The Olduvai Gorge or Oldupai Gorge in Tanzania is one of the most important paleoanthropological sites in the world. A steep-sided ravine in the Great Rift is about 48 km long. The British/Kenyan paleoanthropologist-archaeologist team Mary and Louis Leakey established and developed the excavation and research programs which achieved great advances of human knowledge and world-renowned status.
Homo habilis, probably the first early human species, occupied Olduvai Gorge approximately 1.9 mill. years ago; then came a contemporary australopithecine, Paranthropus boisei, 1.8 mill. years ago, then Homo erectus, 1.2 mill. years ago. Our species Homo sapiens, which is estimated to have emerged roughly 300,000 years ago, is dated to have occupied the site 17,000 years ago.