The Olduvai Gorge or Oldupai (the Maasai word for “the place of the wild sisal”) Gorge lies in Tanzania. It is one of the most important sites in the world with regard to the early development of modern humans, having proven invaluable in furthering understanding of early human evolution.
The gorge is a steep-sided ravine in the Great Rift Valley that stretches some 48 km across East Africa, located in the eastern Serengeti Plains within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area.
Zinj Tower Monument is a memorial to the Olduvai Gorge site, where the skull of Zinjathropus Boisei was discovered more than 60 years ago. To be precise, it is Kenyan-British palaeoanthropologist and archaeologist Dr Louis Leakey and his wife, Dr Mary Leakey, who discovered the skull – in July 1959.
The monument is built at the intersection of the road to the Ngorongoro Crater, the Serengeti National Park and the Olduvai Gorge itself, making it is easy for tourists to visit the archaeological research centre.
The particular skull is recognized across the globe as impeccable proof that the human origin in the world may be in Africa – in fact, in Tanzania’s Olduvai Gorge Plains in present-day Ngorongoro District, Arusha Region.
Zinj Tower Monument is a favourite stop-over for people visiting Tanzania’s northern tourism circuit to enjoy the marvellous natural wonders Tanzania is blessed with.
It is around these areas that one finds and witnesses the “shifting sand” as well as Dr Leakey’s Museum, Oldupai Gorge itself and the world-acclaimed Laetoli footprints, said to be 3.7 million years old.
It is well documented that Homo habilis, probably the first early human species, occupied the Olduvai Gorge approximately 1.9 million years ago; then came a contemporary Paranthropus boisei 1.8 million years ago; followed by Homo erectus 1.2 million years ago.
Homo sapiens, which is estimated to have emerged roughly 300,000 years ago, is believed to have occupied sites in the gorge 17,000 years ago.
So, to answer the question in the headline to this narration: YES, there is enough impeccable evidence qualifying the Olduvai Gorge as really the cradle of humankind and – by extension – human civilisation. And this confirms Tanzania as a truly and justifiably destination of choice to lovers of nature from across the globe.
WanderTZ/Emmanuel Kwitema
