological sites of Oldupai Gorge (previously known as Olduvai) and Laetoli are located on the Eastern Serengeti Plains , at the foot of the Ngorongoro Highlands , northern Tanzania. Hominin fossils and Oldowan stone tools have been unearthed from Plio-Pleistocene sequences of lacustrine sediments and volcanic ashes exposed in a shallow ravine carved by the ephemeral Oldupai River. The sediments and ashes accumulated in a small basin which formed due to warping of the regional plateau. Warping was triggered by the southward propagation of the East African Rift System (EARS). The presence of repetitive layers of water-lain volcanic ashes, or tuffs, derived from the Ngorongoro Volcanism, is particularly significant as they yield precise radiometric dates. Bed I of the Oldupai Group, where the first discoveries of Zinjanthropus boisei (OH-5) and Homo habilis (OH-7) were made by Mary Leakey, in 1959 and 1960, has an age of 2.015–1.803 Ma. The age of these two, partially intact hominin skulls has been determinded as 1.848 Ma (OH-5) and 1.848–1.832 (OH-7). Oldupai Gorge has also yielded fossils of Homo erectus (1.2–0.70 Ma) and the coexistence of different species of hominin is a unique feature of the locality. Reactivation of faulting associated with the Gregory Rift at approximately 1.15 Ma caused some of the older deposits to be reworked and buried beneath younger sediments and ashes. The youngest component of the Oldupai Group comprises wind-blown volcanic ashes from volcanoes located in the Gregory Rift Valley near Lake Natron . The Laetoli site has yielded hominin fossils and footprints from an area, where the Pliocene-age Laetoli Group is exposed in shallow gullies and areas of badland erosion. The most significant find is the 27-m-long trail made by Australopithecus afarensis (dated at 3.6 Ma), discovered by Paul Adell in 1978. The footprints are preserved in volcanic ash derived from the Sadiman Volcano.
Photographs not otherwise referenced are by the author.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Andrews, P., & Bamford, M. (2008). Past and present vegetation ecology of Laetoli, Tanzania. Journal of Human Evolution, 54, 78–98.
Blumenschine, R. J., Peters, C. R., Masao, F. S., Clarke, R. J., Deino, A. L., Hay, R. L., et al. (2003). Late Pliocene Homo and hominid land use from western Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. Science, 299, 1217–1221.
Blumenschine, R. J., Stanistreet, I. G., Njau, J. K., Bamford, M. D., Masao, F. S., Albert, R. M., et al. (2012). Environments and hominin activities across the FLK peninsula during Zinjanthropus times (1.84 Ma), Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. Journal of Human Evolution, 63, 364–383.
Deino, A. L. (2012). 40Ar/39Ar dating of Bed I Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania and the chronology of early Pleistocene climate change. In R. J. Blumenschine, E. T. Masao, I. G. Stanistreet, & C. C. Swisher (Eds.). Five decades after Zinjanthropus and Homo habilis: Landscape paleoanthropology of Plio-Pleistocene Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. Journal of Human Evolution 63, 252–273.
Drake, R., & Curtis, G. H. (1987). K-Ar chronology of the Laetoli fossil localities. In M. D. Leakey & J. M. Harris (Eds.), Laetoli, a Pliocene Site in Northern Tanzania (pp. 48–52). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Habermann, J. M., Stanistreet, I. G., Stollhofen, H., Albert, R. M., Bamford, M. K., Pante, M. C., et al. (2016). In situ 2.0 Ma trees discovered as fossil rooted stumps, lowermost Bed I, Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. Journal of Human Evolution, 90, 74–97.
Hay, R. L. (1976). Geology of the Olduvai Gorge: A study of sedimentation in a semiarid basin (203 p). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Hay, R. L. (1987). Geology of the Laetoli Beds. In M. D. Leakey & J. M. Harris (Eds.), Laetoli, a Pliocene Site in Northern Tanzania (pp. 23–47). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Hay, R. L. (1994) Geology and dating of Beds III, IV and the Masek Beds. In: M. D. Leakey & D. A. Roe (Eds.), Olduvai Gorge volume 5: Excavations in Beds III, IV and the Masek Beds, 1968–1971 (pp. 8–14) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Leakey, M. D. (1981). Discoveries at Laetoli in Northern Tanzania. Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association, 92(2), 81–86.
Leakey, M. D. (1984). Disclosing the past (224 p). New York: Doubleday and Co.
Leakey, M. D., & Hay, R. L. (1979). Pliocene footprints in the Laetoli Beds at Laetoli, Northern Tanzania. Nature, 278, 317–323.
Leakey, L. S. B., Hopwood, A. T., & Reck, H. (1931). Age of the Oldowan bone beds, Tanganyika. Nature, 128, 724.
Marean, C. (2010). Pinnacle point cave 13B (Western Cape Province, South Africa) in context: The Cape Floral Kingdom, shellfish, and modern human origins. Journal of Human Evolution, 59, 425–443.
Masao, F. T., Ichumbaki, B. T., Cherin, M., Barili, A., Boschian, G., Lurino, D. A., Menconero, S., Moggi-Cecchi, J., & Manzi, G. (2016). New footprints from Laetoli (Tanzania) provide evidence for marked body size variation in early hominins. eLife, 5, 1–29.
McHenry, L. J. (2012). A revised stratigraphic framework for Olduvai Gorge Bed I based on tuff geochemistry. In R. J. Blumenschine., E. T. Masao, I. G. Stanistreet & C. C. Swisher (Eds.), Five decades after Zinjanthropus and Homo habilis: Landscape Paleoanthropology of Plio-Pleistocene Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. Journal of Human Evolution, 63, 284–299.
McHenry, L. J., Mollel, G. F., & Swisher, C. C. (2008). Compositional and textural correlations between Olduvai Gorge Bed I tephra and volcanic sources in the Ngorongoro Volcanic Highlands, Tanzania. Quaternary International, 178, 306–319.
Meredith, M. (2011). Born in Africa: The quest for the origins of human life (230 p). London: Simon and Schuster.
Rutherford, A. (2017). A brief history of everyone who ever lived (419 p). London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
Stollhofen, H., & Stanistreet, I. G. (2012). Plio-Pleistocene synsedimentary fault compartments, foundation for the eastern Olduvai Basin paleoenvironment, Tanzania. Journal of Human Evolution, 63, 309–327.
Stringer, C., & McKie, R. (1996). African exodus (267 p). London: Jonathan Cape.
Zaitsev, A. N., Wenzel, T., Spratt, J., Williams, T. C., Strekopytov, S., Sharygin, V. V., et al. (2011). Was Sadiman Volcano a source for the Laetoli Footprint Tuff? Journal of Human Evolution, 61(1), 121–124.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Scoon, R.N. (2018). Oldupai Gorge and Laetoli. In: Geology of National Parks of Central/Southern Kenya and Northern Tanzania. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73785-0_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73785-0_11
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-73784-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-73785-0
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)