Archaeology of the beds I and II of the Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania): FLK ZINJ, DS, PTK, AGS, FLK West, TK and BK

RESULTS

• Discovery of the oldest remains of a Homo erectus-like creature and demonstration that it lived alongside Homo habilis and Paranthropus.
• First remains of infant Homo habilis individuals. Not yet studied, but of great importance to determine when they became independent from maternal/paternal care.
• First remains of a skeleton of Paranthropus boisei. Until then it was unknown how these creatures were from the neck down. The relevance of the discovery showed that at a date as late as just over a million years ago these creatures were still arboreal.
• Discovery of the first case of porotic hyperostosis in a child, which demonstrates the existence of a physiology accustomed to regular meat consumption 1.5 million years ago.
• In addition, we have discovered a series of new deposits in the oldest part of the gorge (the object of the current project), which are the first deposits with entity (i.e., great density of remains) discovered in Olduvai in more than half a century.
• A dozen hominid fossils whose taxonomic and biomechanical study is underway.
• Discovery of FLK West, at the base of bed II: the oldest Achellenic site in Olduvai and one of the three oldest in the world. It contains the oldest documented two-sided complex to date. It is a unique window into the cognitive world of the 1.7 million year old hominids.