February 19, 1977
Perhaps
instigated by the dream, I exited the crater yesterday and drove farther
westward. By late morning, cover in
road dust, I arrived at the Olduvai Gorge, the “Cradle of Mankind” of Louis and
Mary Leakey fame. The gorge is located about 10
to 15 minutes or 3 km off the main road between Ngorongoro and Serengeti. The roads pass through a spectacular mix of
savannah grassland and volcanic hills, where the ubiquitous Masai graze their
ubiquitous cattle, before it drops steeply down into the gorge itself. I visited the small museum and had lunch at
the lookout point. In the afternoon I
joined a guided tour of the excavations in the canyon below.
The
tourist brochure says:
“Olduvai
Gorge is an archaeological site located in the eastern Serengeti Plains, within
the boundaries of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in northern Tanzania. The gorge is a very steep sided ravine about
48 km (30 miles) long and 90 meters (295 feet) deep, with subsidiary valleys. It has amazing landscape that resulted from
the tectonic forces which created the Great Rift Valley million of years ago. Two million years
ago, Olduvai Gorge was a large alkaline lake, fed by streams flowing from the
slopes of the nearby volcanoes and volcanic highlands. Hippos with eyes on protruding stalks,
giraffes with large horns, dwarf elephants, great horned sheep, giant ostrich,
sabre toothed cats and many other animals drank and hunted by the lakeshore.
“Some
of the animals which died by the lakeshore had their bones quickly covered
by ash from erupting volcanoes.
Some of these bones were preserved as fossils. More then 150 different species of extinct mammals have been
identified from the fossils, as well as many birds, reptiles, amphibians and
fish.
“Over
the millennia, the lake gradually filled with river borne sediments, windblown
sand and layers of ash from the volcanoes. Then, a sudden earthquake
drained the lake. Later, the Olduvai River,
running only during the wet seasons, eroded its way through the layers of
sediments and ash, forming a gorge that exposed layers of sediments dating back
millions of years. Fortunately for
archaeologists, the gorge cut along the shoreline where rich deposits of
fossils lay, rather than through the middle of the lake. The eroding
water revealed a complex layer cake of sediments, ash layers, stone tools,
animal fossils, the fossil bones of early hominids and items belonging to one
or two of the oldest stone tool technologies, called Olduwan and Acheulean. Campsites and what is believed to be a
butchery site and a loosely built circle of lava blocks were found, suggesting
that crude shelters were formed here as well.
The time span of the objects recovered date from 2,100,000 to 15,000
years ago. Archaeological
work dates back to 1911 when the Gorge was discovered. Other sites within the area are the
Laetoli Site, Lake Ndutu Sites, and Nasera Rock Shelter.
“Excavations
since the 1950's and 1960's, principally by Louis and Mary Leakey, have located
some of the earliest remains of fossil hominids at Olduvai, including over 400
fragments of Australopithecus-Zinjanthropus Boisei, the “nutcracker man” who
lived in the lower Pleistocene Age around 1,750,000 BC, as well as those
of the more recent Homo habilis who lived as of about 1.7 million years ago,
and Homo erectus who inhabited the area between half a million and a million
years ago. In 1974 some
fossils of hominid tooth were discovered, dating back 2.4 million years. Campsites and what is believed to be a
butchery site and a loosely built circle of lava blocks were found, suggesting
that crude shelters were formed here as well.”
I saw some of these in the museum and in the excavation tour. Even with a degree in physics, it nonetheless never fails to amaze me how much inference the archaeologists could draw out of how little fossil-evidence they have to work with. The human mind, when worthily challenged, can produce some amazing things. If Raminothna disagreed, she did not say so.
While
watching some of the excavation work in progress, she asked me, “What to
you is the ultimate goal of human evolution?”
“Ever
higher intelligence,” I answered.
“This
is an intermediate goal, not the ultimate.”
“What
then?”
“The
ultimate goal of intelligence itself.”
“The
goal of intelligence. Yes, I think I
see what you mean.”
“Can
you give me an example of a goal of human intelligence?”
“One
of the goals is right before our eyes.
To seek knowledge, in this case about the human origin.”
“What
for?”
“To
know ourselves. To answer those great
philosophical questions: ‘What am I?’, ‘Where did we come from?’ and perhaps
then, “Where are we going?’ Therefore,
the field of Anthropology, the study of the human species.”
“By
whom?”
“By
anthropologists, of course, like these ones here.”
“To
what species do these anthropologists belong?”
“The
species Homo sapiens of course.”
“So, it is
the human species seeking self-understanding through anthropology?”
“Yes,
we might say that. But anthropologists
don’t necessarily have to be human, do they?
You, for example, are here in a way to study humans too, aren’t you? By living through me, a human.”
“Yes,
one of the purposes for my being here is to study and understand the human
species, but I don’t call myself an anthropologist.”
“What
do you call yourself then?”
“I
consider myself more as a biologist.
With all due respect, Homo sapiens is just another species. My attitude towards studying humans is much
the same as that of a human biologist studying lions. And right now, just seeing these anthropologists at work, I have
already learned something new about the species Homo sapiens, a rather godly
aspect, I might add.”
“We
humans? Godly? This I’ve got to see.”
“Tell
me. When a mole digs into the ground,
what does it seek?”
“A
mole is a subterranean predator, feeding on earthworms, cicada nymphs, other
insect grubs, etc., so when a mole digs, what it seeks is food.”
“And when
ants or termites dig into the ground, what do they seek?
“They
build nests underground. So, they dig
for shelter.”
“You have
carried a geologist’s pick before, with which you used to dig. What were you digging for?”
“Not
proud to say, gold.”
“And
here, what are these anthropologists seeking?”
“Fossils,
and ancient artifacts like stone tools.”
“What
for?”
“For…
truth, I suppose.”
“Thus, my
observation, that godly aspect of the human species.”
“Which
is?”
said Raminothna.