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Leakey, Richard Erskine Frere

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
(frĭr), 1944–, Kenyan paleoanthropologist, conservationist, and government official. The son of Louis and Mary Leakey , he spent much of his early life at archaeological sites in E Africa. His own career began in 1968 when, as a paleoanthropologist without formal academic training, he received funding from the National Geographic Society to conduct research on human evolution at Lake Turkana (1969–75), where a Homo habilis dating from 1.9 million years ago was discovered (1972). With Roger Lewin, Leakey has written Origins (1977), The Making of Mankind (1981), and Origins Reconsidered (1992). In addition to conducting archaeological investigations, Leakey headed the National Museums of Kenya (1974–89) and the Department of Archaeological Sites. An outspoken advocate of wildlife conservation, he helped to promote a worldwide ban on the ivory trade and in 1989 became the director of the Kenya Wildlife Service, He overhauled the agency, but in 1994 he broke with Kenyan president Daniel…
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(frĭr), 1944–, Kenyan paleoanthropologist, conservationist, and government official. The son of Louis and Mary Leakey , he spent much of his early life at archaeological sites in E Africa. His own career began in 1968 when, as a paleoanthropologist without formal academic training, he received…
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Full text Article Leakey, Richard Erskine Frere

From Chambers Biographical Dictionary
1944- ♦ Kenyan palaeoanthropologist and politician He was born in Nairobi, the second son of British archaeologists Louis and Mary Leakey , and from an early age worked in the field with his parents, finding his first fossil bone at the age of six. He left school at 16 and trapped animals for zoos, …
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Full text Article Fossey, Dian

From American Environmental Leaders
(January 16, 1932–December 24, 1985) Zoologist, Founder of Karisoke Research Center Author of Gorillas in the Mist (1983), Dian Fossey was the world's foremost expert on the mountain gorillas of central Africa. Fossey established the Karisoke Research Center in Rwanda, where she spent more than 13…
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Full text Article Olduvai Gorge ‡

From Cambridge Dictionary of Human Biology and Evolution
Archaeological site(s) found in 1911 located on the Serengeti plain in northern Tanzania, Africa, containing deep sedimentary deposits dating from 1.8 mya (early Pleistocene ) to as recent as the Holocene . More than 37,000 artifacts of the Oldowan and Acheulean and more recent tool traditions, and…
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Full text Article Fossey, Dian

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
US zoologist. Almost completely untrained, Fossey was sent by Louis Leakey into the African wild. From 1975, she studied mountain gorillas in Rwanda and discovered that they committed infanticide and that females transferred to nearly established groups but that gorillas led peaceful family lives. …
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(băz'Әt, lē'kē), 1903–72, British archaeologist and anthropologist of E Africa, b. Kabete, Kenya; father of Richard Leakey . His fossil discoveries in E Africa demonstrated that humans were far older than had previously been suspected. Leakey, the son of missionary parents, grew up among the Kikuyu…
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Louis S. B. Leakey.
Kenyan archaeologist and anthropologist Louis Seymour Bazett Leakey was born in Kabete, Kenya, on August 7, 1903. His fossil discoveries in East Africa proved that human beings were far older than had previously been believed and that human evolution was centered in Africa, rather than in Asia, as…
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Full text Article Olduvai Gorge

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
Deep cleft in the Serengeti steppe, Tanzania, where Louis and Mary Leakey found prehistoric stone tools in the 1930s. They discovered Pleistocene remains of early hominids and animals 1958–59. The gorge has given its name to the Olduvai culture , a simple stone-tool culture of prehistoric hominids, …
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Full text Article Leakey, Louis Seymour Bazett

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
Kenyan archaeologist, anthropologist, and palaeontologist. With his wife Mary Leakey, he discovered fossils of extinct animals in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, as well as many remains of an early human type. Leakey's conviction that human origins lie in Africa was opposed to contemporary opinion. …
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