Field dispatch: Olduvai Gorge 2018

I recently (two days ago, to be exact) returned from Olduvai Gorge, and we had another productive field season. For the fifth year in a row, I directed the UNCG Olduvai Gorge Paleoanthropology Field School in conjunction with our research project, The Olduvai Paleoanthropology and Paleoecology Project, or TOPPP. The 2018 field school was fantastic, with participants from across the United States in addition to Turkey and the UK.

Excavations at BK East, Bed II, Olduvai Gorge. From left to right: Vicky Wen (University of Wisconsin), Mathilde Ribordy (Harvard University), Alaz Peker (field school TA, Istanbul University), and Alicia Costa-Terryll (University of North Carolina at Greensboro).

Our research team continued work in Beds I and II, including the site of DS (contemporaneous with the famed FLK 22, or Zinjanthropus, site) and BK East (where I direct excavations). Be on the look-out for news on these sites within the next year or so.

I should also mention here the new Oldupai Gorge Museum. There has, of course, been a museum on-site at the gorge for many, many years. However, and thanks to a collaboration between the government of Spain, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority, and the National Museum of Tanzania, a new state-of-the art facility opened in the fall of 2017. I saw the building during construction last summer, and it was fantastic to see it fully complete this summer. The highlight is most certainly the beautiful murals painted by renowned paleo-artist Mauricio Anton.

View of the interior of the Oldupai Gorge museum. The exhibits occur in a circular pattern surrounding the central space pictured here.

One of the murals by Mauricio Anton at the new Oldupai Gorge museum.