Olduvai
Named for the famed gorge in East Africa, Olduvai is located in the foothills of the Ngoc Mountains, on the shores of Lake Van Ness in the Mekong Dominion. It was originally founded as one of Terra Nova’s scientific centers. Many of Terra Nova’s universities have annexes on or near this archaeological and paleontological marvel.
Olduvai is best known for its incredible discoveries concerning the early colonial cultures of Terra Nova. One of the most famous discoveries was the skull of a millennium-old male Terranovan, affectionately known as “George.” The discovery of the first evidence of the ancient colonial cultures of Terra Nova was made quite by accident in TN 1528. George is presumed to be one of the early Human Concordat explorers, many of whom never made it back to the base camps.
The area around Olduvai was originally a marble quarry. One afternoon, as a workman was preparing to remove a section of the limestone wall, he noticed a small whitish protrusion in the soil above a marble vein. Intrigued, he dug it out, and was rewarded with the thighbone of an ancient Terranovan. Archaeologists were called in and soon more skeletal pieces were uncovered, including George’s skull. Since then, over three thousand separate colonial-era individuals and artifacts have been found at this miraculous site. Prima Colonia, as it is now named, is the largest site of its kind in the South and offers tours to teach young children about the ancient history of the Mekong Dominion. For some these excursions are just novelties, tours through ruined structures and reconstructed sites that pass the time between more serious commercial studies. The Dominion is very conscious of tradition, however, and the discovery of such a community is almost religious in nature for other visitors. In fact, some visitors have complained strenuously about the presence of MILICIA security in such a revered site, although the military presence is there to protect the academics and visitors from bandits and raiders.