United Rebublic of Tanzania - Event

Meet our ancestors, or at least see where they lived, in Oldupai Gorge. Here, in what is known as "the cradle of mankind", Louis and Mary Leakey oversaw the finding of some 60 hominid remains, dating back up to 14 million years.

Mary's discovery of 3.6 million-year-old footprints at nearby Laetoli proved that Australopithecus afarensis walked upright, just like us. The Oldupai Gorge Museum places these priceless finds in context. The gorge is perhaps better known as Olduvai, a misspelling of the Masaai for the indigenous plant that grows here, oldupai.