science

Oldoway Man

Oldoway Man is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Oldoway Man rather than just read about it. In short: The Oldoway Man was a skeleton found in Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, in 1913. Found inside concreted sediments by professor Hans Reck, it was thought to be nearly 700,000 years old, which would have pushed the arrival date of humans back by nearly 500,000 years.

Key takeaways

Oldoway Man belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Oldoway Man to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Oldoway Man from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Oldoway Man was a skeleton found in Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, in 1913. Found inside concreted sediments by professor Hans Reck, it was thought to be nearly 700,000 years old, which would have pushed the arrival date of humans back by nearly 500,000 years. The site was later found to be an ancient grave.

Appearance The skeleton was like a modern human, but it had 36 teeth instead of 32. The Oldoway man was about 1.7907 meters (5 ft. 10½ in) tall and had long legs, a long and narrow head, a big nose, long upper lip, big jaw and chin. Professor Reck described Oldoway man's lower teeth filed to points, which is still seen in certain living African tribes.

Context Though the skeletal remains appeared human, the depositional layer they were found in dated them to be nearly 700,000 years old, which would have pushed the arrival date of humans back by nearly 500,000 years. Many pseudoscientists used this to deny evolution and promote other conspiracy theories. Reck assumed that it was an intentional burial and started looking for a grave-cut. He continued to work on it until World War I without success. Louis Leakey learned of this site and went to it to research in 1927. He found a flint axe head near the site at which the skeleton was discovered, and with Reck they found over 80 flint axe heads. Along with this, they also found some rocks in the above sedimentary layers which did not occur there but did occur in the sedimentary layer where the Oldoway man was found, which meant that there was some unnatural digging activity taking place there, further proving that the Oldoway man was intrusive meaning that it had been artificially put there.

Destruction Due to the Oldoway man being found in what was at the time a German colony, the skeleton was stored in Munich. It was mostly destroyed in Allied bombing raids in World War II.

References

Illustrations

Oldoway Man: The beds of Oldovai Gorge — The beds of Oldovai Gorge

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Oldoway Man

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Oldoway Man claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Oldoway Man before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Oldoway Man ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Oldoway Man

In research: Oldoway Man appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Oldoway Man in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Oldoway Man is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Fossils of Tanzania, Prehistoric Tanzania, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Oldoway Man outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Oldoway Man in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Oldoway Man means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Oldoway Man out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Oldoway Man in simple terms?

Why does Oldoway Man matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Oldoway Man?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Oldoway Man.