Hike to the Hills
Because we didn’t get enough time in the sun the previous week, a group of students decided to join Dr. Dino Martins on a hike through the Napadet Hills on our Sunday off from coursework.
Delta Blues, Turkana Style
The road to ecological disaster is paved with good intentions. Years ago, an aid organization introduced Prosopis to Kenya. The relative of the acacia [...]
Kenyan wildlife on a smaller scale
At first glance, the Turkana Basin can seem like a desolate place with a pretty simple food web. Looking out over the landscape, there are widely spaced acacias across the sand flats with scrubby, needle-bearing Indigofera shrubs filling in the gaps for hungry herbivores.
Environmental Ecology…and a few thorns
After an early morning in Nairobi, everyone boarded a small plane and we flew north up the Great Rift Valley. We watched the green highlands give way to the arid Northwest: our home for the next ten weeks.
The Present is the Key to the Past
For paleontologists and archaeologists it can take a lot of imagination to conjure up the ancient environments that surrounded the animals and [...]
Across the Pond!
After months of anticipation, hundreds of questions and a couple bouts of packing, weighing and re-packing, the Spring 2013 Turkana Basin Field School is [...]
Aquaculture at TBI-Turkwel
A fish farm at TBI-turkwel been designed as a pilot project to understand the feasibility of aquaculture in the Turkana Basin.
Alternative energy at TBI-Turkwel
At TBI-Turkwel we've begun to convert locally sourced biomass into energy to run our facility.
New fossils from the Turkana Basin shed light on early human evolution
Exciting new fossils discovered east of Lake Turkana confirm that there were two additional species of our genus –Homo – living alongside our direct human ancestral species, Homo erectus, almost two million years ago.
Start of summer field season 2012
Our crew has been working in Area 40, to the north of Ileret, for the past several weeks. The hominid gang has been able [...]
Stony Brook University President Stanley visits TBI facilities
Read about the visit of President Samuel L. Stanley Jr., M.D., to TBI's facilities in Kenya in the Office of the President Blog
What Makes Us Human?
One of the most challenging and interesting questions that has been pondered by scientists through the ages, from Aristotle to Darwin, through [...]
PBS airs Turkana Basin documentary
National Geographic Television debuts Bones of Turkana on May 16, 2012.
Paul Simon performs at TBI fundraising dinner
Beloved musician Paul Simon performed at a fundraising event on Wednesday, May 2, in support of Richard Leakey's vision for the Turkana Basin Institute.
Grand Finale
Our amazing Africa experience has come to an end - time rushed by at an astonishing speed! We did have a fantastic last day [...]
Goat Roast
With all their new knowledge about our ancestors and the tools they used, students got to make their own stone tools! Knapping -manipulating stone [...]
Sand Dunes
Yesterday students went to a site rich in pottery shards, ostrich egg shells, stone tools and beads. Even though is was hot, the numerous artifacts that [...]
Stone Tools
Students continued to learn more about stone tools – what they look like, their purpose, and how they were made. In the early stages, [...]
Going Nuts!
Archaeology, our fifth and final module, started Monday. Students learned a lot about the basics: Archaeology is the study of artifacts and [...]
Opening of Loreng’elup Maternity
Despite the delayed blog since the opening of the maternity, i owe it to you to inform you of the completion and opening of [...]