Every day brings a new story. And each day contributes to the art of story telling -- in prose and poetry, in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books.
Today is the story of February 6th
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It is the 37th day of the year, leaving 328 days remaining in 2022.
Through her discoveries and her writings, Leakey told the story of humankind and how it evolved, making several significant findings along the way that changed how the story was once told.
In 1948, while digging in Kenya, Africa, Leakey discovered a Proconsul africanus skull, believed to be from an anscestor of both humans and apes, and dated at 25 million years old. Eleven years later, in Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, she discovered a skull of an early hominin,
The finds dated the earliest humans at some 3.75 million years old, far older than anything previously discovered.
Then in 1978, near the Olduvai Gorge, Leakey found a set of footprints from a hominin that lived 3.5 million years ago. The footprints showed the hominin walked upright, having split off and evolved from its shared anscestory with the ape earlier than previously thought.
Through much of her life, she worked with her husband, the anthropologist Louis S.B. Leakey. Most of their time was spent in Kenya and other parts of Eastern Africa, where they made their home
Mary Leakey was the dedicated researcher and discoverer; he helped interpret the finds and their meaning. She wrote five books, including Olduvai Gorge: My Search for Early Man, Africa's Vanishing Art: The Rock Paintings of Tanzania, and the autobiographical Disclosing the Past.
She died in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1996.
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