Mary Leakey (1913–1996) was a paleoanthropologist who spent her career working in East Africa, especially in Tanzania and Kenya, most famously at Olduvai Gorge and Laetoli. She is well known for both her discovery and excavation of important Miocene, Pliocene, and Pleistocene fossils and fossilized footprints, and for her meticulous excavation and description of early stone tools and hominin living floors. Her work produced data that led to significant insights into early hominin lifeways and evolution.