From the Field: Dorothée Drucker
My work takes place in the lab where bone samples are prepared for isotopic analysis. To reconstruct diet, carbon-13 and nitrogen-15 are measured to establish the origin of the dietary proteins. Collagen, the main protein in bone, is extracted from the bone sample after several steps of cleaning and purification.
Feeding Transitions in Wild Infant Chimpanzees
Iulia Badescu was awarded a Leakey Foundation Research Grant during our spring 2015 cycle for her project entitled "Investigating the infant nutritional development of wild chimpanzees." She was recently published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, and she was kind enough to summarize the article for our Leakey Foundation Blog.
Upper Paleolithic Dietary Strategies
When fluctuating climates in the Ice Age altered habitats, modern humans may have adapted their diets in a different way than Neanderthals, according to a study funded in part by The Leakey Foundation and published on April 27, 2016, in the open-access journal PLOS ONE .
Fossilized human molar used in a study of dietary habits of Neanderthals and Upper<br>
Grantee Spotlight: Julie Lesnik
Julie Lesnik was awarded a Leakey Foundation Research Grant during our fall 2015 cycle for her project entitled "An evaluation of termite-associated hydrocarbon signatures as an influence on prey selectivity and an ecological signal for chimpanzees and Olduvai hominins."
Grantee Spotlight: Dorothée Drucker
Dorothée Drucker was awarded a Leakey Foundation Research Grant during our fall 2015 cycle for her project entitled "Isotopes, diet and human adaptation in a Mediterranean context."