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Richard Leakey?

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Where was he born?

When did he find interest in fossils?

Where did he start to find interest?

How did his research impact on the science of the modern world?

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  1. Alex above sums it up well, but one thing you should note is that his wife (then his assistant) was the person who made the initial skull discovery, he was about to give up and leave when she saw it poking out of the ground.  He was just the one who got the credit.


  2. Richard Erskine Frere Leakey (born 19 December 1944 in Nairobi, Kenya), is a Kenyan politician, paleontologist and conservationist. He is second of the three sons of the archaeologists Louis Leakey and Mary Leakey, and is the younger brother of Colin Leakey.

    Richard’s career as a palaeoanthropologist did not begin with a dateable event or a sudden decision, as did Louis’; he was with his parents on every excavation, was taught every skill and was given responsible work even as a boy. It is not surprising that his independent decision making led him into conflict with his father, who had always tried to instill in him that very trait. After he gave some fossils to Tanzania and set Margaret to inventory Louis’ collections, Louis suggested he find work elsewhere in 1967.

    Richard formed the Kenya Museum Associates with influential Kenyans in that year. Their intent was to 'Kenyanize' and improve the National Museum. They offered the museum 5000 pounds, 1/3 of its yearly budget, if it would place Richard in a responsible position. He was given an observer’s seat on the board of directors. Joel Ojal, the government official in charge of the museum, and a member of the Associates, directed the chairman of the board to start placing Kenyans on it. Currently, (amidst several other projects) Richard Leakey is a visiting professor of Human Evolution and Conservation at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

    [edit] The Omo

    Plans for the museum had not matured when Louis, intentionally or not, found a way to remove his confrontational son from the scene. Louis attended a lunch with Haile Selassie and Jomo Kenyatta. The conversation turned to fossils and Haile wanted to know why none had been found in Ethiopia. Louis developed this inquiry into permission to excavate on the Omo River.

    The expedition consisted of three contingents: French, under Camille Arambourg, American, under Clark Howell, and Kenyan, led by Richard. Louis could not go because of his arthritis. Crossing the Omo in 1967, Richard’s contingent was attacked by crocodiles, which destroyed their wooden boat. Expedition members barely escaped with their lives. Richard radioed Louis for a new, aluminum boat, which the National Geographic Society was happy to supply.

    On site, Kamoya Kimeu found a Hominid fossil. Richard took it to be Homo erectus, but Louis identified it as Homo sapiens. It was the oldest of the species found at that time, dating to 160,000 years, and was the first contemporaneous with Homo neanderthalensis. During the identification process, Richard came to feel that the college men were patronizing him.[6]

    [edit] Koobi Fora

    During the Omo expedition of 1967, Richard visited Nairobi and on the return flight the pilot flew over Lake Rudolph (now Lake Turkana) to avoid a thunderstorm. The map led Richard to expect volcanic rock below him but he saw sediments. Visiting the region with Howell by helicopter, he saw tools and fossils everywhere. In his mind, he was already formulating a new enterprise.

    In 1968 Louis and Richard attended a meeting of the Research and Exploration Committee of the National Geographic Society to ask for money for Omo. Catching Louis by surprise, Richard asked the committee to divert the $25,000 intended for Omo to new excavations to be conducted under his leadership at Koobi Fora. Richard won, but chairman Leonard Carmichael told him he'd better find something or never "come begging at our door again." Louis graciously congratulated Richard.

    More was yet to come. By now the board of the National Museum was packed with Kenyan supporters of Richard. They appointed him administrative director. The curator, Robert Carcasson, resigned in protest and Richard was left with the museum at his command, which he, like Louis before him, used as a base of operations.[7] Although there was friendly rivalry and contention between Louis and Richard, relations remained good. Each took over for the other when one was busy with something else or incapacitated, and Richard continued to inform his father immediately of Hominid finds.

    In the first expedition to Allia Bay on Lake Turkana, where the Koobi Fora camp came to be located, Richard hired only graduate students in anthropology, as he did not want any questioning of his leadership. The students were John Harris and Bernard Wood. Also present was a team of Africans under Kamoya, a geochemist: Paul Abel, and a photographer: Bob Campbell. Margaret was the archaeologist. Richard took to smoking a pipe to enhance his status, as did Kamoya. There were no leadership problems. In contrast to his father, Richard ran a disciplined and tidy camp, although in order to find fossils, he did push the expedition harder than it wished.

    In 1969 the discovery of a cranium of Paranthropus boisei caused great excitement. A Homo habilis skull (KNM ER 1470) and a Homo erectus skull (KNM ER 3733), discovered in 1972 and 1975, respectively, were among the most significant finds of Leakey's earlier expeditions. In 1978 an intact cranium of Homo erectus (KNM ER 3883) was discovered.

    Richard's wife Meave Leakey and daughter Louise Leakey still continue paleontological research in Northern Kenya.

    [edit] West Turkana

    Turkana Boy, discovered by Kamoya Kimeu, a member of Leakeys' team in 1984 - was the nearly complete skeleton of a 12-year-old (or possibly 9-year-old) Homo erectus who died 1.6 million years ago. Leakey and Roger Lewin describe the experience of this find and their interpretation of it, in their book Origins Reconsidered (1992). Shortly after the discovery of Turkana Boy, Leakey and his team made the discovery of a skull of a new species, Australopithecus aethiopicus (WT 17000).

    [edit] Conservation

    In 1989 Richard Leakey was appointed the head of the Wildlife Conservation and Management Department (WMCD) by President Daniel Arap Moi in response to the international outcry over the poaching of elephants and the impact it was having on the wildlife of Kenya. The department was replaced by Kenyan Wildlife Service (KWS) in 1990, and Leakey became its first chairman. With characteristically bold steps Leakey created special, well-armed anti-poaching units that were authorized to shoot poachers on sight. The poaching menace was dramatically reduced. Impressed by Leakey's transformation of the KWS, the World Bank approved grants worth $140 million. Richard Leakey, President Arap Moi and the WMCD made the international news headlines when a stock pile of 12 tons of ivory was burned in 1989.

    Richard Leakey's confrontational approach to the issue of human-wildlife conflict in national parks did not win him friends. His view was that parks were self-contained ecosystems that had to be fenced in and the humans kept out. Leakey's bold and incorruptible nature also offended many local politicians.

    In 1993 Richard Leakey lost both his legs when his propeller-driven plane crashed. Sabotage was suspected but never proved. In a few months Richard Leakey was walking again on artificial limbs. Around this time the Kenyan government announced that a secret probe had found evidence of corruption and mismanagement in the KWS. An annoyed Leakey resigned publicly in a press conference in January 1994. He was replaced by David Western as the head of the KWS.

    Richard Leakey wrote about his experiences at the KWS in his book Wildlife Wars: My Battle to Save Kenya's Elephants (2001).

    Leakey is currently a professor of anthropology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where he directs the Turkana Basin Institute.

    In 2004, Richard Leakey founded and chaired WildlifeDirect, a Kenya-based charitable organization. The charity was established to provide support to conservationists in Africa directly on the ground via the use of blogs. This enables individuals anywhere to play a direct and interactive role in the survival of some of the world’s most precious species. The organisation played a significant role in the saving of Congo's mountain gorillas in Virunga National Park in January 2007 after a rebel uprising threatened to eliminate the highly vulnerable population.
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