Atapuerca: Crossroads of Human Evolution in Europe
2018-05-02 19:00 - 20:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse Dr 94118, San Francisco, CA, 94118, United States
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© Atapuerca Foundation
Archaeological sites at Sierre de Atapuerca in Northern Spain offer extraordinary insight into the evolution of humankind. Atapuerca is a unique treasure trove that includes the earliest and most abundant evidence of humans in Europe, the earliest evidence of human cannibalism, and possibly the first burial in our history. Atapuerca is a UNESCO World Heritage site celebrated for its outstanding contribution to reconstructing the earliest human communities in Europe. In this talk María Martinón-Torres will discuss her work tracing the origins of our closest extinct relatives, the Neanderthals. She will also share how fossils of Homo antecessor, an early human species, found at Atapuerca have shifted our understanding of the ancestry of the first Europeans.
This event is produced in partnership with the California Academy of Sciences.
Sponsored by:
Ann and Gordon Getty
Camilla and George Smith
Virginia and Wilson Crook
Rebecca del Rio and Numa Marlborough

Discovering Us: 50th Anniversary Gala
2018-05-03 18:30 - 23:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | NY
Since 1968, The Leakey Foundation has supported scientists in their quest to discover what makes us human. Join us on May 3, 2018, at the St. Regis in San Francisco to celebrate the accomplishments of the past 50 years and explore the endless possibilities of the future.
“Discovering Us” will take you on an inspiring journey through some of many regions of the world where The Leakey Foundation funds research…from the painted caves of Europe to the jungles of South America, to the African savanna.
This very special evening will feature renowned scientists, a reception with a hosted bar featuring sparkling wine provided by Iron Horse Vineyards, a gourmet dinner with wine provided by Grgich Hills Estate, and South African music and dance performances by the Chinyakare ensemble.
Our program will be emceed by primatologist Kelly Stewart and will include remarks by Nina Jablonski and a keynote address by Kirk Johnson, Sant Director of the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History.
Our Young Professionals Group is hosting an after-party immediately following the dinner program. This exciting event will include two special virtual reality experiences – Lenovo’s virtual reality experience will let you visit Jane Goodall’s Gombe, and Dartmouth University will be bringing their Tarsier Vision Experience which will let you see the world through the eyes of a tarsier.

Proceeds from this event will help fund human origins research and outreach.
Every donation will be matched by a generous sponsor. Double your impact while enjoying an unforgettable evening!

This event will sell out quickly. Tables, sponsorships, and individual tickets are available now!
Click here to learn more about sponsorship opportunities
Click here to register

Thank you to our generous sponsors:
50th Anniversary Patrons
Gordon and Ann Getty, Camilla & George Smith
Platinum Sponsors
Nina Carroll, Collaborative Consulting, Alice Corning, Grgich Hills Estate, Austin and Sara Hills, Julie LaNasa and John Kunzweiler, Jeanne Newman
Gold Sponsors
Gianni Amato, Far Horizons, Carolyn Farris, J. Michael and Sally Gallagher, Iron Horse Vineyards, Mark Jordan and Jennifer Gomersall, Diana McSherry and Patrick Poe, Bill and Debby Richards, Barry and Audrey Sterling, Cole and Judy Thompson.

The Origins of the Genus Homo
2018-05-23 18:30 - 19:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Cindy Pritzker Auditorium in the Harold Washington Center of the Chicago Public Library, 400 South State Street, Chicago, IL, 60605, United States
KNM-FR181 © Fred Spoor
When did our ancestors look the way we expect the earliest members of our genus to have looked? When did they behave in the way we expect the earliest members of our genus to have behaved? The search for what defines the genus Homo has spanned decades and is still debated among scientists today. In this talk, paleoanthropologist Dr. Bernard Wood will survey the history of attempts to find the earliest members of the genus Homo, including very recent and controversial additions. He will review the complications that arise from defining the genus and discuss how half-a-century of paleontological research has taught him what to look for within the hominin fossil record when searching for the origins of our genus Homo.
This event is free to attend, no registration is necessary.
Doors open at 6:00 pm for a book signing of Dr. Bernard Wood’s book Human Evolution: A Very Short Introduction.
Presented in partnership with the Chicago Council on Science and Technology and The Chicago Public Library, Harold Washington Center.
Sponsored by:
Camilla and George Smith
Ann and Gordon Getty

Primate Palate: Orangutans, Obesity, and Human Evolution
2018-06-06 19:00 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | American Museum of Natural History, 56 West 81st St., New York, NY, 10024, United States
© Tim Laman
How can studying what orangutans eat help us better understand the obesity epidemic in humans? Dr. Erin Vogel shares her research on wild orangutans in the tropical forests of Sumatra and Borneo, illuminating how their diet, behavior, and metabolism can provide insights into the human condition. Vogel explores how orangutans are uniquely adapted for survival in Borneo’s forest and how this relates to human evolution.
This event is produced in partnership with the American Museum of Natural History.
Sponsored by
Ann and Gordon Getty
Camilla and George Smith
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The Evolution and Meanings of Human Skin Color
2018-09-27 18:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | The Houston Museum of Natural Science, 5555 Hermann Park Drive, Houston, TX, 77030, United States
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Variation in human skin color has fascinated and perplexed people for centuries. As the most visible aspect of human variation, skin color has been used in the past as a basis for classifying people into “races.”
In this lecture, Nina Jablonski will discuss the evolution of human skin color and how color-based race concepts have influenced societies and social well-being. The evolution of human skin color is one of the best examples of natural selection acting on the human body. In the 200,000 year history of modern humans, similar skin colors have evolved independently numerous times in response to similar environmental conditions. Understanding the evolution and social importance of skin color can help eliminate color-based discrimination and racism.
This event is produced in partnership with the Houston Museum of Natural Science.
“Early Bird” tickets are $16 or $10 for Leakey Foundation supporters and museum members until September 19.
To receive the discount, call the museum box office at (713) 639-4629 and use the promo code “LECLeakeyFnd.”
Student Admission (at box office with valid student ID) – $8.00
Sponsored by:
The Brown Foundation, Inc.
Ann and Gordon Getty
Camilla and George Smith

Family Class: Skin We Are In
2018-09-29 09:00 - 10:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | The Houston Museum of Natural Science, 5555 Hermann Park Drive, Houston, TX, 77030, United States
Illustrations by Lynne Fellman
When we meet someone, one of the things we notice is the color of their skin. But what can someone’s skin color tell us about them? Despite what some people say, your skin color means very little! Inside we’re all the same.
Join anthropologist Nina Jablonski for an exploration of the science behind skin color. Jablonski will discuss the history of skin and its meaning. She will also read from her new book Skin We Are In.
More about Skin We Are In
Skin We Are In is the story of Njabulo, Aisha, Tim, Chris and Roshni, five friends who explore why humans have different skin and how people’s thinking about skin color has changed throughout history. The conversation topics of the children’s adventure are expanded and supported by scientific facts and research set amidst beautiful and vivid illustrations.
Skin We Are In is a collaboration between anthropologist Nina G. Jablonski, South African author Sindiwe Magona, and illustrator Lynn Fellman.
Copies of Skin We Are In will be available for purchase at the event.
The book is aimed at children between the ages of 8 and 14.
This event is produced in partnership with the Houston Museum of Natural Science.
Sponsored by:
The Brown Foundation, Inc.
Ann and Gordon Getty
Camilla and George Smith

2018 Fellows Tour - "Origins: China's Early Human History and Prehistoric Culture"
2018-10-08 - 2018-10-20, 2018-10-08 00:00 - 2018-10-20 23:59 (America/Los_Angeles) | NY
Download Itinerary and Registration Form

Join The Leakey Foundation on a journey like none other. This exciting and educational trip will combine behind-the-scenes exploration of China’s early human history with luxury experiences in the exciting modern cities of Beijing and Shanghai.

October 8-20, 2018 – Main Tour
October 20-23, 2018 – Extension
This once-in-a-lifetime adventure will take you from the bustling city of Beijing to the Nihewan Basin where some of the earliest stone tools and fossils of East Asia were discovered. You will visit the one-million-year-old archaeological site of Dongutou and receive special access to a new multi-acre facility for paleoanthropology research.
You will visit several UNESCO World Heritage Sites, including the Great Wall of China, the Forbidden City, the Terracotta Warriors, and Zhoukoudian, the site where the Peking Man lived between 200,000 and 500,00 years ago. You will see some of the original sites where the Peking Man fossils were discovered.
Have questions? Email Sharal Camisa, Executive Director.
Cost Per Person

$7,499 for double occupancy
$8,499 for single occupancy

The cost of the tour includes a $1,125 tax-deductible donation to The Leakey Foundation. Your donation will be doubled by a generous donor.
Cost Includes

Round-trip airfare from San Francisco, economy class
High-speed train from Beijing to Xian
11 nights in centrally located first class hotels, all rooms with private facilities
Breakfast daily, 10 lunches, and five dinners
Sightseeing as per itinerary in private deluxe motor coaches with expert guides and all entry fees covered
Experienced English speaking tour director in China
All hotel taxes and service charges
All baggage handling and porterage at hotels
All air taxes and fuel surcharges

Download Itinerary and Registration Form

What Makes Us Human? Lessons from the Study of Wild Chimpanzees
2018-11-08 18:00 - 19:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Café Brauer, Lincoln Park Zoo, 2021 N Stockton Drive, Chicago, Illinois, 60614
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Chimpanzees and their sister species, the bonobo, are humankind’s closest living relatives. Because of this close evolutionary relationship, chimpanzees provide a model system to evaluate claims about human uniqueness.
John Mitani’s 23-year study of an unusually large community of chimpanzees at Ngogo in Kibale National Park, Uganda, continues to challenge our notions of what makes us human.
In this talk, Mitani will review findings that reveal some interesting parallels between humans and chimpanzees with respect to friendships, longevity, and cooperation. Humans form long-lasting friendships, live a very long time, and are an unusually cooperative species. Studies of the Ngogo chimpanzees indicate that the gap between them and us in these regards may be smaller than previously thought. These findings furnish new insights into chimpanzee behavior and are particularly relevant as we continue to struggle to conserve the dwindling populations of these animals.
This event is produced in partnership with the Chicago Council on Science and Technology and the Lincoln Park Zoo.
Sponsored by:
Ann and Gordon Getty
Camilla and George Smith

Film Screening: Rise of the Warrior Apes
2018-11-09 18:00 - 20:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Film Row Cinema, Columbia College, 1104 South Wabash Ave, Chicago, Illinois
5:30 PM Complimentary Reception
6:00 PM Film Screening
Doors to this event open at 5:30 PM. Join The Leakey Foundation and Chicago Council of Science and Technology for a complimentary reception with refreshments.
The film screening will begin at 6:00 PM. Filmed over 23 years, the award-winning documentary Rise of the Warrior Apes tells the epic story of an extraordinary troop of chimpanzees in Ngogo, Uganda – featuring four mighty warriors who rule through moral ambiguity, questionable politics, strategic alliances, and destroyed trust.
The screening will be followed by a question and answer session with collaborating scientist Dr. John Mitani.
This event is produced in partnership with the Chicago Council on Science and Technology and Columbia College.
Sponsored by:
Ann and Gordon Getty
Camilla and George Smith
Disclaimer: This movie contains scenes of violence that may be inappropriate for small children.

The New Chimpanzee: A Twenty-First-Century Portrait of Our Closest Kin
2018-12-04 19:00 - 20:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse Dr 94118, San Francisco, CA, 94118, United States
Photo Credit: Dr. Craig Stanford
Famed primatologist Jane Goodall forever changed our understanding of culture and animal intelligence when she discovered that wild chimpanzees were fashioning tools from sticks. Her mentor Louis Leakey exclaimed “Now, we must redefine ‘tool,’ redefine ‘man,’ or accept chimpanzees as humans.” In the 21st century, we continue to redefine ourselves in light of new revolutionary discoveries about chimpanzees.
In this lecture and his new book The New Chimpanzee, Craig Stanford reviews what the past two decades of chimpanzee field research has taught us about the origins of human social behavior, the nature of aggression and communication, and the divergence of humans and apes from our common ancestor. From culture to warfare, from our diet to our politics, the study of wild chimpanzees continues to change the way we understand both human nature and the apes themselves.
This event is produced in partnership with the California Academy of Sciences.
Sponsored by:
Ann and Gordon Getty
Camilla and George Smith

The Raw Truth About Cooking
2019-03-06 19:00 - 20:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | American Museum of Natural History, 56 West 81st St., New York, NY, 10024, United States
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Free with RSVP, for adults 21+
All human cultures use cooking and other means to process food. Why is food processing so universal? And why might it threaten our health today? Rachel Carmody explains how processing increases the calories we extract from food, ways this practice has given humans an evolutionary edge, and why it may present challenges for our present and future.
This event is produced in partnership with the American Museum of Natural History.
Sponsored by
Ann and Gordon Getty
Camilla and George Smith
Event will be held in the Cullman Hall of the Universe, enter at 81st Street.

Mama's Last Hug: What Animal Emotions Reveal About Humans
2019-03-20 18:30 - 20:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Marines’ Memorial Theatre, 609 Sutter Street, San Francisco, CA, United States
6:30 PM Lecture
7:30 PM Book Signing
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New York Times best-selling author and primatologist Frans de Waal explores the fascinating world of animal and human emotions. His new book, Mama’s Last Hug, opens with the dramatic farewell between Mama, a dying fifty-nine-year-old chimpanzee matriarch, and biologist Jan van Hooff. This heartfelt final meeting of two longtime friends, widely shared as a video, offers a window into how deep and instantly recognizable these bonds can be. So begins Frans de Waal’s whirlwind tour of new ideas and findings about animal emotions, based on his renowned studies of the social and emotional lives of chimpanzees, bonobos, and other primates.
De Waal discusses facial expressions, animal sentience and consciousness, Mama’s life and death, the emotional side of human politics, and the illusion of free will. He distinguishes between emotions and feelings, all the while emphasizing the continuity between our species and other species. And he makes the radical proposal that emotions are like organs: We don’t have a single organ that other animals don’t have, and the same is true for our emotions.
Come for an illuminating discussion about the similarities between animals and humans from a man who has been named to Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people.
TICKET INFORMATION:
Leakey Foundation General Admission: $20.00
Leakey Foundation Premium Admission: $50.00 (Includes priority seating in the first rows and a copy of Dr. de Waal’s book)
This event is produced in partnership with the California Academy of Sciences and Commonwealth Club of California.
Sponsored by:
Ann and Gordon Getty
Camilla and George Smith

Innovation and Environmental Disruption During the Origin of Homo sapiens
2019-05-03 18:30 - 20:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Coe Auditorium, Buffalo Bill Center of the West, 720 Sheridan Avenue, Cody, WY, 82414, United States
Photo Credit: Jason Nichols
Recent discoveries at the Kenyan site of Olorgesailie offer insight into how environmental shifts drove early humans in East Africa to develop stone tool innovations, trade between distant groups, and use coloring material by 320,000 years ago, tens of thousands of years earlier than previously thought. These milestones in technological, ecological, and social evolution coincided with the oldest ages for fossils attributed to Homo sapiens in Africa.
In this talk, Dr. Rick Potts will discuss the exciting implications of his team’s findings. These obsidian tools, valued for their sharp edges, were carried up to 55 miles from their source into the rugged terrain of the Kenya rift valley. This long-distance exchange between distant groups is an indicator of social networks, which are critical for survival in unpredictable environments. He will also discuss how dramatic variations in fresh water, vegetation, and landscapes took place during this critical transition in human behavior and may reflect the origin of adaptability in our species.
Registration is not required for this event and admission is free.

Homo naledi and the Chamber of Secrets
2019-05-21 18:30 - 20:00 (America/Chicago) | The Houston Museum of Natural Science, 5555 Hermann Park Drive, Houston, TX, 77030, United States
Photo Credit: National Geographic
The largest collection of ancient human bones ever discovered in Africa was excavated from chambers deep within South Africa’s Rising Star cave. In 2013, six women scientists squeezed through the twisting passages of this cave to unearth more than 1,500 fossils representing at least 15 individuals of the newly discovered early human species Homo naledi. In this lecture, paleoanthropologist and Homo naledi study team member Dr. Jeremy DeSilva will discuss what we know about these fossils and how these findings are changing not only science, but how we define “human.”
This event is produced in partnership with the Houston Museum of Natural Science.
Sponsored by:
The Brown Foundation, Inc.
Ann and Gordon Getty
Camilla and George Smith

Our Tribal Nature: Tribalism, Politics, and Evolution
2019-09-19 18:00 - 21:30 (America/New_York) | The Morgan Library & Museum, 225 Madison Avenue, New York, NY, 10016
A Leakey Foundation Survival Symposium
Once essential for human survival, our innate desire to belong now threatens to destroy us. At a moment when our world feels dangerously fragmented and unstable, “Our Tribal Nature: Tribalism, Politics, and Evolution” brings together Sebastian Junger, Francis Fukuyama, Richard Wrangham, and other scholars from top universities to confront the role our tribal instincts play in building communities – and tearing them apart through partisanship, racism, and xenophobia.
Brought to you by The Leakey Foundation, this landmark symposium will draw on science, politics, psychology and more to examine the evolutionary origins and function of tribalism, its influence on history, and the role it plays in our increasingly divided world. It’s more urgent than ever for us to understand the power of our tribal nature, and how we can harness its best qualities to resist its worst.
