- Born
- Died
- Birth nameMary Douglas Nicol
- Mary Leakey was born on February 6, 1913 in London, England, UK. She is known for Africa: The Serengeti (1994) and National Geographic Specials (1965). She was married to Louis Leakey. She died on December 9, 1996 in Nairobi, Kenya.
- SpouseLouis Leakey(December 24, 1936 - October 1, 1972) (his death, 3 children)
- Children
- RelativesLouise Leakey(Grandchild)
- English archaeologist and paleontologist whose crucial discoveries include Proconsul africanus, a 1.7 million-year-old dryopithecine (primitive ape) in 1948, at Rusinga Island, in Lake Victoria; then the 1.75 million-year-old hominid Zinjanthropus (later reclassified as Australopithecus boisei) at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, in 1959; and Homo habilis, a new species contemporary with, but more advanced than, Zinjanthropus in 1960-1963. Also remarkable was her excavation in 1976 at Laetoli, Tanzania, of fossilized hominid footprints, preserved in volcanic ash, which proved that our ancestors already walked upright 3.6 million years ago.
- I've found him - found our man! [on her 1959 discovery in Tanzania of a 1.8-million-year-old hominid skull, one of the earliest traces of human origin]
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