The Leakey Foundation

12.07.21

Fossil spine suggests ancient human relative walked like us, but climbed like an ape

s ago an ancient human relative, Australopithecus sediba, lived in what is today South Africa, near a cave called Malapa that’s a part of the Cradle of Humankind. Until recently, it was not clear how much the species spent climbing in trees and walking on two legs on the ground.

12.02.21

Mystery solved: footprints from Site A at Laetoli, Tanzania, are from early humans, not bears

The oldest unequivocal evidence of upright walking in the human lineage are footprints discovered at Laetoli, Tanzania in 1978, by paleontologist Mary Leakey and her team. The bipedal trackways date to 3.7 million years ago. Another set of mysterious footprints was partially excavated at nearby Site A in 1976 but dismissed as possibly being made by a bear. A recent re-excavation of the Site A footprints at Laetoli and a detailed comparative analysis reveal that the footprints were made by an early human

11.05.21

I was part of the team that found the Homo naledi child’s skull: how we did it

Journal Article, From the Field, In the News

An international team of researchers, led by Professor Lee Berger, a palaeoanthropologist from South Africa’s University of the Witwatersrand, has revealed the first partial skull of a Homo naledi child from the Rising Star cave.

10.13.21

A study of skull growth and tooth emergence reveals that timing is everything

Journal Article

Paleoanthropologists have wondered for a long time how and why humans evolved molars that emerge at these specific ages and why those ages are so delayed compared to living apes. New research solves this mystery.

10.06.21

Archaeologists find the oldest-known shell beads

Journal Article

Shell beads found in a cave in Morocco are at least 142,000 years old. The archaeologists who found them say they're the earliest-known evidence of a widespread form of human communication.