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 [...]
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 [...]
The students were very busy in our last two weeks in Kenya. The Archaeology module took us to many sites around Turkana where there have been important paleontological and archaeological finds or where there is exciting current research. The students walked the Turkana outcrops in search of bones, stone tools and pottery. Through their studies [...]
Photo: Esther Kadaga Our journey through the Archaeology module is coming to an end. We had a few site visits this week and one of the activities the students got to do was archaeological surveys. Archaeological surveys are useful in helping archaeologists to identify where best to excavate. The field team scans the [...]
Stone tools which were a vital technological invention of early humans, enabling them to do things like butchering. Oldowan and Acheulean stone tool technologies were collectively prevalent for millions of years; now it was time for our modern day students to try their hand at reliving their ancient ancestors' ways of life. On Monday Dr. [...]
On Friday the field school said goodbye to our camp at Ileret where we've lived for the past 7 weeks and got on the TBI plane to fly over the "Jade Sea" (Lake Turkana) to our new home, the Turkwel campus.
We are into the last week of the Human Origins module. As the students have come to find out, the phylogenetic tree of human ancestry is more bushy than expected.
This Week, the students have been introduced to the story of being and becoming human. The scientific story of human evolution. Humans have always been curious to identify who they really are which poses questions like; how and why are we different from other mammals? What made us develop distinct traits like bipedality and bigger [...]
The students are now well into the Vertebrate Paleontology course with Dr. Bill Sanders from the University of Michigan. Professor Sanders has been teaching the students how to interpret the skeleton and teeth of animals in order to understand how they lived. You can understand a lot about an animal based on its bones. The [...]
A Dasenach village. Photo: Rosie Bryson The students visited a village in Ileret and got to know more about the culture of the local Dasenach people. The Dasenach are a pastoralist community living in Marsabit County within the Turkana region. One of the things the students learned was the division of labour within [...]
In the last week, we have been delving deeper into the geology of the Turkana Basin. This included seeking to understand how stratigraphic units (distinct layers of soil piled on top of each other which represent different time periods) are formed and how to interpret individual sedimentary strata’s in order to reconstruct past environments. [...]
Our Geology module with Dr. Craig Feibel and Dr. Robert Raynolds continues at the TBI campus! Dr. Feibel started off the week with an introduction to the different rock “species” found in the Rift Valley. The students have been working hard to memorize more than 20 different types of rock, as well as state it’s [...]
Photo: Deming Yang The ecology module has ended. The next module, Geology, has started. Dr Craig Feibel and Dr. Bob Raynolds are the instructors taking the students through the geological history of the Turkana Basin. The students are spending time in the lab learning about rocks. They are also going out into the [...]
Since their arrival at TBI-Ileret, students have continued to expand their understanding of ecological research methods. Here, they have also been introduced to new TAs, the Dassenatch people, and more heat than they were accustomed to at Mpala. They all are adjusting really well to this new environment which is great since this will be [...]