Olduvai Beds
Quick Summary
The Olduvai Beds are geological formations found in Olduvai Gorge in northern Tanzania. These deposits, which span from approximately 2.1 million to 15,000 years ago, have yielded over 60 hominin fossil remains. This makes Olduvai Gorge a crucial site for understanding human evolution over the past two million years and the development of stone-tool industries.
The beds accumulated in a lake basin and are layered with volcanic rocks and metamorphic deposits. Seven main stratigraphic units, or formations, have been identified, including Bed I (2.1 to 1.7 million years ago), which contains early hominin fossils like Paranthropus boisei and Homo habilis, along with evidence of the Oldowan industry of stone tools. Later beds reveal the presence of Homo erectus and eventually Homo sapiens.1
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