in.
t Rift Valley, ectonic rupture t is setting Africa adrift from Asia. y milesout of Nairobi, along t site called Olorgesailie, lake. In 1919, long after tnamed J. . Gregory ing ts ctered ones t sites of Acool manufacture t Iantattersall old me about.
Unexpectedly in tumn of 2002 I found myself a visitor to traordinary site. Iogeting some projects run by ty CAREInternational, but my s, knoerest in volume, ed a visit to Olorgesailie into the schedule.
After its discovery by Gregory, Olorgesailie lay undisturbed for over team of Louis and Mary Leakey began an excavation t isn’tcompleted yet. te stretco ten acres or so, o 200,000 years ago. today tool beds are sered from t of tsbeneatin lean-tos and fenced off o discourage opportunisticscavenging by visitors, but otools are left just hem.
Jillani Ngalli, a keen young man from tional Museum as guide, told me t tz and obsidian rocks from ones from t a pair of mountains in tance, in opposite directions fromte: Olorgesailie and Ol Esakut. Eac ten kilometers, or six miles, ao carry an armload of stone.
to sucrouble only did ty stones considerable distances to t, pere. tions revealed t t axes were brougo be resharpened.
Olorgesailie ory; one t stayed in business for a million years.
Various replications tricky and labor-intensive objects tomake—even ice, an axe ake o fas, curiously, t particularly good for cutting or casks to ion t for a million years—far, farlonger tence, mucinuouscooperative efforts—early people came in considerable numbers to ticular site to makeextravagantly large numbers of tools t appear to less.
And us because tes, t. But to base a conclusion. Despite over sixty years of searcy of Olorgesailie. ime t t appears t elsewo die.
“It’s all a mystery,” Jillani Ngalli told me, beaming happily.
t 200,000 years ago arted to become t and c is today. Butby time t to get itsfirst real master race, he same again.