The Rift

In 1960, Dr. Jonathan Leakey discovered a fossilized jaw fragment in the Olduvai Gorge of the East African Rift—the first specimen of what is now known as Homo habilis, an anthropoid (human-like) creature that some think may have been a human ancestor—a debatable point at best. H. habilis is thought to have lived around two million years ago.

In 1999, a team of paleoanthropologists went to an area near the Olduvai Gorge, to a site known today as Lake Eyasi, to do some routine research relat...