Mary Leakey :: essays research papers

Though technically defined as an archaeologist, bloody shame chose to follow a route of fire research relating to physical anthropology. She is known mostly for the excavation of a ii million-year-old fossilized human skull in 1959. She has also worked to help the world realize that the evolution of humans follows a principle rather than a theory.The earn Leakey is synonymous in most peoples minds with the successive dramatic discoveries of fossilized hominian swot and stone artifacts that have, over the years, pushed the origins of true man yet and further back in prehistory. Less flamboyant than her husband, Louis S. B. Leakey, or her son Richard Leakey, Mary Leakey was the "unsung hero, of the clan for years, even though she was, in fact, responsible for some(prenominal) of the spectacular Leakey finds, including the nearly complete skull of Zinjanthropus, which was at first thought to be the missing human evolutionary link. Mrs. Leakey finally received a vizor of lo ng-overdue public recognition with her discovery, in 1978, of 3.5-million-year-old fossilized hominid footprints at Laetoli in Tanzania, proving beyond a doubt that the australopithecines had walked upright. On July 17, 1959 Mary Leakey made her bit major discovery. Accompanied only by her two Dalmatians, Mary Leakey dictated off to investigate the oldest layer at the site. As she surveyed the exposure with her secure eye, a scrap of bone protruding from the ground caught her attention. Gently clash aside some of the deposit, she saw two large hominid teeth in place in an upper jaw. Mrs. Leakey raced back to camp shouting, "Ive got him Ive got him" development camels-hair brushes and dental picks, the Leakeys gingerly uncovered a full palate and compulsive of teeth by sifting through tons of eroded scree, they finally found about 400 bone fragments, which when pieced together formed an approximately complete hominid skull, later dated at 1.75 million years, of the ge nus Zinjanthropus. all over the next few months, Mary Leakey found other hominid bones and 164 stone tools of twelve different types, including choppers, scrapers, anvils, and hammerstones.As luck would have it, a camera crew for the British television series On crusade arrived on the scene the day after Mary Leakeys momentous find, and and so it was that "Zinj" came to international public attention. For the Leakeys, it meant worldwide recognition. Fame brought controversy, too, and it was not long before Louis Leakeys unmannerly assertion that "Zinj" was the so-called "missing link" between the primitive ape-men and serviceman sapiens was proved to be incorrect.