Olduvai Gorge

The Olduvai Gorge ( in the native language actually: Oldupai ) is located in northern Tanzania and is - together with the Afar Triangle in Ethiopia and find places in the South African province of Gauteng - as the "cradle of mankind". It is part of the East African grave breach (also known as the Great Rift Valley ) and can be described as a canyon that drains the eastern plains of the Serengeti and the surrounding slopes of the grave breach. The Olduvai Gorge has a length of almost 50 kilometers and is up to 100 meters deep. Internationally known the canyon was Oldowan by the discovery of numerous Pleistocene fossils of hominids as well as extremely old stone age tools called.

Not only the canyon was formed by rainwater run-off, but it was gradually eroded over hundreds of thousands of years, the entire surface of the earth within the gorge. Therefore, the stored there for millions of years fossilized remains of different species are today in many places open at the surface, including giant relatives of today's sheep and pigs. This led since its "discovery" by European explorers in the early 20th century always research groups, specifically to look for animal fossils and soon after remains of earlier pre-human species. Inspired by the discovery of a three-toed Urpferds ( Hipparion ) by the German neurologist Wilhelm Kattwinkel ( 1866-1935 ) in 1911, visited 1913 Hans Reck the canyon and discovered parts of a 20,000 year-old skeleton of Homo sapiens (archive number OH 1 = Olduvai hominid 1 ). But it was Louis Leakey and his wife Mary and their son Jonathan arrive in 1931 actually sensational discoveries: first, many primitive stone tools, which are now referred to as Oldowan, 1935 OH 2 a Hominini Fossil ( a skullcap ) and later various finds, inter alia, of Paranthropus boisei, Homo habilis and Homo erectus.

The fossil -bearing strata of the Olduvai Gorge were divided into biostratigraphic benches. In the bottom bank Paranthropus boisei and Homo habilis 1 were found. The overlying, separated by tuff layers Bank 2 leads Paranthropus boisei fossils of Homo habilis and Homo erectus, from the next higher bank 3 Homo erectus was recovered.

Nearby Olduvai Gorge, also houses the excavation area of Laetoli and younger sites of Makuyuni, a small town between Lake Manyara and Arusha.

Others

The published shortly before the turn of the millennium called Olduvai theory of the engineer Richard C. Duncan and Walter Youngquist of the geologist is associated with an extremely pessimistic interpretation of the theory of global peak oil. The extremely Malthusian predictions, according to the rising consumption and falling availability of oil would lead to a collapse of industrial civilization to 2030. As of 2050 approximately two billion people could only survive on a pre-industrial energy level, which is why the Olduvai Gorge had to serve also as a name for the thesis. However, according to the thesis would have had to break down the global energy supply before 2009 with an outgoing from the Middle East conflict world-wide conflict. Oil prices are contrary to the predictions of nearly 150 U.S. dollars per barrel in July 2008 now dropped significantly again.