louis leakey
Discovering the Secrets of Humankind's PastLouis Leakey was born to be an archaeologist, for his childhood in Africa truly prepared him for the field life he would later lead. The son of missionaries Harry and Mary Leakey, Louis grew up in Kenya near Nairobi, among the Kikuyu African tribe who the elder Leakeys were trying to convert. Despite intervening periods in which the Leakeys moved back to England, Louis grew up practically as a Kikuyu tribe member, and at the age of eleven he not only built his own traditional hut in which to live but was also initiated as a member of the Kikuyu tribe. It was within this hut that the beginnings of Leakey's archaelogical aspirations took place. In one section he started a personal museum, collected all things naturalistic, from bird eggs to animal skulls. It was in 1916, at the age of fourteen, when Leakey first truly realized that he was meant for archaeology; after reading the account of stone-age men entitled "Days Before History" he was hooked. After reading about the arrowheads and axeheads created by these people, Louis began collecting and classifying as many pieces of obsidian flakes and tools as he could find. After confirmation by a prehistory expert that these w
He ended up showing the world that humankind did evolve from and begin in Africa. Over the next few years Leakey dug at many sites, finding many stone tools, animal bones, and other artifacts. Further, Reck could not return to the site because, as he was German and Britain had won that region of Africa in World War I, he was not able to go there. John's College, Leakey obtained a grant to go to the Olduvai Gorge site in 1931. Along with Reck at the site, Leakey excavated five different beds, finding an amazing number of hand tools. John's College, and a wife, Frida, as well, whom he had married in 1928. The discovery, however, along with its accompanying media frenzy led to an increase in research funds. They made their most amazing wartime finds, though, at Olorgesailie, forty miles south of Nairobi, where they found an incredible array of handaxes and hammerstones spread out in the open, untouched. Disgusted with Leakey's "losing" of the exact site, Boswell returned to England, writing scathing papers about Leakey's techniques and casting great doubt on the true age of those skulls. Ostracized by the scientific community, he became a civilian intellience officer for the Kenyan government in 1939, and by the end of the year was drafted into the African Intelligence Department when Britain declared war on Germany, and was running guns to Ethiopia. With the publish of his first book, The Stone Age Cultures of Kenya Colony, his extensive fieldwork, and his position at St. Once the parietal skull bones of Telanthropus were found, however, they knew that they had evidence that two different types of hominids lived together at the same time. In addition, the eminent professor P. Worldwide fame and fortune resulted, as well as a great deal of grant money.
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