Smithsonian Magazine has named the "Decade’s Biggest Discoveries in Human Evolution." Fourth on the list is the discovery in 2011 of the world's oldest stone tools, made by a team of archeologists led by Sonia Harmand and Jason Lewis of Stony Brook University: "When you think of technology today, you might picture computers, smartphones, and [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Ancient DNA recovered from fossils is a valuable tool to study evolution and anthropology. Yet fossil DNA has not been found yet in any part of Africa, where it’s destroyed by extreme heat and humidity. In a potential first step at overcoming this hurdle, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and [...]
The discovery in Kenya of a remarkably complete fossil ape skull reveals what the common ancestor of all living apes and humans may have looked like. The find, announced in the scientific journal Nature on August 10th, belongs to an infant that lived about 13 million years ago. The research was done by an international [...]
On Tuesday May 30th, a vast storm hit the Ileret area and brought an immense amount of rain. Within a short period of 9 hours, TBI Ileret facility documented a record-high rainfall of more than 200 mm (8 inches). This amount is much more than a typical rainstorm at Ileret (~20 mm), and more than [...]
As most people are enjoying the beach and sunshine in the US, some Stony Brook students took a long shot and came to the shores of Lake Turkana, Kenya. They are here for the brand-new Global Innovation Field School! The Global Innovation summer program is organized by the College of Engineering & Applied Sciences, Stony [...]
It is finally the end of the Archaeology module and our field school students have learned a lot about stone tools. Now it is time to put them in good use! Cracking nuts using a hammer stone and an anvil is just the beginning of technology. To convince ourselves that the stone flakes we made are capable [...]
Rethinking Tool-making August 2-6, 2016 TBI-Turkwel Participants at the thirteenth Human Evolution Workshop "Rethinking Toolmaking" The Turkana Basin Institute hosted the 13th workshop of the Stony Brook/TBI Human Evolution Workshop series at its Turkwel campus from August 2 - 6. Entitled Rethinking Tool-making, the workshop was organized by archaeologists Drs. Sonia Harmand and Hélène Roche. The 2015 discovery [...]
Meave Leakey, Director of Field Research at TBI and research professor at Stony Brook University’s Department of Anthropology, received the 2016 Hubbard Medal, named for the first president of the National Geographic Society, Gardiner Greene Hubbard, often called National Geographic’s highest honor. The award is given for lifetime achievement in areas of research, discovery, and exploration. Meave Leakey in [...]
Skeletal remains of a group of foragers massacred around 10,000 years ago, on the shores of a lagoon in what is now southwestern Turkana, is unique evidence of a violent encounter between clashing groups of ancient hunter-gatherers, and suggests the “presence of warfare” in late Stone Age foraging societies. The fossilised bones of a group [...]
The Turkana Basin Institute, in collaboration with the University of Bradford, has set up a web site fossilfinder.org, recruiting an army of ‘citizen scientists’ to help discover fossils and other ancient artefacts using the unique online platform “Zooniverse”. fOssilfinder.org is a pioneering project, funded in part by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, enabling amateur [...]
The West Turkana Archaeological Project team has found the earliest known stone artifacts, dating to 3.3 million years ago. The discovery pushes back the beginning of the archaeological record by 700,000 years, or by over a quarter of humanity's previously-known material cultural history.
Discovered near the village of Ileret (shown on map) in northern Kenya, 3 new hominin individuals were announced on March 27. New hominin fossils from the Turkana Basin were announced on March 27 at the 2015 annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists in St. Louis, MO. These fossils, representing 3 individuals of the genus [...]
Richard Leakey made headlines around the world in 1989 when a stockpile of 12 tons of ivory was burned in Nairobi National Park. This media event was orchestrated by Leakey, then Director of the Kenya Wildlife Service, to raise awareness of the massive poaching problem from which Kenya was suffering at the time, and [...]
The twelfth annual Stony Brook Human Evolution Workshop was held at the Turkana Basin Institute’s (TBI) Turkwel research facility, between August 5-9th, 2014. The workshop was organized to mark the 50th Anniversary of the publication by Louis Leakey, Phillip Tobias and John Napier of the paper that established Homo habilis as a taxon (Leakey, L. S. [...]
The Peking Man site at Zhoukoudian and the fossil remains uncovered there continue to be a source of evolutionary fascination. The disappearance of these fossils en route from China to the American Museum of Natural History in 1941 has added to the mystery. While China’s contribution to our understanding of primate and human evolution has [...]
We had a high profile visit a few weeks ago at TBI-Turkwel and TBI-Ileret by the Deputy President William Ruto, Dr. Hassan Wario, Minister for Cultural Heritage and Sports, the Governor of the Turkana County, Governor Nanok and several senior government officials. The visit was at the invitation of Richard Leakey. They visitors arrived by helicopter in [...]
Renowned anthropologist Meave Leakey, a research professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Turkana Basin Institute at Stony Brook University, has been named a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences. She is among 84 new members and 21 foreign associates from 14 countries that were elected in recognition for their distinguished and [...]
The ancient task, new every day, of finding water on Africa's arid plains. Celebrating a wedding by sacrificing and roasting a goat. Bringing electricity and modern health care to people who dwell in palm-frond huts and count their wealth in cattle. Sixteen students from Stony Brook University's School of Journalism spent 10 days at TBI over [...]