The Geology module started on Monday with a quick introductory lesson on safety to prepare students for the field excursions. Our instructor, Dr. Greg Henkes, introduced the students to the geology of Ileret, a locality in the East of the Lake Turkana Basin, characterized by Plio-Pleistocene deposits. A mini-expedition in the afternoon to the Koobi [...]
Welcome back! Our last week at Mpala was exciting and educational. The lessons on ecology and epidemiology with a focus on the mosquito vector were the peak of our discussion. Environmental and human factors influence the breeding spaces for mosquito larvae. In quest to understand this, the students hiked Mlima Fisi with Dr. Dino Martins [...]
Greetings everyone! Welcome to the Fall 2019 Origins Field School. I am Winfred Mbogo, the resident academic director for this program and together with Medina Lubisia, the TA, we will be leading the students through this exhilarating journey. All students met last week in Nairobi and spent a couple of nights at the Wildebeest Eco [...]
The final week of the field school arrived and it started with a lesson in stone tool making! Students had the chance to do some flint knapping and quickly understood the complexities involved in having to produce quality stone tools. It was clear after a couple of hours that making useful stone tools is something [...]
The students started off the Archaeology module with Dr. Elisabeth Hildebrand in Lodwar; the biggest town in the northwestern part of Kenya. Accompanied by Justus Erus Edung, who works with the National Museums of Kenya and has extensive knowledge about Lodwar, the students were escorted to three cultural and historical sites within Lodwar. Justus explained [...]
On our last week of the Human Evolution module Professor Tracy Kivell led the students out to Area 13 where they would be tracking down two hippo humeri to plaster and they would see the site where hominin fossils were found in 2015! The students also go to partake in a hill crawl; which consists [...]
During the past week the field school has been tracing back the origins of our own species with the Human Evolution module led by Dr. Tracy Kivell! Our days have been divided into morning lectures and afternoon lab sessions and so far we’ve covered skeletal anatomy, origins of bipedalism, and the very intricate story of [...]
It is known based on DNA analysis that chimpanzees are the closest living relatives to humans, the two together are closest to gorillas, then three together to orangs. Furthermore, humans, the great apes (chimpanzee, gorillas, and orangs) together with the lesser apes (gibbons and siamangs) belong to the superfamily named Hominoidea. The closest living [...]
The students started off the week being introduced to their newest professor, Dr. Mikael Fortelius, a professor at the University of Helsinki, who will be teaching the Vertebrate Paleontology module. Dr. Mikael Fortelius! (Photo: Petra Peretin) They were introduced to the research labs at Illeret and had the opportunity to look at the [...]
At the start of the week the students spent the morning in their three groups heading back out to the MFB (Main Fish Beds) with their geology professors to Areas 3, 6, and 6A. During the afternoon, Dr. Greg Henkes gave a lecture on carbon, oxygen and nitrogen isotopes, which can be used to both [...]
The Geology of the Turkana Basin course taught by Dr. Craig Feibel, Dr. Bob Reynolds and Dr. Greg Henkes started last Monday at TBI Ileret! The Origins Field School students explore Area 6A. Photo: Lucía Nadal We’ve been going out on many geological walks taking us back in time millions of years to [...]
This week the students traveled further North to Illeret on the East side of Lake Turkana! Saying goodbye to Mpala, the students embark on a new adventure as they continue their ecology course with Dr. Martins. With a new and vast environment to explore, the students have the opportunity to take in the beauty and [...]
This week was as busy as it was exciting for the students! Dr. Martins and the students collecting Anopheles mosquito larvae (Photo Credit: Lucia Nadal) They started their week with Dr. Duncan Kimuyu, a researcher at Mpala who is a part of the long term exclosure experiment. This experiment consists of several sections [...]
Jambo and welcome to the Spring 2019 TBI Origins Field School! My name is Lucia Nadal and I am the Resident Academic Director for this program. Together with our TA, Petra Peretin, I will be accompanying the students throughout the next ten weeks, making sure that they have an unforgettable learning experience. The students arrived [...]
Professor Ian McDougall, whose work was integral in the dating of Turkana Basin fossils, passed away on November 10, 2018.
Our last week at TBI was an eventful one, with a lot of things to finish up before we packed up and came back home. We took a trip to Central Island, learned a great deal about human evolution, visited an important paleontological site, and had a goat roast. After a restful day last Saturday, [...]
A groundbreaking study has found the earliest and largest monumental cemetery in eastern Africa built 5,000 years ago by early pastoralists living around Lake Turkana, Kenya. This group is believed to have lived without major inequalities and hierarchies, contradicting long-standing narratives about the origins of early civilizations. The study, led by Elisabeth Hildebrand, PhD, Department [...]
Welcome to part two of our Lomekwi journey! During the second week, we went on a day trip to Nariokotome, went swimming in the lake, and spent more time at the site. The last blog post left off on Saturday the 4thof August. On Sunday we had a rest day, and so decided to take [...]
Welcome back, it’s been a while! We have had a great time at the Lomekwi research and survey area over the past twelve days. In the first week, we learned a lot about the earliest stone tools, human evolution, and learned more about excavation. We spent time at the Lomekwi 3 archaeological site and excavated [...]
It’s been a productive week here at TBI! The last part of the archaeology module was all about learning how to excavate a site, and we were lucky enough to participate in an archaological dig with the Later Prehistory of West Turkana (LPWT) team. The site we’re working at, Nakwaperit 2, is thought to be [...]