Mary Leakey

Mary Leakey was a British paleoanthropologist and archaeologist whose fieldwork at Olduvai Gorge and Laetoli in Tanzania produced some of the most significant hominid fossil discoveries of the twentieth century. Trained in archaeological illustration and excavation before her marriage to fellow paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey, Mary developed the detailed system used to classify the early stone tools found at Olduvai Gorge, distinguishing different technological traditions within what became known as the Oldowan industry. In July 1959, Mary Leakey discovered the skull of a robust early hominid at Olduvai, initially described as a new genus and species called Zinjanthropus boisei and nicknamed Nutcracker Man for its large teeth and powerful jaw, a find whose publicity helped secure long term funding for the Leakeys' ongoing East African fieldwork. Later, at the nearby site of Laetoli, Mary Leakey led the discovery in the late 1970s of a trail of fossilized hominid footprints preserved in volcanic ash and dated to roughly 3.75 million years old, among the oldest direct evidence that early hominids walked upright on two legs long before the evolution of a larger, more human-like brain. Mary Leakey continued directing fieldwork at Olduvai and Laetoli for decades, publishing detailed scientific descriptions of the stone tools and fossils recovered and training generations of later paleoanthropologists.