Mary Douglas Leakey, FBA was a British paleoanthropologist who discovered the first fossilised Proconsul skull, an extinct ape which is now believed to be ancestral to humans. She also discovered the robust Zinjanthropus skull at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, eastern Africa. For much of her career she worked with her husband, Louis Leakey, at Olduvai Gorge, where they uncovered fossils of ancient hominines and the earliest hominins, as well as the stone tools produced by the latter group. Mary Leakey developed a system for classifying the stone tools found at Olduvai. She discovered the Laetoli footprints, and at the Laetoli site she discovered hominin fossils that were more than 3.75 million years old.
Leakey in 1977
Mary and Louis Leakey at Olduvai Gorge
Replica of the skull "Zinjanthropus", sometimes known as "Nutcracker Man", found by Mary Leakey.
Plinth with plaque sited in Olduvai Gorge marking the spot where Mary Leakey discovered "Zinjanthropus", the first-found A. boisei in Africa.
Paleoanthropology or paleo-anthropology is a branch of paleontology and anthropology which seeks to understand the early development of anatomically modern humans, a process known as hominization, through the reconstruction of evolutionary kinship lines within the family Hominidae, working from biological evidence and cultural evidence.
Charles Darwin
Five of the seven known fossil teeth of Homo luzonensis found in Callao Cave, the Philippines.
The Zhoukoudian site
Skull of Australopithecus africanus