LAETOLIL REMAINS

hominid fossils found in the southern Serengeti Plains, about 25 miles (40 kilometres) from the Olduvai Gorge in northern Tanzania by Mary Leakey and co-workers in 197475, not far from where in 1938 L. Kohl-Larsen had unearthed a group of fossils. The 13 fragments of jaws found at the site by the Leakey party date from about 3,590,000 years ago and are among the oldest fossil hominids found in Africa. The Laetolil remains belong to a species called Australopithecus afarensis, which had been discovered a few years earlier by D.C. Johanson in Ethiopia. Footprints of a family of these creatures were also recovered, indicating that afarensis was basically arboreal.