The Development of Man

Abstract

In 1911, Professor Kattwinkel, an entomologist from Berlin, was chasing an unusual butterfly across the wide open grassland of the south-east Serengeti Plain. More intent on capturing the butterfly than on looking where he was going, he failed to notice an immense gorge suddenly opening up in front of him. He lost his butterfly and almost fell to his death on the rocks of Olduvai three hundred feet below. After recovering from the shock he decided to clamber down to explore his new discovery. Almost immediately he noticed an abundance of fossils in the exposed rock face. These fossils of Olduvai Gorge, amply supported by finds made in other parts of Africa, have radically changed our ideas about the early dawn of man’s history. It used to be thought that man evolved from sub-human ancestors somewhere in the Middle East or in Asia. It is now clearly apparent that in fact Africa was the cradle of mankind and that the human race spread across the world from small beginnings in the part of the earth which we now call Kenya and Tanzania.