News

Does terrain shape chimpanzee social behavior? Primatologist Maggie Hoffman is finding out by studying wild chimps across three East African field sites.

A new study reconstructs the 3.7 million-year-old face of Little Foot, the most complete Australopithecus skeleton ever found.

What does urban life do to the gut microbiome? Researcher Shehani Fernando is finding out by studying wild macaques in Sri Lanka.

Maria Creighton is a PhD candidate at Duke University studying one of the most fundamental questions in social evolution: does having strong social bonds actually make you healthier, or do healthier people simply have more energy to be social?

Third-generation paleoanthropologist Louise Leakey reflects on the life and legacy of her grandmother, Mary Leakey.

Olayemi Ajayi is a Leakey Foundation grantee whose research will help us understand how animals respond on a molecular level to environmental change.

Each month, we publish a roundup of new human origins research supported by Leakey Foundation grants. This is the science your support makes possible.

An ancient cremation would have been a community spectacle in a place returned to and reignited over many generations. What was behind this unexpected funeral ritual?

Asithandile Ntsondwa is a doctoral student at New York University whose research focuses on human-environment interactions and the role of fire in shaping ancient landscapes

Sylvester Musyoka is a 2025 Baldwin Fellow who uses fossil antelope teeth to learn how past environments influenced human evolution.