Awful Archaeology Ep. 1: The Oldoway Man

In this episode of Awful Archaeology I discuss the skeleton of the Oldoway Man; a mysterious homo sapien unearthed in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. This find baffled archaeologists like Hans Reck and Louis Leaky due to it being found in a middle Pleistocene bed. Since its deposition should have indicated the find was around a million years old, both archaeologists worked tirelessly to figure out what this mostly modern human was doing in such an ancient deposit.

[CommonBovine]

Not going to lie, I wish I would discover this channel 3 years from now. That way, I could binge all the video's at once!

[m.c.gargamel]

My father is a huge Ancient Aliens freak and I always absolutely love watching your videos as a passive aggressive response while he's around and in absolute earshot.

[lindscochran]

Archaeo prof here. Please keep making these so we can all "spin the wheel of voluntary pain, " aka study the humanities together. Seriously great work!

[nomethodonlymadness]

I was an anthropology major in college. This was the story we were told in the lesson about context and how important it is to maintain it. What really got me though is the idea that someone, somewhere, has those notes. Sitting in a box of grandpappys stuff.

[arrestedeffort]

Seeing those ancient heritage sites destroyed low-key broke my heart a bit. Especially the ones that were destroyed in war, and not just due to the destructive nature of time.

[ulfricstormcloak]

I’ve always been angry about all the artifacts recovered thousands of years after their creation/existence just to be destroyed in a more modern war

[bungerroyale]

Finding the channel at the birth of this series feels like stumbling across a gold mine. Gives me Wendigoon vibes and I'm so excited to see where this series goes!

[luke]

"The only valid excuse to stop working on something is World War 1"

Damnit, now I got to invent a time machine to procrastinate studying for my history test.

[slightlymorepotatoes]

Louis Leakey is like when you tell your mom you can’t find something so she looks for it and it spawns from thin air for her to find immediately.

[almishti]

The skeleton and all Reck's notes being lost the way they were reminds me of how the Antarctic exlporer Ernest Shackleton went thru his entire epically disastrous expedition before WWI without losing a single man, only for many of those men to die a few years later in...WWI. :(

[idrawchaos]

It's a shame knowing so much information has been lost because of war and such, i hope as time goes on, such valuable information stays preserved, but i learned something new today, can't wait for the next video!

[cassandra]

I'm an archaeologist irl, but I'd never heard of (or don't remember) the Oldoway Man

bro, the way I yelled "OH when "loss of context" came up....

[tepobuo]

I sincerely hope that giant skeletons are included on the wheel and we get that video. People who believe in giant skeletons personally harassed me in real life, and I’ve had a burning vendetta against that particular conspiracy ever since.

[BrkenMask]

I remember that one time, "archeologists" found a block of aluminum alloy that was estimated to be thousands of years old, which baffled them because aluminum is a modern invention.
Was it lost ancient technology? Alien intervention??
then it turned out to be just an excavator tooth.

[slatyii]

I just finished watching your debunking Ancient Apocalypse series, and now the second I heard "Graham Hancock" I had an incredibly visceral hissing reaction.

[arealisticbeautystandard]

Can't wait! Been following on tiktok since 150k and can't wait to finally watch you blow up on YouTube too!

[WhyForWhatNow]

"the only valid excuse to stop working on something, is ww1"
I know you're joking, but you're also so right

[itsmeyahgirl]

I like how he doesn't edit out his mistakes, it shows confidence and brings a sense of humor that grabs more attention. :)

[arbiterofgaming]

I'm from Tanzania and don't live to far from Olduvai Gorge and it's nice to see videos talking a little bit about my country. You make good videos.

[Rio_]

5:01 a friend's great grand father wrote in his memoirs about his picnicking plans, and in a similar tone as you, wrote "Sadly, that day saw the outbreak of WW1".