Mary Leakey
In my last post about Jane Goodall, I mentioned how important Louis Leakey was to Jane Goodall. He was after all the person who gave her the chance to prove herself when he sent her off to study the chimpanzees in the wilds of Tanzania. And while the world is very familiar with Louis Leakey and all the amazing discoveries that the Leakey family has continued to dazzle us with, I thought I’d like to focus my next blog on Mary Leakey, wife of Louis Leakey, but also a world-renowned paleoanthropologist and fossil hunter extraordinaire.
If her husband was the face that everyone recognized when it came to findings and theories on early hominids, Mary was the unseen but arguably even more important shadowy figure working behind her husband, outside public scrutiny. Unlike her famous husband, Mary was not a fame seeker. In fact, many accounts of her recall how much she preferred the isolation and peace of her work at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, to the glitz and showmanship her husband excelled at. So what were some of her most important and lasting discoveries? In 1948, Mary uncovered the first almost complete skull of Proconsul Africanus. This was an important discovery for paleoanthropologists because it helped fill in some of the missing gaps in the Evolutionary timeline. The 18 million-year-old fossil may provide the possible link between apes and humans; the canine teeth of the Proconsul Africanus is very similar to those of apes while the forehead seems more similar to man. Though no definitive answers have been agreed upon to this day, Louis Leakey believed that this skull proved the existence of a side branch on the Evolution tree which contained the stocks of both.
Mary’s next great discovery came in July of 1959. Louis was ill and unable to dig that morning, so Mary decided to go out on her own. Something in the ground that day caught her eye, which led her to uncover the largely intact skull of Paranthropus boisei. The skull was in such good condition that some of the back teeth in the upper jaw bone were still in place. While fossil fragments of the Paranthropus boisei were found in 1955, it was not until Mary’s discovery that scientists realized what they were seeing was an entirely new species. This fossil would garner such international interest that the National Geographic Society would eventually come forward to fund their research for the next few years. In later years, Richard Leakey (Louis and Mary’s son) would be the first to claim that Paranthropus boisei were the first hominin species to use stone tools. Like her previous discovery of the Proconsul Africanus, Mary’s ‘Nutcracker man” (as it was fondly called because of its large teeth) would go on to give us much more needed clues and answers in the Evolution timeline.
Though Mary Leakey made many remarkable discoveries throughout her long and illustrious career, she always claimed that her greatest and most exciting find was the discovery of perfectly preserved footprints left behind by three hominids dating back 3.6 million years ago in Laetoli, Tanzania. Till now, these are the oldest known footprints of early man that have been found. From fossils found nearby dating from the same time period, the footprints are believed to have come from Australopithecus afarensis, who were bipedal. Australopithecus afarensis looked like a mixture of both ape and humans. They had brains ⅓ the size of modern humans and were capable of walking upright (although for not any long distances). Scientists predict this ability to stand and walk on two feet helped them in their survival as it may have allowed them to carry food, tools, as well as spot predators more quickly. Their footprints also show that their feet looked more human than ape; they had an arch, and their big toe was aligned with their other toes. As well, the fossils show that they were heel strikers, which means that when they took a step, their heel touched the ground first, then the weight was distributed to the balls of their feet, and finally, they pushed off the ground with their toes. Apes, on the other hand, have big toes that are distinctly separate from their other toes as this allows them to have a better grip when they climb trees. As well, though apes can walk for short distances on two feet, they also use their knuckles to help with their balance. Though Australopithecus afarensis also lived in trees, scientists believe that the females were more likely to spend more time in the trees than the males.
Together, Mary and Louis brought unlikely romance and glamour to paleoanthropology. As well, the fossils discovered by Mary not only helped prove Louis’s theory that the roots of our early ancestors can be found in Africa, not Asia, as it was first believed but also added incalculable knowledge to our current understanding of the Evolution timeline. Nowadays, the scientific community and the public remember Mary Leakey as one of the world’s most important paleoanthropologists. In a field traditionally dominated by men, Mary Leakey excelled and earned the respect of all with hard work, meticulous attention to detail and passion.
