Olduvai Gorge: Volume 3, Excavations in Beds I and II, 1960-1963 - Hardcover

Leakey, M. D.

4.15

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9780521077231: Olduvai Gorge: Volume 3, Excavations in Beds I and II, 1960-1963

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521077230 ISBN 13: 9780521077231

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1972

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Olduvai Groge is a valley in the Serengeti Plains at the western margin of the Eastern Rift Valley in northern Tanzania. The formations discussed in this volume, Beds I and II, were deposited in the Lower and Middle Pleistocene and have yielded large quantities of the remains of early man, in the form of bones and stone tools and evidence of the environment in which they lived. Bed I, in which remains of Australopithecus boisei and Homo habilis have been found, is firmly dated between 1.9 million years for the lowest level and 1.65 million years for a level below the top. This third volume describes the excavations. In Part I, starting with the lowest levels and devoting a chapter to each main level, Dr Leakey describes the actual process of excavation and the finding of the principal remains. In Part II, Dr Leakey describes the circumstances of the discovery of the hominid skeletal remains. These range from purposive excavation to accidental discovery while collecting small stones for mixing in concrete. Finally, mammalian bones, as tools and as food remains are discussed.

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Book Description:

The formations discussed in this volume, Beds I and II, were deposited in the Lower and Middle Pleistocene and have yielded large quantities of the remains of early man, in the form of bones and stone tools and evidence of the environment in which they lived.

Review:

"...an indispensable record of the later part of the earlier Paleolithic at Olduvai Gorge....It contains the essential data from which theoretical constructs can begin to be attempted....an essential reference work for all who wish to understand the Lower Paleolithic." J. Desmond Clark, American Anthropologist

"There is no question that this is an important volume and one that was put together with a great deal of care. The basic data that are supplied here in such detail fill an important void in our understanding of the Olduvai sequence and it will undoubtedly be put to good use to further our understanding of this remote period." Murray C. McClellan, Journal of Field Archaeology

"...Mary Leakey should be congratulated for creating a way to study and to describe it to the general archaeological community." Pamela R. Willoughby, Canadian Jrnl of Archaeology

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