Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race

After the professional and personal disappointments he encountered in the late 1930s, Louis Leakey continued his work in East Africa, assisted by his second wife, Mary. They searched for fossils of Early Pleistocene human ancestors, which Leakey believed would be quite different from Australopithecus and Homo erectus. Eventually, the Leakeys would get lucky and make a series of important finds. But for decades they had to be content with stone tools.

11.4.1 Zinjanthropus

A site of particular interest was Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. There the Leakeys found crude pebble choppers in Bed I, said to be 1.7 to 2.0 million years old (Oakley et al. 1977, p. 169). They also found round stones that appeared to have been used as bolas (Section 5.3.2). Leakey even found a bone implement he believed had been used for working leather. The standard image of Early Pleistocene hominids is one of ape-men scavenging carcasses of lion kills, not of protohumans working leather and hunting with bolas.

The stone tools Leakey found at Olduvai were not enough to satisfy him. “The remains of the men themselves still elude us,” he said (Goodman 1983, p. 111). Finally, on July 17, 1959, Mary Leakey came across the shattered skull of a young male hominid in Bed I at site FLK. The skull was designated OH 5.

By one account, Leakey came out, looked at the OH 5 skull, and instead of rejoicing said: “Why, it’s nothing but a goddamned robust australopithecine” (Johanson and Edey 1981, pp. 91–92). “When he saw the teeth he was disappointed since he had hoped we would find a Homo and not an Australopithecus,” said Mary Leakey (Johanson and Edey 1981, p. 92).

Mary Leakey eventually pieced together hundreds of fragments, comprising the facial region and the rear part of the hominid’s braincase. The creature had a saggital crest, a bony ridge running lengthwise along the top of the skull. In this respect, it was very much like Australopithecus robustus. Leakey nevertheless created a new species for OH 5, partly because its teeth were bigger than the South African robustus specimens. Leakey called the new find Zinjanthropus boisei. Zinj is a name for East Africa and boisei refers to Mr. Charles Boise, one of the Leakeys’ early financial backers (Wendt 1972, p. 232).

Along with the skull, the cranial capacity of which was about 530 cc, Leakey (1960a, pp. 1050–1051) found bones of mammals, including antelope and pig: “An extensive and rich living floor . . . has been uncovered. . . . All the larger animal bones have been broken open to obtain the marrow; all jaws and skulls of animals are smashed. A high proportion of the bones represent immature animals. Many more stone tools of the Oldowan culture have also been found.” This assemblage apparently caused Leakey to give up his initial reserve and proudly declare to the world that he had found the remains of the first stone tool maker, and hence the first “true man.”

Why Leakey decided to attribute the tools found at the FLK site to Zinjanthropus is somewhat puzzling. Similar tools had been found along with australopithecine remains at Sterkfontein. But Leakey had then said this proved only that the australopithecines of Sterkfontein “were contemporary with a type of early man who made these stone tools, and that the australopithecines were probably the victims which he killed and ate” (Goodman 1983, p. 113).

The FLK site presented a similar situation, calling for a similar explanation. But in a Nature article on Zinjanthropus Leakey said: “There is no reason whatsoever, in this case, to believe that the skull represents the victim of a cannibalistic feast by some hypothetical more advanced type of man” (Goodman 1983, p. 113).

Leakey became the first superstar that paleoanthropology had seen in a while. Along with Zinjanthropus, Leakey flew from Africa to the University of Chicago late in 1959 to participate in the Darwin Centennial, marking the one hundredth anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species (Goodman 1983, p. 115).

The National Geographic Society honored Leakey with funds, publication of lavishly illustrated articles, television specials, and worldwide speaking tours. In 1962, the Society awarded him its highest award, the gold Hubbard Medal, for “revolutionizing knowledge of prehistory by unearthing fossils of earliest man . . . in East Africa” (Goodman 1983, p. 117).

The National Geographic Society is somewhat different from the other foundations active in paleoanthropological research, such as the Carnegie and Rockefeller foundations. Its funds did not represent the fortune of a single individual or family. The Society started out small and grew on the strength of individual membership contributions, in exchange for which donors received the Society’s now famous journal.