Olduvai Gorge in the Great Rift Valley of Tanzania is a palaeoanthropological site first excavated by the Leakeys in the 1950s. It is actually a collection of individual locations stretching along almost 15 kilometres (9 miles) of a lake basin. Deposits range from 2 million BP (years before present) to 15,000 BP.
Fossil remains of over 60 hominins have been discovered, including Australopithecus boisei, Homo habilis and Homo erectus. Stone tools of both Oldowan (named for the site) and Acheulean style have been identified.
Olduvai Gorge was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979, and is often referred to as the Cradle of Humankind (much to the annoyance of the South African government who claim the name for sites at Sterkfontein and Swartkrans).
