 |
Storm clouds gather in the
east, bringing the perennial rains to the Turkana region. |
MORE PHOTOS
>> |
|
WEEK 12 |
Text and photographs by Louise
Leakey |
he weather is building up for rain,
it’s a heavy heat and the air is so clear we can even
see the details of the ridges and valleys on the
hills on the other side of the lake. There are dinosaur
remains in the deposits in those remote and rugged
hills. We always expect heavy rain in April as it is
the long rain season through to end of May. It is
impossible to work at this time for obvious reasons
and so we close camp and spend the next month or so finalising the data, sorting and accessioning the
fossils in the museum in Nairobi, writing up our
season’s report and putting together research grant
applications to find the funding to enable us to
return to do another season.
Over the final few days of this season we collected a
few outstanding specimens that could not be left
behind and made quite sure that the hominid sieves in
Area 119 were complete. Several additional tooth root
fragments were recovered from Robert’s big black
hominid teeth site although nothing more than this
emerged from
this excavation. We printed out and filed
all the data sheets and maps of specimens to collect
in a future season, took the remaining photographs of
the collected specimens and packed these away in boxes
to take back to Nairobi. It has been a very successful
and exciting few months and clearly we have much more
to do at East Turkana. There is certainly no shortage
of work that remains to be done here over the coming
decades. In fact we have barely begun.
This year we managed to record over 600 mammalian
fossil specimens, and of these over 300 were collected
with a final tally of 15 hominid remains. Not bad for
three months of work. We have an exciting fossil
hominid that was found at Ileret in 2002 and we are
planning to go back to complete this excavation in
January 2005 if we can raise the support to do this.
Meanwhile later this year we will be heading to
Samburu to work with Nasser and others on extracting
an early Homo sapiens skeleton from solid sandstone.
This is planned for the end of June. We will document
this excavation with several dispatches that we will
post on this site.
|
|
|
|
Refueling the plane one more time. |
|
We have now pulled the camp down,
trucked all the tents back to Nairobi for storage. The
tents came down the afternoon it began to rain. Black,
ominous-looking cumulus clouds built up in the east.
The tents take far longer to put up at the beginning
of the season than to pull down at the end. We
carefully note all the holes and rips that need
stitching up and repairing before we bring them back
to put up again next season. The vehicles and the
truck were loaded carefully with fossils, equipment
and people just as it began to rain. Everyone was paid
their dues for the three months of fieldwork and we
had a small meeting to thank everyone for the hard
work and successes of the season. Early in the morning
everyone loaded into the cars and began the slow
four-day journey south to Nairobi. Five people were
left in camp and I did a quick flight north to Ileret
to talk with the community elders, chief, and youth
representative about trying to steer the community
projects forward. These include the extension to the
primary school and the rehabilitation and training in
the health clinic there. I flew back from Ileret to
refuel the aircraft and to
replace the alternator belt
in the aircraft engine that kept coming
off. I was then able to take the remaining five across
the lake to come return via Lodwar which is closer to
home for Justus, Robert and Stephen. It’s always sad
to see the work close down and the camp seems very
quiet and empty.
The ravens
never fail to check that we have
cleared the camp away properly and if we have they
certainly let us know about it.
Louise Leakey,
Koobi Fora
May, 2004
<<
Previous |
Return to Main |
|
|
|
|
|
|
PROJECT DESCRIPTION: The Koobi Fora Research Project annual
paleoanthropological expedition. |
|
LOCATION:
The area surrounding Lake Turkana, in the
extreme north of Kenya. This region is
extremely rich in hominid fossils and has
produced some of the oldest dates for Homo.
Launch
Position Locator. |
|
PURPOSE:
To increase knowledge of the origins of our
genus, Homo, and the context in which
we evolved. |
|
|
|
