AnthroQuest
no. 37 Spring/Summer 2018
The Newsletter of The Leakey Foundation
Well-Timed Pebbles Make Big Ripples
NINA JABLONSKI LEAKEY FOUNDATION GRANTEE, PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY I received my first Leakey Foundation grant in 1978, at age 25. I was a graduate student at the University of Washington and needed money to travel to Hong Kong to study rare cadaver specimens of Ethiopian gelada baboons held in the collections of the Department of Anatomy at the University of Hong Kong. I won’t go into the long story of how dead geladas got to Hong Kong, but the fact remained that I needed to dissect this extraordinary collection so that I could better understand the chewing abilities and evolutionary history of all Theropithecus baboons. I applied to The Leakey Foundation and received a then generous grant of $1,615, enough to get me to Hong Kong and change my world. While in Hong Kong, I completed the collection of data for my dissertation and graduated with my Ph.D. in 1981. Much of my dissertation research and the results of wonderful studies by numerous distinguished colleagues were eventually included in what most people know simply as “the Theropithecus book,” published in 1993. That 1978 trip to Hong Kong turned out to be important in other
Celebrating 50 years of exploration, discovery, and sharing our human story.
Nina Jablonski examines fossils in the Yunnan Province, China.
ways because – as a small treat to myself after completing my research work – I made my first trip to China. I was smitten. In 1981, I was offered and accepted a job at the University of Hong Kong in the same department as my precious geladas. After beginning the study of Mandarin Chinese, I settled down in Hong Kong for what were to be nine eventful years of life and research. My research in China was focused primarily on understanding the evolution of Old World monkeys there, including what was then the virtually unknown snub-nosed
INSIDE Awarded Grants: Fall 2017
pages 4 & 5
monkeys of China, some of which live at high altitude under extreme cold. This research opened new vistas into the study of the living “odd-nosed” colobine monkeys. It also led me to highly productive paleontological fieldwork at many sites throughout Yunnan Province, conducted primarily in collaboration with Ji Xueping of the Yunnan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology. This work uncovered many primate and other fossils and shed light on how Asian primates adapted to rapid and dramatic environmental change over the last seven million years. [continued on page 3]
Director’s Diary: Austin, Texas pages 6 & 7
New Programs and Partnerships pages 8 & 9
BOARD OF TRUSTEES Gordon P. Getty Chairman Camilla M. Smith President Nina L. Carroll Alice Corning Don Dana Carolyn Farris J. Michael Gallagher Duggan Jensen Mark Jordan Chester T. Kamin Matthew Kaser Julie M. LaNasa Jorge Leis Anne Maggioncalda Diana McSherry Jeanne Newman William P. Richards, Jr. Naoma Tate Cole Thomson Spencer Wells
SCIENTIFIC EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Dr. John Fleagle Chairman Dr. Alexander Harcourt Baldwin Advisor Dr. Brenda Bradley Dr. Craig Feibel Dr. Kristin Hawkes Dr. Nina Jablonski Dr. Richard Klein Dr. Steven Kuhn Dr. Meave Leakey Dr. Daniel Lieberman Dr. John Mitani Dr. Martin Muller Dr. Tom Plummer Dr. Robert Seyfarth Dr. Joan Silk Dr. Anne Stone Dr. Carol Ward
STAFF Sharal Camisa
Executive Director
Kristin Berger
Development Director
H. Gregory
Program Engagement Officer
Arielle Johnson
Outreach Coordinator
Meredith Johnson
Communications Director
Jenine Marquez Office Manager
Paddy Moore Grants Officer
Rachel Roberts
Finance Manager
Letter from the President:
50 Years of “Discovering Us”
T
here is no more interesting question than “What is it to be human?” The Leakey Foundation has spent the last 50 years answering that question with scientific rigor, and we are not done yet. Fifty years ago, Louis Leakey met with friends and explained the need to fund new research. He knew that the search for our origins would take generations of researchers working at sites around the world. The Leakey Foundation was started to raise money for these new projects. The Foundation has since funded more than 2,500 grants to scientists to do work in 110 countries. As an entrepreneurial foundation, we have focused on funding cutting-edge research. Many of our grantees are PhD candidates or post-docs, and a Leakey CaptionFoundation grant is the first grant they receive. We are not afraid to take a chance on a promising young scholar or an exciting new research site. These scientists have made major discoveries from new hominin fossils and tools, to previously unknown behavior, to hormonal and DNA findings. Seven of our first 10 grantees were women. These early grant recipients include Jane Goodall, Mary Leakey, and Dian Fossey. We are proud to be a leader in supporting women in science. Over the past three years, 71% of our research grants have gone to women.
Camilla Smith at The Leakey Foundation’s 50th Anniversary Gala
Through our Baldwin Fellowships, the Foundation has made it possible for scholars from over 30 countries to earn advanced degrees abroad and become leaders in their home countries. With our national lecture series, multiple social media channels and robust website, we offer platforms for eminent scientists to share new discoveries with a global audience, including our podcast Origin Stories, which is listened to in 155 countries. Leakey Foundation scientists are discovering who we are, how we differ, and what we share in common with our extinct fossil ancestors and our closest living relatives, the great apes. Over the next 50 years and beyond, with your support, The Leakey Foundation will continue to advance human origins research and educational outreach.
Camilla Smith President, The Leakey Foundation
Well-Timed Pebbles Make Big Ripples (continued from front page) This work simply could not have been undertaken at all without Leakey Foundation support. Grants from The Leakey Foundation made all the difference in starting and sustaining my research programs. Without them, I would not have had a career. Working simultaneously in Africa and East Asia afforded me wonderful opportunities. In 2000, I embarked on collaborative work with Meave Leakey on the description of the monkey fossils from Koobi Fora. The collection was an absolute treasure trove of beautiful fossils collected over thirty years, and the results of our study were published in the Koobi Fora Research Project book series in 2008. I am not a singular evolutionary event. This story is a shared story. I represent a small but mighty population of people whose careers have been ignited and sustained by Leakey Foundation support, and whose research has shed light on previously opaque mysteries of human and primate evolution.
These are scientists who received their grants early in their careers and at critical junctures. For me and for them, this process led to the creation of new knowledge and the fundamental transformation of our ideas about human and primate evolution and prehistory. The list reads like a “Who’s Who” of anthropology and evolutionary biology.
The substantial bodies of research that Jane Goodall and other Leakey Foundation grantees have created have changed how we think of our place in nature and of the human condition in general.
Since its inception in 1968, The Leakey Foundation has not only transformed lives and careers, it has substantially transformed whole fields: paleoanthropology, paleolithic archaeology, primatology, and huntergatherer ecology.
Together, it is time to start our next 50 years. Let’s go!
And beyond that, the effects of The Leakey Foundation in kindling public interest in human evolution and primate behavior have been incalculable. The names of onceobscure paleontological sites like Olduvai Gorge have become familiar, as have the primate reserves of Gombe and Amboseli.
Many of you reading this newsletter have made possible this remarkably impactful half-century of philanthropy.
Nina Jablonksi is Evan Pugh Professor of Anthropology at Pennsylvania State University and the recipient of five Leakey Foundation research grants. She is the author of several books and more than 135 research papers. Her most recent book is The Skin We’re In. She joined The Leakey Foundation’s Scientific Executive Committee in 2016.
Researchers who have received five or more Leakey Foundation grants
Page 3
Awarded Grants Fall 2017 Behavioral Sharon Gursky recording Tarsier vocalizations.
Sharon Gursky, Texas A&M University: The function of ultrasonic vocalizations in spectral tarsiers Duna Susie Lee, New York University: The role of testosterone in the modulation of parental behaviors in female rhesus macaques Brendan Barrett conducting research in Costa Rica.
Brendan Barrett, University of California Davis: Stone tool use & taxonomic status of Coiba Archipelago capuchins Leveda Cheng, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology: Behavioural and endocrinological correlates of intergroup encounters in bonobos Alba García de la Chica, University of Barcelona: Behavioral, hormonal and life-history correlates of pairbonding in owl monkeys
Elizabeth Mallott, Northwestern University: Response of primate gut microbiome function to increased faunivory Caroline Schuppli, University of Zürich: Orangutan mothers’ adaptive strategies to make their infants develop fast Meagan Vakiener, The George Washington University: Weaned age in gorillas using trace element distributions in teeth Melissa Wilson Sayres, Arizona State University: Quantifying the variation and heritability of X-inactivation
Read more about Leakey Foundation grantees at: leakeyfoundation.org/blog
Paleoanthropology James Blinkhorn, University of Liverpool: The Late Acheulean to Middle Palaeolithic transition in South Asia Breanne Clifton, University of Connecticut: Using phytoliths to reconstruct hominin adaptations and microhabitats during the Acheulian-MSA transition in the Kapthurin Formation, Kenya Dylan Gaffney, University of Cambridge: The initial colonisation of insular rainforests by archaic and modern hominins Christopher Gilbert, Hunter College, City University of New York: Primate evolution, chronology, and biogeography in the Indian Lower Siwaliks Kevin Hatala, Chatham University: Paleoecological investigation of 1.5 Ma footprint sites near Nariokotome, Kenya Hannah Hilbert-Wolf, James Cook University: Dating hominin fossils in the East African Rift, Malawi Tania King, University College London: Neanderthal occupation of the southern Caucasus: Chronological and biogeographic framework
Christopher Gilbert in the field at Ramnagar.
Sileshi Semaw, CENIEH: Gona Palaeoanthropological Research Project Frido Welker, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology: Towards complex Pleistocene hominin proteomes using multiple proteases
Amanda Leiss, Yale University: Paleoenvironmental context of ESA archaeology: An analysis of Gona fauna Fredrick Manthi, National Museums of Kenya*: Investigations of Middle Pleistocene sites in Natodomeri, northwestern Kenya Laurent Marivaux, Institut des Sciences de l’Evolution de Montpellier (ISEM): Oligocene and Miocene platyrrhine primates from Tarapoto, Peruvian Amazonia Steffen Mischke, University of Iceland: Environment of early hominins outside of Africa: The Nihewan Basin Jonathan Reeves, The George Washington University: Movement ecology and Pleistocene hominin land-use: Perspectives from Koobi Fora
Getty Grant Recipient Fredrick Manthi at work in Kenya.
*Recipient of the 2017 Gordon Getty Grant for Multidisciplinary Research Page 5
Director’s Diary: 50th Anniversary Kickoff
A gathering of Leakey Foundation supporters hosted by Holly Morse and Spencer Wells.
Unsolicited gratitude was volunteered countless times when The Leakey Foundation staff attended the April 2018 American Association of Physical Anthropologists (AAPA) annual meeting in Austin, Texas. The meeting was attended by more than 2,000 scientists, including many who were funded by, and inspired by, The Leakey Foundation. One professor walked with purpose to the Foundation’s information booth and stated, “I am who I am, because of funding from The Leakey Foundation.” A young scholar who was completing her master’s degree explained that she decided on the trajectory of her research career after listening to our Origin Stories podcast episode on “grandmothering,” featuring Kristen Hawkes. A Leakey Foundation grantee who was asked to sign anniversary posters (one to archive and one to auction) said, “Signing this is like making a commitment to do something amazing.”
Signing a poster for The Leakey Foundation Archive. Page 6
The power of these words was not lost on me… nor was the impact of seeing our logo
Grantee Stephanie Bogart presenting a poster on her research on snare usage in Senegal.
and acknowledgment of our support printed on numerous academic posters and projected on screens during presentations. Our time in Austin served as the official kickoff to our 50th anniversary festivities, and there could have been no better hosts for this milestone than Leakey Foundation trustee Spencer Wells and Holly Morse. On Thursday, they hosted a sunset reception on their pool terrace. We were joined by Dr. Lee Berger and Dr. Jill Pruetz for an intellectually stimulating conversation about their research, the importance of funding science, and what it means to be human. This type of intimate “salon” is the perfect environment to facilitate a behind-the-scenes experience for Leakey Foundation supporters. The following night, Southern hospitality was amplified (literally) at Antone’s Nightclub (co-owned by Wells) where he hosted our 50th birthday party… complete with free drinks, cupcakes, and a fun photo booth. This was an evening to celebrate with the scientific community, and a good time was had by all! Country music was piped into the private party space from a live performance downstairs, and there was a raffle for an original 1981 poster from a Foundation symposium featuring Dian Fossey, Birute Galdikas, Jane Goodall, and Don Johanson.
SHARAL CAMISA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
in Austin, Texas
Clockwise from left: Sharal Camisa, Kristin Berger, Spencer Wells, Paddy Moore, H. Gregory, Meredith Johnson and <<CAPTION Arielle Johnson in the photo booth at the 50th birthday party.
Trustee Spencer Wells welcoming the guests to the celebration at Antone’s Nightclub.
The party was truly a night to be remembered. As one grantee exclaimed… “The Leakey Foundation puts the “fun” in funding.” During our time at the AAPA conference, the Foundation was a resource to attendees. The Leakey Foundation’s Grants Officer Paddy Moore and Grantee Engagement Officer H. Gregory offered “Office Hours” at our booth for potential grant applicants to ask about the application process and learn which topics are in purview. Current and past grantees were given information about opportunities to write for our blog or provide content about their research for our social media channels. Ms. Moore and Mr. Gregory also participated in a special panel discussion titled, “Career Development: How to Get Funding in Anthropology” where they, along with representatives from the National Science Foundation and Wenner Gren Foundation, provided advice and answered questions about preparing a grant application. The Leakey Foundation’s commitment to early career development was prioritized at this professional conference; we believe this investment in researchers will provide great rewards as we begin the next chapter of The Leakey Foundation’s story. On behalf of The Leakey Foundation, I offer my sincere gratitude to all of you who fuel our work with your generous support, and to those who conduct rigorous research and contribute to our understanding of the human story.
Leakey Foundation grantees Chalachew Seyoum (l) and Hailey Reda (r) in our greenscreen photo booth at the AAPA meeting.
In the next issue – Director’s Diary: 50th Anniversary Gala
Thank you! Page 7
New Programs & Partnerships
MEREDITH JOHNSON COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR
The Leakey Foundation is pleased to announce two new grant programs which will expand paleoanthropology research in Asia and provide emergency funding for long-term primate research sites around the world.
Baldwin Fellowships Funded by the National Geographic Society The Leakey Foundation has partnered with the National Geographic Society to provide funding for paleoanthropology students from South, Southeast, and East Asia. This partnership expands The Leakey Foundation’s Franklin Mosher Baldwin Memorial Fellowship program, which was established in 1978 to help students from developing countries get advanced education and training in paleoanthropology and primatology. “We are pleased to partner with the National Geographic Society to expand the reach of our Baldwin Fellowship program and to build educational capacity in Asia,” said Sharal Camisa, executive director of The Leakey Foundation. “It is thrilling to imagine the young scholars who will use these funds to launch their careers and make great discoveries to advance our understanding of human origins in Asia.” The first recipient of this award is Somoh Duangthongchit who has a bachelor of archaeology and cultural resource management degree from the National University of Laos and will be pursuing a master’s degree in the Quaternary Prehistory Program at the Museum of Natural History in Paris. Mr. Duangthongchit plans to develop research projects in paleoanthropology, prehistory, and archaeology in his home country Laos. He also wants to teach local people about the importance of Laotian prehistory in order to reduce the looting and destruction of archaeological sites. Page 8
Somoh Duangthongchit cleaning artifacts in the lab.
“When I learned that The Leakey Foundation and National Geographic were launching a fellowship program specifically for Southeast Asia, I immediately took the chance to apply. I have been waiting for such an opportunity for many years, and I was so excited and happy when I got the positive response... I knew that my career would get a new start.” - Somoh Duangthongchit Applications are open for scholars from Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Macau, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam.
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O e r f t
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These wild Gelada baboons (Theropithecus gelada) live in the Simien mountains in Ethiopia. They are part of the Guassa Gelada Research project, which received $25,000 in emergency funding from The Leakey Foundationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Primate Research Fund.
Primate Research Fund Our Primate Research Fund provides up to $25,000 in emergency funding to help keep long-term primate field research sites operational when there is a gap in funding from other sources or when they face an emergency that threatens the continuous collection of data. Because disaster can strike at any time, applications are open year-round so The Leakey Foundation can give help when it is most needed.
We are proud to announce the first four recipients of our Primate Research Fund grants: The Guassa Gelada Research Project in Ethiopia, LuiKotale Research Site in Democratic Republic of Congo, the Simien Mountains Gelada Research Project in Ethiopia, and Suaq Balimbing in Indonesia.
Learn more about our new programs at: leakeyfoundation.org/grants Page 9
Duggan Jensen and Jorge Leis Join Board of Trustees
MEREDITH JOHNSON
COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR
the Americas. He has worked extensively in the oil and gas industry across a broad array of industry segments, including oil field services and equipment, exploration and production, refining, marketing and retail. Dr. Leis earned a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He is a graduate of Arizona State University where he received a BS in engineering.
Duggan Jensen
The Leakey Foundation is pleased to welcome two new members to its Board of Trustees. Duggan Jensen and Jorge Leis were formally elected to the board in May 2018. Duggan Jensen has worked at hedge funds throughout his career in a variety of roles, primarily as an analyst and portfolio manager and as a director of research.
“I am thrilled to be joining the Board of Trustees of The Leakey Foundation,” said Leis. “For as long as I can remember I have been captivated by human evolution. At one point I even considered myself an amateur paleoanthropologist. Being part of The Leakey Foundation will allow me to feed one of my passions and help nurture science – an endeavor of unequal importance in today’s society.”
He received his MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School in 2007, and he graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University with a bachelor’s degree in Biological Anthropology in 2001. “I feel honored and humbled to have the opportunity to work with such a wonderful and intellectually esteemed organization as The Leakey Foundation,” said Jensen. “The best way to improve our own lives and those of our children and grandchildren is to better understand ourselves, and studying our past helps us to do this. Similarly, this knowledge, if shared only among a small number of people, does far less good than if shared as widely as possible, so the mission of public education is incredibly important.” Jorge Leis has been involved with The Leakey Foundation as a Fellow since 2014. He became a Fellow after attending a Leakey Foundation lecture in Houston, Texas, with his wife Ann. Dr. Leis is a partner in Bain & Company’s Houston office where he leads their oil and gas practice in Page 10
Ann and Jorge Leis
Leakey Foundation Podcast Wins International Audio Festival We are happy to announce that The Leakey Foundation’s Origin Stories podcast has won the 22nd annual Prix Marulić International Audio Festival in the documentary category for “What They Left Behind” by producer Neil Sandell, editor Julia Barton, and executive producer Meredith Johnson. “What They Left Behind” is an audio documentary about renowned French prehistorian Jean Clottes. Clottes is a Leakey Foundation grantee who has spent decades studying the famous painted caves of Ice Age Europe, and other prehistoric art around the world. His work has challenged popular assumptions about prehistoric art and how it evolved. Sandell’s documentary explores the search for the meanings behind prehistoric art, and what it reveals about the people who made it. Sandell said, “I set out to make a piece that conjured a sense of wonder. I wanted the piece to work on two levels: as explanatory journalism and as a personal portrait. Jean Clottes has led a fascinating life, and I wanted the listener to connect with him emotionally.” “This documentary is an example of sincere and pure simplicity, giving an impression of humility towards the subject and the ancient cave art,” said Petar Vujačić, jury coordinator of the 22nd annual Prix Marulić. “Minute details within the flow of the narrative create a picture of a man and depict this out-of-time art with a force of conviction which has left us breathless.” Sandell was honored at an award ceremony which took place in Hvar, Croatia, on May 24. “The winning programs in Origin Stories has reached over 350,000 listeners around the world. The podcast is sponsored by Dixon Long, Jeanne Newman, and Camilla Smith. “What They Left Behind” was made possible by generous support from Jean and Ray Auel, Sharal Camisa, Dennis Fenwick and Martha Lewis, Victoria and Barry Fong, Jeanne Newman, Sharon Metzler-Dow, and Lisa and Bill Wirthlin.
Jean Clottes (left) and Neil Sandell outside of Niaux Cave.
radio documentary competitions tend to be about heavy subjects – violence and injustice, loss and struggle and human frailty,” said Sandell. “These programs are important to make, and I’ve made a few myself. A quiet program like ‘What They Left Behind’ usually doesn’t get noticed. I am thrilled that the Prix Marulić jury rewarded a quiet story, a science story, a story whose secret sauce is a sense of wonder.”
Listen and subscribe at: leakeyfoundation.org/ originstories
The third season of Origin Stories will begin in fall 2018. Page 11
From the Archive: The Joan Travis Collection
MEREDITH JOHNSON COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR
From left: Joan Travis, Louis Leakey, a Disney hostess, Helen O’Brien, Allen O’Brien and Mary Leakey near “Tomorrowland” at Disneyland. Photo from the Joan Travis Collection of The Leakey Foundation Archive.
Joan Travis met Louis Leakey in 1965 when he came to Los Angeles for a lecture tour. He had scheduled a meeting with her father-in-law to discuss funding for an archaeological dig. When he became ill and was unable to pick Dr. Leakey up at the airport, Joan Travis went instead. From that day, Louis Leakey became a beloved friend of Joan and her entire family. They struck up a correspondence, and she was drawn into the exciting world of paleoanthropology. In 1968, Leakey wrote to tell her that Allen O’Brien had decided to form a foundation to support his work and he asked if she would serve on the founding board. That request changed the course of Joan Travis’ life – and she carefully documented everything. Joan served as a trustee and vice-president of the board of trustees. She served as secretary and treasurer and chair of the lecture committee where she once organized 70 lectures in 25 cities in one year! Page 12
Sonia Cole, in her book Leakey’s Luck, describes Joan Travis as “the godmother of The Leakey Foundation... the one who has probably put most into it by way of work and drive.” Travis’ passion for the science, her ability to make personal connections with researchers, and her superb organizational skills shaped The Leakey Foundation and helped make it the thriving nonprofit it is today. In 2017, Joan Travis donated thousands of photographs and papers documenting the first decades of The Leakey Foundation and the burgeoning science of human origins. The Leakey Foundation’s Executive Director, Sharal Camisa, and Archive Manager, Jenine Marquez, traveled to Joan’s Los Angeles home to manage the digitization process which was completed at UCLA and generously funded by Leakey Foundation trustee Carolyn Farris.
A scan from page two of the twelve page press release announcing the “L.S.B. Leakey Foundation for Research Related to Man’s Origins” with handwritten copyedits by Louis Leakey. From the Joan Travis Collection of The Leakey Foundation Archive.
“The Joan Travis Collection of The Leakey Foundation Archive” includes hundreds of photographs of historic figures at work and at play, including a series of photos of the day Joan and her fellow Leakey Foundation founders Allen and Helen O’Brien visited Disneyland with the Leakeys. It also contains personal correspondence with famous scientists, including Louis and Mary Leakey, Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall. Some letters document historic events and some document wonderful moments shared between friends. One of my favorites in this category is Joan’s correspondence with Ashley Montagu, author of The Elephant Man. He stayed with the Travis family while he was giving Leakey Foundation lectures in the early 1970s. He and Joan shared a love of stamp collecting, and he sent her a selection of his “unpublished limericks” as an apology for accidentally setting fire to the stamps he had saved to give her. The archive tells the origin story of The Leakey Foundation through Joan’s meticulous documentation of its’ early years. She was there from the beginning, and she kept records of the fascinating process of building an organization dedicated to answering the big questions about what it means to be human.
One example which illustrates this is a thick folder containing multiple drafts of the press release that introduced the “L.S.B. Leakey Foundation for Research Related to Man’s Origins” to the world. Joan Travis typed and saved each successive draft, along with handwritten edits from each founding board member and finally from Louis Leakey himself, shown in the image above. The carefully considered and well-crafted words in this document inspire the way we still talk about the Foundation today. The final paragraph of the document reads, “There is more to prehistoric archaeology than bones and stones. It is an exciting human adventure in the making. The Leakey Foundation invites you to share in the ongoing quest to explore man’s beginnings.” We will be forever grateful to Joan Travis for her work and for donating her collection. Her archive is currently being cataloged by Jenine Marquez and volunteers Yuka Oiwa and Jo Rogers as part of the process of making the Foundation’s archive available to researchers online.
Want to see more from our archive? Check out our monthly “From the Archive” series at: leakeyfoundation.org/blog
Craig Feibel Joins the SEC The Leakey Foundation would not be able to accomplish its mission without the generous volunteer service of our Scientific Executive Committee (SEC). This interdisciplinary group of scientists provides our Board of Trustees with recommendations on grant funding as well as guidance for our outreach and educational programs. We are pleased to announce that Dr. Craig Feibel has joined our organization to provide his expertise as a geologist. “Like so many of my colleagues, I was fortunate enough to receive encouragement and support from the Foundation early in my career,” said Feibel. “That gives me a real appreciation of how significant The Leakey Foundation has been to the field. It’s great to be able to participate in the process, and to help promote the next steps in human origins research.” Dr. Feibel is professor of geology and anthropology and chair of the Department of Anthropology at Rutgers University where he runs the Paleoenvironmental Research Laboratory. Feibel’s research focuses on the investigation of the geological context for evolution. His primary research area is the Turkana Basin of Kenya, where he has worked for over thirty years in association with the National Museums of Kenya and the Turkana Basin Institute. His work there involves stratigraphy, sedimentology and paleontology in order to establish a geologic framework and
an environmental backdrop to the archaeological record for which that region is so famous. Since 2013, he has led a coring effort in West Turkana as part of the Hominin Sites and Paleolakes Drilling Project (HSPDP). This endeavor recovered sediments spanning two million to 1.4 million years ago. The project is intended to provide a dataset that can be directly linked to sites which have yielded important evidence for early human evolution and cultural development.
Grantee Spotlight: David Samson LEAKEY FOUNDATION GRANTEE, UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO, MISSISSAUGA
My research investigates the biology, ecology, and evolution of primate sleep. I believe the effects of sleep on our lineage were profound. For example, in humans, sleep is critical for immune strength, working memory, attention, decision-making, and visual-motor performance, yet how sleep affects such processes remains unknown for most non-human primates.
Humans are a remarkable species. We live in large social networks, persist in inhospitable places, fashion complex tools, and communicate using language. While we exhibit many differences to other primates – our cognitive capacity likely played a crucial role in our success. Page 14
To investigate this research question, I use pioneering, non-invasive technology to study human and non-human primates with a broad phylogenetic scope. In addition, I engage with the emerging field of evolutionary medicine by using my findings to understand human sleep disorders within an evolutionary framework. The ultimate goal of my research is to further our understanding of human evolution.
“The Leakey Foundation has supported not only thousands of research projects but also education, training, and outreach. All of these are important steps in improving our understanding of the past and future of humanity. Anyone with a genuine interest in the well-being of people sharing this planet should support the work of The Leakey Foundation” -Deming Yang Stony Brook University
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ALL 50th ANNIVERSARY DONATIONS WILL BE DOUBLED! leakeyfoundation.org/donate Page 15
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EVENTS AND PROGRAMS 09/27 09/29
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HOUSTON
CHICAGO
SAN FRANCISCO
Lecture – 9/27 Children’s book event – 9/29
Lecture – 11/8 Film screening – 11/9
Lecture – 12/4
Nina Jablonski
John Mitani
Craig Stanford
New season coming soon!
PODCAST
Origin Stories
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See all of The Leakey Foundation’s upcoming events at leakeyfoundation.org/events