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Portrait of Mary Leakey

Mary Leakey

(1913–1996) Anthropologist

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Mary Leakey was an anthropologist, best known for Olduvai Gorge.

Quick Facts About Mary Leakey

Born
February 6, 1913
Died
December 9, 1996
Profession
Anthropologist
Notable works
Olduvai Gorge

About Mary Leakey

Mary Douglas Leakey, FBA was a British paleoanthropologist who discovered the first fossilised Proconsul skull, an extinct ape believed to be ancestral to humans. She also discovered the robust Zinjanthropus skull at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, eastern Africa. For much of her career she worked with her husband, Louis Leakey, at Olduvai Gorge, where they uncovered fossils of ancient hominines and the earliest hominins, as well as the stone tools produced by the latter group. Mary Leakey developed a system for classifying the stone tools found at Olduvai. She discovered the Laetoli footprints, and at the Laetoli site she discovered hominin fossils that were more than 3.75 million years old.

Biography source: Wikipedia

Quotes by Mary Leakey