Word: olduvai
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Louis were beginning their quest for the origins of man, they worked for a time in a remote area of northern Tanzania called Laetolil?the site of her latest find. But after unearthing nothing more than a few distinctly non-manlike animal remains, they moved on to Olduvai Gorge, 25 miles to the north, where their fossil discoveries were to push back man's lineage by at least a million years. In 1975, on a hunch that "we didn't look hard enough," Mary returned to Laetolil. She soon began finding jawbones, teeth and other fossils that were clearly...
...years Richard had escorted visiting scientists to his parents' dig at Olduvai and taken them around East Africa on courtesy safaris. In 1960, at the age of 17, he left school without graduating and set up a safari business on his own. The business did well, but Richard soon yearned to be back in the digs. Then, in 1963, on a chance flight over Lake Natron in northern Tanzania, he spotted what looked like interesting sediment beds and, encouraged by his parents, set off to explore the area. His first expedition proved to be a success; the team he assembled...
Back in Nairobi, young Leakey began rebuilding his neglected safari business and married Margaret Cropper, a young researcher who had been his mother's assistant at Olduvai. But he could not stay away from anthropology. In 1967 he joined an expedition organized by his father to the Omo Valley in Ethiopia. Well before it was over he knew he was ready to strike out on his own. Says Leakey: "I already knew how to organize an expedition and how to find fossils. I wanted to have my own show...
...tropical diseases, concussions, bee stings and snakebites. He had also seen his son assume the directorship of the National Museums of Kenya. Now the conflict between the two became so intense that it threatened to split the family. Mary began to spend more and more time away at Olduvai, while Louis and Richard pointedly avoided each other. Says Richard: "He was a sick old man at the end of his career, and he found my successes very difficult. I was not old enough or mature enough to respond to that adequately...
...acquired knowledge for any lack of academic initials to place after his name. Yale's Pilbeam calls Leakey the "organizing genius" of modern paleoanthropology (the study of fossil hominids). Mary Leakey, a vigorous, cigar-smoking woman of 64 who still puts in eight hours a day exploring Olduvai, is also impressed. She says her son "is rather better than Louis was. I'm quite proud...