Hello, I am Tom Otube, an environmental science graduate from Kabarak University. This week we started our Human Evolution module which is taught by Dr. Carrie Mongle and Dr. Louise Leakey. On the first day, Dr. Mongle took us through the course objectives and an overview of human evolution by providing the historical context of [...]
Meet Rashid Nafwa and Vincent Okoth, students from the Technical University of Kenya (TUK) working with the telescope at TBI Ileret. Rashid and Vincent are completing an attachment to meet their final year requirements of gaining practical experience. Vincent Okoth and Rashid Nafwa preparing for a night of observations Astronomy in general is [...]
Hello! My name is Patricia Nyaga, I just completed my undergraduate degree, Bachelor of Arts in History and Archaeology from Maseno University, expecting to graduate in December 2022. This being our second week studying Paleontology, our main focus was on the paleontological field methods. We headed to the Napudet hills for a two-day camping trip [...]
Hello! I’m Ian McMahon, a graduate student here at TBI. I graduated from SUNY Potsdam in 2020 with a degree in archaeology, specializing in human evolution and origins. This week, we started our paleontology module, taught by Dr. Ellen Miller, learning about the MIocene vertebrates of the Turkana Basin. The Miocene lasted from 23.03 to [...]
Hello! My name is Owich and I am an anthropology graduate from the University of Nairobi. We began our second week of geology with a morning classroom session with Dr. Gathogo taking us through the short Cretaceous window, and reconstruction of the Turkana basin geography and particularly the Cenozoic (Age of mammals) rich-sediments. In summary, [...]
Hello, my name is Amelia and I am currently majoring in Anthropology through SUNY Albany in New York. This week we dove into our geology module! We started off by learning the basics of using both the Brunton compass, along with more modern technology by using a handheld GPS system linked to satellites for navigation. [...]
Paivaa/hello! Welcome to another installment of TBI’s field school blog! This weeks blog post is written by me, Onni Purhonen. I’m a biology student from the University of Helsinki in Finland, currently in my second year of studies and specializing in ecology and evolutionary biology. The current field school-module on ecology with Dr. Dino J. [...]
Personal journal excerpt: It is Tuesday evening; I am relaxing in Mpala research center reminiscing a productive day. I am inspired to write a short account of the ant-acacia relationship we learned earlier today: Picture an ant, One ferocious and alert, She tends and serves, To protect her reserves! Picture another ant, One [...]
Jambo! Welcome to the TBI Origins Field School blog for Fall 2022! My name is Medina Lubisia, the Resident Academic Director for the Fall Field School. I will be accompanying students throughout the field school as they undertake five modules that will be credited for their Fall semester. The students arrived safely in Nairobi and [...]
Hello! We are the DART - OPTiK team, a collaboration of researchers from the University of Edinburgh, STFC UKRI, Technical University of Kenya and the Turkana Basin Institute. We will be working at the TBI base in Ileret for the next couple of months to set up a portable telescope which will then take observations [...]
This July, Kevin Hatala (Chatham University), Neil Roach (Harvard University) and Louise Leakey (Stony Brook University) led a TBI team unearthing a new early Pleistocene footprint site at Koobi Fora. The first tracks were discovered last year by Louise’s team at the bottom of an important skeletal fossil excavation. This year’s excavation uncovered a large [...]
On the Eastern side of Lake Turkana, the sediments reveal information about the early evolution of humankind. The sedimentary sequences tell us what it would have been like for early humans such as Paranthropus boisei, Homo erectus, and early Homo species millions of years ago. However, in stark contrast to the ecosystem that was home [...]
Hi again! It’s Ava and Christine, Mechnical Engineering Undergraduate students from MIT D-Lab. After a beautiful few days spotting animals in the Masai Mara, we flew up to TBI's facility on the east side of Lake Turkana in Ileret to continue our evaporative cooling research! During our time in Ileret, we focused on understanding the [...]
Pan of the Miocene Dead Elephant Valley in Buluk, Kenya The last stop on the Turkana Miocene Project field tour was Buluk, Kenya, which has for many years been headed by Ellen Miller. Located east of Lake Turkana, Buluk is an early Miocene site that is rife with…. everything! It is a [...]
We are very sad to share with you the news that Kamoya Kimeu passed away earlier this week after a short spell in hospital with kidney complications. We send our deepest condolences and thoughts to all of his family. Our subsequent appeal to friends and well-wishers to help the family with medical and funeral expenses, [...]
Molecular studies in the late 1960s demonstrated that humans are closely related to chimpanzees and gorillas, and that all three of these great ape lineages shared a relatively recent origin on the African continent. Continued study and methodological advances since this time have revealed that humans and chimpanzees are each other’s closest living relatives and [...]
In December 2021, the West Turkana Archaeological Project (WTAP) in partnership with the Turkana Basin Institute, the National Museums of Kenya, and with support from the French government opened an exhibition in Nairobi to showcase the earliest stone tools in the world, found in Lomekwi, Turkana County in 2013. In June 2022 the exhibition moved [...]
This past weekend we visited the West Turkana Archaeological Project(WTAP) campsite at Lomekwi and had the opportunity to set up and test a charcoal evaporative cooler and a hanging evaporative cooler. The field research camps have limited access to electricity and cold storage for fruits and vegetables, so evaporative cooling is a potential solution to [...]
Mountains south of Lokichar. These rocks form the core of a Neoproterozoic island arc. Turkana and the East African Rift. The ‘cradle of humanity’. But what is this cradle actually made of? And why is The Rift where it is anyway? The Rift is such an important feature for nurturing primates and [...]
Hello! We are Ava and Christine, from MIT D-Lab, and this summer we are working with the Turkana Basin Institute and our PI, Dr. Eric Verploegen, to research evaporative cooling as a means of post harvest fruit and vegetable storage. In regions of the world where access to food preservation methods is limited, up [...]