Olorgesailie

Basic Information

Olorgesailie is an prehistoric archaeological site in Kenya. This dried lake bed has so many ancient Acheulean stone hand axes in it, that it has been described as the stone age equivalent of a manufacturing center (or possibly even export hub). [1] The hand axes were likely built by homo erectus or prehuman hominids more than 600,000 years ago.

Fossilized bones are also found there, including extinct species of hippo, elephant, zebra, giraffe, and baboon. They and the axes were preserved by layers of volcanic ash.

Sources

Bibliography

1. Nonfiction Book: World Without Us by Alan Weissman

2. Wikipedia

3. Arcana Wiki Map entry

Game and Story Use

• The Adventurer Archaeologist might be drawn here by the plot, racing against a villain for some artifact macguffin. Of course, with all these stone choppers, elephant bones, and other improvised weapons lying about, it'd make a heck of a place for a fight scene. (In reality, they probably aren't "lying about", but for the sake of a cool action scene we'll overlook that.)
• PC Time Travelers might visit the region in various eras to catch a glimpse of early man first figuring out stonecraft. When they arrive, however, they find a culture far too advanced to believe. These "primitive" protohumans are mass-producing stone axes and giving them away to other tribes of hunter-gatherers. Further investigation reveals time-traveling aliens, posing as gods, who are attempting to alter human evolution by provoking global overkill extinctions. The PCs have to fight the aliens, fix history, and make sure that the only archaeological evidence left for future discovery is axes and (terrestrial) skeletons.