Undated photograph of Louis and Mary Leakey digging at Oduvai Gorge, Tanzania, Africa. Louis Seymour Bazett Leakey (August 7, 1903 - October 1, 1972) was a Kenyan archeologist and naturalist whose work was important in establishing human evolutionary development in Africa, particularly through his discoveries in the Olduvai Gorge. In natural philosophy he asserted Darwin's theory of evolution unswervingly and set about to prove Darwin's hypothesis that humans arose in Africa. In 1972 he suffered a heart attack and died at the age of 69. Mary Douglas Nicol Leakey (February 6, 1913 - December 9, 1996) was an English archeologist and anthropologist, who discovered the first fossilized Proconsul skull, an extinct ape now believed to be ancestral to humans, and also discovered the robust Zinjanthropus boisei skull ( AKA Australopithecus boisei, now classified as Paranthropus boisei) at Olduvai Gorge. She died in 1996 at the age of 83.