Laetoli

A site just south of Olduvai in northern Tanzania where Australopithecine fossils have been found dating to about 4-3.5 million years ago. The fossils are attributed to Australopithecus afarensis or A. africanus. Of particular interest are 3.8-million-year-old lines of footprints left in muddy ash, apparently by a family of these creatures, found in 1978 by Mary Leakey. The site is part of the same group of Pleistocene and Pliocene deposits as the Olduvai Gorge site. In the upper Ngaloba beds, stone tools have been recovered that have been attributed to the African Middle Stone Age cultural complex, and they resemble tools recovered from the upper Ndutu beds at nearby Olduvai Gorge.

[formerly Laetolil]. A site in Tanzania, part of the same group of Pleistocene and Pliocene deposits as Olduvai Gorge some 40 km to the north. No stone tools are found, but remains of about a dozen hominids are known. They date from some 3.5 to 4 million years ago; along with Hadar they have been attributed to a new species, Australopithecus afarensis, but others have compared them to the previously known gracile species A. africanas (see Australopithecus, human evolution).