You’d be hard-pressed to find a cradle as old and dusty as Olduvai Gorge. Located in northern Tanzania, the arid archaeological sites at Olduvai have disgorged some of the earliest hominin fossils, from our ancient ancestors Homo habilis and Homo erectus all the way up to Homo sapiens, or modern humans. The gorge has also given up some of the earliest-known tools, particularly Acheulean stone handaxes that scientists consider a formative step in human development. But Olduvai Gorge wasn’t always so dry and dusty—and in fact, it once had something…
