37 Facts About Hans Reck

Hans Gottfried Reck was a German volcanologist and paleontologist.

Hans Reck collaborated with Louis Leakey in a return expedition to the site in 1931.

Hans Reck attended the universities of Wurzburg and Berlin, where he studied natural history and became deeply interested in volcanoes.

Hans Reck was charged with determining what had happened, and set out in June 1908 with two local guides and his fiance, Ina von Grumbkow.

Hans Reck climbed down to the edge of what would later be called Lake Knebel, a lake within the caldera of the volcano, Askja, where von Knebel's death had been reported, but found no remains.

Hans Reck used what he learned about volcanoes on this expedition in his doctoral dissertation.

Hans Reck graduated from the University of Munich in November 1910 and took up a post in the Berlin Museum of Natural History.

Hans Reck studied at University College London, then became a private lecturer at the Museum of Natural History.

Hans Reck was considerably older than him, having been born in September 1872, and was a strong and capable woman.

Hans Reck found an early Iron Age site at Engaruka, where a stream from the Ngorongoro highlands plunges down the western wall of the Gregory Rift at a point between Lake Natron and Lake Manyara, and published a description in 1913.

Also in 1913, Hans Reck made an ascent of the 2,960 metres Ol Doinyo Lengai volcano in the Gregory Rift, about 15 kilometres south of Lake Natron.

In 1914 Hans Reck published a comprehensive report that summarized all that was known about this volcano so far, from his and earlier expeditions.

Hans Reck gave the site the name "Oldoway", later to be changed by the British to Olduvai.

In October 1913 Hans Reck managed to find the site again, despite vague directions.

Hans Reck spent the next few months making a geological survey and collecting over 1,700 fossils.

Hans Reck started to excavate, then told Reck of his find.

Hans Reck examined the surrounding rocks carefully, but found no sign of disturbance that could indicate a burial at some later data.

Hans Reck took the skull back to Berlin in March 1914, and published an article in which he speculated that the skeleton was of a man from 150,000 years ago, far earlier than had been previously considered for the origin of man.

The announcement caused a considerable stir, although many people dismissed Hans Reck's claims, saying it must be a recent burial.

Hans Reck returned to East Africa to work for the government as a geologist after the outbreak of World War I in July 1914.

In June 1915 Hans Reck discovered more Pleistocene fossils at a site close to Minjonjo, which he considered to have a similar age to those he had found at Olduvai.

The mounds held stone bowls and beads buried with the skeletons, but Hans Reck did not identify any Stone Age tools.

Ina escaped and Hans Reck volunteered and was appointed commander of a small squad of troops.

In June 1916 Hans Reck turned over his field notes, personal valuables and the collection of pterosaur bones from Tendaguru to a Swiss railway engineer, who promised to take them to Switzerland if possible.

In late August 1916 Hans Reck was ordered to move into the Uluguru Mountains.

Hans Reck was not with them, having been taken prisoner late in 1917.

Hans Reck was released from internment in Africa and returned to the Museum to resume his work as an assistant there.

Hans Reck thought some could be tools, and suggested other tools might be found at Olduvai.

Hans Reck disagreed, saying he had searched for tools and found none in 1913.

Leakey soon found a hand-axe made from volcanic rock, not from the flint that Hans Reck had been searching for, winning a large wager the two men had made.

Leakey examined the location where Hans Reck had found the skeleton, and quickly came to accept Hans Reck's estimate of its age.

Hans Reck had lost all his notes on Olduvai during World War I, but published a book of his first expedition in 1933 called The Ravine of Primeval Man.

Hans Reck undertook a major study of the Santorini islands in the Aegean in 1936, working with Neuman van Padang and others.

Hans Reck was planning to prepare a detailed report on the 1913 and 1931 Olduvai findings, but first left on an expedition to Portuguese East Africa.

Hans Reck had a congenital heart problem, although this had not stopped him in his many expeditions.

Hans Reck died of a heart attack in Lourenco Marques in August 1937.

Hans Reck was not just a volcanologist and paleontologist, but was an enthusiastic collector of Arab art and a skilled pianist.