East African Savanna
The cradle of mankind
There is general concensus amongst archaeologists that human life has its origins in the East African rift valley. Around 2.5 to 2 million years ago, early East African humans were already moving on two legs and made tools from stone and perhaps animal bones. One of the first Stone Age men found in Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, was nicknamed 'handy man' by its discoverer, Louis Leakey due to its association with stone tools.
From Africa, the Stone Age people migrated around 1.5 million years ago into Europe, Asia and only around 80,000 years ago into the Americas.
See a current view of the temporal and geographical distribution of hominid populations across the world.
Most probably, it was also in East Africa, where hominids evolved from the earliest species to Homo sapiens ("sapiens" is Latin for wise or intelligent), the modern man, around 200,000 years ago, who could further refine his and her tool-making capabilities.
Due to the layers of volvanic ashes which covered the East African rift valley in the past, the remains of early humans have been particularly well preserved. The Olduvai Gorge (or "Oldupai Gorge") in Tanzania, which is commonly referred to as "The Cradle of Mankind", is one of the most important prehistoric sites in the world and has been instrumental in furthering understanding of early human evolution. The site is synonymous to the names of Louis and Mary Leakey, whose 1959 discovery of an almost complete Australopithecus bosei catapulted them and Olduvai Gorge to international fame and led to the founding of the modern science of palaeoanthropology, the study of human origins.
The East African savanna - an ideal landscape for humans
Stephen Kaplan, Gordon H. Orians, Denis Dutton, Balling & Falk and other renown researchers have studied the environmental preferences of humans from an evolutionary perspective. Their research strongly indicates that savanna-like environments are consistently better liked than other environments. People in very different cultures around the world gravitate toward the same general type of pictorial representation: a landscape with trees and open areas, water, human figures, and animals. Humans seem to have an innate preference for savanna-like environments, arising from their long evolutionary history on the savannas of East Africa.
The savanna's density of trees which is neither totally open grassland nor deep forest, and the height proportions between hills and valleys seems to be perfect for hunter-gatherers, providing both "prospect" and "refuge". There is enough open space to spot prey and enough possibility to hide from possible threats. But beyond just being the best landscape for survival, the savanna landscape also seems to have the ideal complexity of visual elements to facilitate and stimulate the collection of information. It is neither too complex to understand and to remember, nor too monotone not to be interesting enough for humans to explore; so the savanna landscape itself could have played a role in the development of the human brain (Kaplan & Kaplan, "Information processing theory", 1989).
Still today everywhere in the world, environments such as parks and gardens are designed in a way which resembles the general composition of the East African savanna landscape; landscape designers and city planners learn the "Savanna theory" in school.
Taking part at REBIRTH Stone Age Experience, you will stay at the "real" site where human life had its origins. You will stand on the grounds where our ancestors were walking 2 million years ago and you will live just like them - an original, "authentic" life.
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More Resources: Tribes of the area | Stone Age life | Links
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