Word: soils
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Beyond stretches the desert of northeast Kenya, baked by the African sun. In a wadi, or dried-up stream bed, not far away, a sandy-haired man moves slowly, his loose shorts and shirt flapping in the breeze, his head bare to the sun, his eyes searching the arid soil at his feet. Some 50 ft. away, sandals scuffing dust into the air behind her. his wife keeps pace, her eyes sweeping the ground. An African, remainder of the party...
Elsewhere around the world, other scientists are examining fossils, stone tools, soil and rock samples, and even pollen grains in an effort to find more of the missing pieces in the puzzle of man's ascent. They are motivated not only by curiosity and dedication to their science but also by the knowledge that what they discover may help man to understand himself. Says Leak ey in his just-published Origins (Dutton; $17.95): "By searching our long-buried past for an understanding of what we are, we may discover some insight into our future...
...Leakey, In 1972, Bernard Ngeneo, a Kenyan member of Leakey's fossil-hunting team, spotted a few scraps of bone exposed by erosion in sandy sediments in a steep gully near Lake Turkana's eastern shore. Working carefully, the Leakey team sifted scores of additional fragments out of the soil, then turned them over to Meave Leak ey, a paleontologist, and Anatomist Bernard Wood for assembly. As the last pieces of the six -week reconstruction job were put in place, the team mem bers found themselves staring into the empty sockets of a highly evolved hominid. The skull, called...
...clues to man's past are chiefly fossils, a farrago of frequently undecipherable-and occasionally contradictory-bits of evidence that often raise more questions than they answer. Fossils, the souvenirs of ages gone by, have survived through a still incompletely understood process whereby minerals from the soil infiltrate and gradually replace the very molecules of bone or other hard tissues of an organism, leaving its form and many features preserved...
...work project designed to add to the resources of the Thomson center provides another focus for the students' group work. The current group of 30 is terracing a site, selected by both students and instructors, in an attempt to prevent soil erosion. The hillside site they chose is extremely steep, and the students must rely heavily on each other to work safely and effectively. The black and white students, who tote humus and wood girders together, who anchor one another as they climb up the hillside, certainly provide a sharp contrast with the students who walk the halls of Southie...