The Leakey Foundation

05.18.22

A fossil tooth places enigmatic ancient humans in Southeast Asia

An international team of researchers has discovered a tooth belonging to a Denisovan, an ancient human species previously only known from icy northern latitudes.

03.11.22

How baboons keep healthy family boundaries

Journal Article

Finding love in an isolated place can be tough when everyone is a familiar face, or when half the dating pool is already out because they’re all close relatives. That’s no less true for the wild baboons of Amboseli, who live in close-knit groups of 20 to 150 at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro in Kenya.

02.24.22

Ancient DNA helps reveal social changes in Africa that shaped the human story

Journal Article, Behind the Science

An interdisciplinary team has sequenced and analyzed the oldest ancient DNA from Africa. This new research gives insights into the lives, movements, and relations of people who lived in Africa between 18,000 and 5,000 years ago.

12.07.21

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

Journal Article

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

Journal Article, In the News

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