Location

70 km Southwest of Nairobi

Directions

From Nairobi: Drive Southwest on Magadi Road to the lake of the same name. After about an hour's drive the Olorgesailie Prehistoric Site Complex can be seen on the left. Turn left and continue for about 500 meters.

Main Attractions

• Extensive sedimentary record of hominin settlements from 1.2 million to 400'000 years ago
• Stone tools associated with animal butchering and the famous "Field of Handaxes"
• Fossilized mammals
• Ongoing archaeological excavations and field work of teams of Kenyan and foreign scientists

Historical Background

• First artifacts discovered in 1919 by British geologist John Walter Gregory
• First systematic excavation by Kenyan paleoanthropologists Mary and Louis Leakey assisted by Italian prisoners of war from 1943 to 1947
• Continued excavations by teams led by South African archeologist Glynn Isaac in the 1960s and American paleoanthropologist Rick Potts in the 1980s