Angela Timmons-Hanselka - The Leakeys: The Family That Traced Human Origins to Africa

Introduction

O ne sweltering day in the hills of Western Kenya, four-year-old Richard Leakey was tired, hot, and hungry. He complained to his parents that he wanted to go home for lunch. They were busy digging for fossils while their bored young son waited on them. In response, his father shouted something most young children would never hear from their parents: Go and find your own bone!

But Richard Leakey was not like most children his age, and his parents, Louis and Mary Leakey, were definitely not like most other parents: They were famous paleoanthropologists (scientists who study human origins) and archaeologists who had achieved worldwide notoriety for their findings in Africa.

Knowing his dedicated scientific parents would never stop working just because he wanted to go home, Richard took his fathers advice and started digging. Upon spotting a small bone, he began to carefully dig it out using the techniques hed observed his parents use since he was a toddler. The bone got bigger. As he kept digging around it, he saw that the bone had teeth. All of a sudden, his boredom and other complaints were gone. He went quiet, carefully viewing this find. His parents eventually noticed hed been missing for a while and went in search of their small son. Within minutes, Richard was pushed aside as Louis and Mary enthusiastically took over the excavation. What Richard had found was the first complete jaw of an extinct species of pig ever discovered. His find resulted in an entirely new excavation project led by his parents.

Mary and Louis Leakey dedicated their lives to their work. Along with their children, they made some of the greatest discoveries of all time.

By the time Richard found the pig jawbone, his father had been digging for fossils in Africa for about two decades. In the 1930s, Louis, who had grown up in Kenya as the son of British missionaries, rocked the scientific community when he found a fossil proving that human life had evolved in Africa, disproving the long-held theory that human life had evolved in Asia. With this find, Louis irrevocably altered the course of scientific thinking and research priorities. When Louis wed Mary Nicol, an English artist and archaeologist, in 1936, the couple made Africa their home and devoted their lives to archaeological finds that consistently challenged scientific perceptions about human origins.

Perhaps as intriguing as Louis and Marys archaeological finds is that paleoarchaeology became a family business when they had children. The couple famously brought their three sons, Jonathan, Richard, and Philip, to their excavation sites as soon as Mary could return to work after childbirth. The three sons have had varying levels of involvement in their parents chosen field, with Richard and his wife, Meave, especially making scientific headlines with their findings.

Louis and Marys legacy has been carried on by their descendants, making the familyboth then and nowa truly shining example of the extraordinary achievements made possible through collaboration. Over nearly one hundred years, the Leakeys have continued to contribute to the family business, making them the First Family of Paleontology.