February 6 – Happy Birthday, Mary Leakey

nPostednon February 6, 2014

Shendiscovered ancient hominid and other ape skulls. She dug up tools created by humanity’s ancient ancestors. She discovered hominid footprints thatnwere made more than 3.6 million years ago. She discovered 15 newnspecies of animals and one new genus.

n
n

nMarynLeakey, born on this date in 1903, in London, England, was anpaleoanthropologist. That means she studied early humans and humannancestors.

n
n

nShenmarried another paleoanthropologist, Louis Leakey, and she helped train her sons in the science as well.

nThe Leakeys have made manyncontributions to our knowledge of human evolution. One of their mostnfamous dig sites was at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, Africa. MarynLeakey also made major discoveries at another Tanzanian site callednLaetoli.

n
n

nFindn out moren about early humans by checking out some of the kids’ resources Mr.n Donn has gathered here.

n

n
n

nInwas interested in Mary Leakey’s early life. What was her childhoodnlike, that she ended up going into such an adventurous field?

n
n

nIndiscovered that her father Erskine Nicol was a painter, and thenfamily moved from place to place as he painted watercolor landscapes.nHe was also an enthusiast about Ancient Egypt, and the family livednin Egypt for a while. Mary loved to go on long exploratory walks withnher father wherever they lived. You can see that she had annadventurous childhood!

n
n

nHernmother’s family, also, was far from boring! Mary’s mother, CecilianFrere, had relatives that included an antiquarian and annarcheologist. Also, during the 1800s the Frere family had been active in trying to endnslavery in the British colonial empire. They hadneven established communities for freed slaves, including Freretown,nKenya (Africa); Freretown, South Africa; and Freretown, India.

Now,nthis is impressive: In 1925, the family was living in France, in LesnEyzies, just when Elie Peyrony was excavating one of the caves innwhich archeologists had discovered signs of prehistoric humans.nAlthough Mary was just 12 years old, she got permission to go throughnPeyrony’s dump, and she became hooked on prehistory! She made ancollection of points, scrapers, and blades that she found in thendump, and she even developed a system of classification!

n
n

nIfnyou know anything about modern archeology, you might be wondering whynPeyrony would’ve missed points, scrapers, and blades in his dig! Whynon earth would such valuable stuff be in his dump?

n
n

nYou see, backnin the early 1900s, archeology was still in an early stage, andnexcavations were not made systematically and scientifically. It wasnmore like a treasure hunt—think Indiana Jones!—than like thenpatient and painstaking uncovering of evidence that it isntoday. These days, shards of pottery and bones from ancient trashnpits are photographed, measured, and catalogued as carefully as arengolden goblets and entire skulls!

nAlsonon this date: