Which archaeological site did Louis Leakey send Jane Goodall to before Gombe?

Before Jane Goodall began her chimpanzee research at Gombe, Louis Leakey sent her to Olduvai Gorge in Tanganyika, now Tanzania. The archaeological site was where Leakey and his wife, Mary Leakey, studied evidence of human evolution.

Goodall first met Louis Leakey while working as a secretary at the Coryndon Museum in Nairobi in 1957. He recognized her intense interest in animals and believed that observing living apes could illuminate the behavior of humanity’s early ancestors. He invited her to join excavations at Olduvai Gorge, where she gained experience in East African fieldwork.

Olduvai was not the site of Goodall’s long-term chimpanzee project. After the Olduvai work, Leakey arranged for her to study wild chimpanzees at the Gombe Stream Game Reserve on the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika. She arrived there in 1960 with her mother.

The site is especially associated with fossil hominins and stone tools, including discoveries by the Leakeys. Gombe, by contrast, became famous for Goodall’s behavioral observations of living chimpanzees.