We are in the last week of the Geology Module. Students have been busy in the field finalizing their projects on the Main Fish Beds which were later presented on Tuesday evening. Our next few days will be spent in Koobi Fora where we are headed on Wednesday morning for a two-day camp. Keely [...]
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 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 [...]
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 [...]