Ecology Week 1: Vegetation ecology at Mpala
We are experiencing an El Niño event all over the globe, seeing weather patterns that are drastically different from our seasonal norms. The Laikipia [...]
Spring 2016 Origins Field School Begins!
Welcome to the Turkana Basin Institute Field School blog. We will post weekly updates of students' adventures and will also discuss what we are all [...]
Evidence of a prehistoric massacre extends the history of warfare
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, [...]
In conversation with Richard Leakey
Journalist and presenter Zeinab Badawi (BBC) will be conversing with Richard Leakey as he reflects on his life's work at the Royal Society in [...]
New website enables online fossil hunting
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’ [...]
Community Bursary Program update
I am Peter Akol and I help to coordinate the Turkana Basin Institute bursary program. I recently paid a visit to several of the schools that enroll several TBI bursary supported students and would like to share some experiences with you.
Oldest Stone Artifacts Found in Kenya’s Turkana Basin
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.
Ancient Homo fossils discovered in Kenya
Discovered near the village of Ileret (shown on map) in northern Kenya, 3 new hominin individuals were announced on March 27. New hominin fossils [...]
Spring 2015 Field School ends 🙁
This semester we have learned a lot....we have made lifelong friends and we have grown as an individual. We are sad to leave but it's time [...]
Our Fossil Ancestors in Turkana
As students began their study of hominins and the evolution to bipedalism, they began their study by comparing and contrasting skeletal parts between modern humans, [...]
Early apes in Turkana
We have finally entered our last module on Paleoanthropology and is one of the main reason most field school students have come to the [...]
Early tool-makers/geologists
In the fields of paleoanthropology and archaeology we are not just searching for bones of our early ancestors. Instead we are seeking knowledge of [...]
Human activity from the Recent Past
In the last 100,000 years, human behavior evolved to a lifestyle with trading, burying their deceased, fishing, more cooked food, and the creation of [...]
Monkey see, monkey do…monkey is hungry!
In the study of archaeology, interpreting the behavior and lives of early humans and their ancestors is based on an examination of material they [...]
Lothagam – a geologist’s wonderland
Lothagam- basaltic lava flows, lahars, faulting, volcanic ash, erosion, river channel deposits, muddy floodplains and ancient soils, lake deposits, shell beds, oyster reefs, more [...]
Lakes in the Turkana Basin – past, present, and future
When the Turkana Basin was not dominated by river systems, the rock record indicates several paleo-lakes occupied the region and sometimes reached over 100 [...]
Rivers- past and present
Interpreting and reconstructing depositional environments of the past involves an understanding of modern processes acting on the Earth surface that can form a particular [...]
Map it!
The rock record of the Turkana Basin contains a history of tectonic movement, volcanic activity, and climatic alterations that have all affected precipitation patterns, river systems, [...]
Local Turkana students visit researchers at TBI
The Turkana Basin Institute (TBI) is not only a non-profit organization interested in scientific research in the Lake Turkana region, in addition, TBI works [...]
I want to be a paleontologist!
In the past week, we have learned about a variety of animals* and how the habitat has changed in the ancient Turkana Basin. *Note: There [...]