Fall 2016 Field School ends :(

This past semester has been one to remember. The students learned about the Ecology of the Turkana Basin, being able to identify all the common plant species in the region and understanding how animals foraging on these plants have affected the environment. They learned about the Geology of the Turkana Basin, where each and every [...]

By |2017-01-04T18:04:29+03:00November 30th, 2016|Fall 2016, Field Schools|Comments Off on Fall 2016 Field School ends :(

Becoming a master knapper

After returning to TBI from an exciting camping trip, we spent the afternoon relaxing and knapping! We used the raw material we had collected in the field: though everyone put their initials on the material collected, some students decided to share what they had collected (our students were so thoughtful, but whatever happened to survival [...]

By |2017-01-04T18:04:29+03:00November 21st, 2016|Fall 2016, Field Schools|Comments Off on Becoming a master knapper

Trip to Nariokotome

We left TBI Turkwel Monday morning for our camping trip, from which we would be returning on Wednesday afternoon. We would be camping for two nights near the village of Nariokotome; the famous hominin site of Nariokotome boy, KNM-WT 15000, is only a few minutes away! On our drive to Nariokotome, we would be making [...]

By |2017-01-04T18:04:29+03:00November 19th, 2016|Fall 2016, Field Schools|Comments Off on Trip to Nariokotome

Rolling back to the Holocene

On Friday, we traveled to the Holocene site of Napaget, a massive and artefact-rich sand dune that overlooks the beautiful Lake Turkana. The site is about an hour away (as the lorry drives), and on the way we passed some truly impressive termite mounds, almost big enough for a person to live in (I wonder [...]

By |2017-01-04T18:04:30+03:00November 14th, 2016|Fall 2016, Field Schools|Comments Off on Rolling back to the Holocene

Afternoon Knaps

The next morning in class, we were introduced to archaeological vocabulary, necessary to accurately understand and describe stone artefacts. We learned how to describe the physical characteristics, such as: ventral (internal) and dorsal (external) sides of a flake; cortex, or the external skin of the original rock; and negatives (signs of a flake removal) and positives [...]

By |2017-01-04T18:04:30+03:00November 13th, 2016|Fall 2016, Field Schools, General|Comments Off on Afternoon Knaps

Using tools and monkeying around

For the last module of the TBI Origins Field School, Archaeology of the Turkana Basin, we headed to the west side of the lake. On this side, the students will be living at the TBI Turkwel Research Facility which is set up very similar to Ileret. However, we are now not too far from world [...]

By |2017-01-04T18:04:30+03:00November 8th, 2016|Fall 2016, Field Schools|Comments Off on Using tools and monkeying around

Crawling for Monkeys and a Friendly Farewell

Because of the successful end of our last excursion in the field, we returned to the same site to try to find other remnants of this ancient primate. When we got back, we did a hill crawl to cover the area below the find, with the thought that over time the fossil skeleton may have [...]

By |2017-01-04T18:04:30+03:00November 6th, 2016|Fall 2016, Field Schools|Comments Off on Crawling for Monkeys and a Friendly Farewell

What do our teeth tell us?

In Human Evolution this week, we discussed how animals with different diets will have coinciding differences in their teeth morphology as well as in other cranial areas, such as the zygomatic and mandible. Similar dietary morphology patterns are observed in hominins as well, which can tell us a lot about both the environment they were living in [...]

By |2017-01-04T18:04:31+03:00November 3rd, 2016|Fall 2016, Field Schools|Comments Off on What do our teeth tell us?
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