Louis Leakey

Infobox Scientist
name = Louis Leakey
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caption = Louis Leakey examining skulls from Olduvai Gorge
birth_date = August 7, 1903
birth_place = Kenya
death_date = October 1, 1972
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nationality = Kenyan
ethnicity =
field = archaeologist
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known_for = human evolutionary development in Africa
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Louis Seymour Bazett Leakey (L.S.B. Leakey) (August 7, 1903 – October 1, 1972) was a Kenyan archaeologist and naturalist whose work was important in establishing human evolutionary development in Africa. He also played a major role in creating organizations for future research in Africa and for protecting wildlife there. Having been a prime mover in establishing a tradition of palaeoanthropological inquiry, he was able to motivate the next generation to continue it, notably within his own family, many of whom also became prominent. Louis participated in national events of British East Africa and then Kenya in critical if less spectacular ways.

In natural philosophy he asserted Charles Darwin's theory of evolution unswervingly and set about to prove Darwin's hypothesis that man arose in Africa. A religious man and a Christian, he said:

White African

Louis and Mary spent all the time they could at Olduvai, starting in 1951. So far they had discovered only tools. A trial trench in Bed II at BK in 1951 was followed by a more extensive excavation in 1952. They found what Louis termed an Olduwan "slaughter-house", an ancient bog where animals had been trapped and butchered. Louis was so carried away that he worked without his hat and his hair was bleached white from the sun. They stopped in 1953.

In 1955 they excavated again with Jean Brown. She related that he preferred to be called Louis, was absent-minded, once had everyone looking for spectacles that were around his neck, wore pants with the buttons off and shoes with holes in them, charged about everywhere and once collapsed unconscious. He was completely happy. [This Olduvai period, including Jean's description of Louis, is from Morell, Chapter 12, "Our Man."]

In 1959 they decided to excavate Bed I. While Louis was sick in camp, Mary discovered Zinjanthropus at FLK, which Mary called "Our Man", and became "Dear Boy" and "Zinj." The question was whether it was a previous genus discovered by Robert Broom, Paranthropus, which Broom had taken not to be in the human line, or a different one, in it. Louis opted for Zinj, a decision opposed by Wilfrid Le Gros Clark, but one which attracted the attention of Melville Bell Grosvenor, president of the National Geographic Society. That contact resulted in an article in "National Geographic" [September, 1960, "Finding the World's Earliest Man".] and a hefty grant to continue work at Olduvai.

Also in 1960 Jack Evernden and Garniss Curtis, young geophysicists, dated Bed I to 1.75 mya. The world was stunned. Zinj was far older than anyone had imagined. Scientists swarmed to Africa. Reck and Louis were completely vindicated, too late for Reck, who had died in 1937. Louis had proved Darwin right. [The material on Zinjanthropus and the dating of Bed I is from Morell, Chapter 13, "Fame, Fortune and Zinj."]

The Leakey circus

In 1960, unable to leave the museum except on weekends, Louis appointed Mary director of excavation at Olduvai. She brought in a staff of Kamba tribesmen, instead of Kikuyu, who, she felt, took advantage of Louis. The first, Muteva Musomba, had kept her children's ponies. He recruited Kamoya Kimeu among others. Mary set up Camp 5 under Jonathan's direction. He was 19. From then on she had her own staff and associates.

Mary picked and sieved at the site from early morning dressed in old clothes, chain smoking cigarettes, always surrounded by her Dalmatian dogs. She and Louis communicated by radio. On weekends he drove non-stop at high speed the 357 miles between Olduvai and Nairobi. The teen-age boys, Richard and Philip, were on site holidays and vacations. Louis invited them and Irven DeVore to eat a raw rat so that he could compare the result to some Hominid coprolites. He said to DeVore, "My dear boy, let me make you famous." DeVore and the boys demurred. [The anecdote about the rat is given in Morell, Chapter 14, Note 8.]

Their home in Nairobi was a circus, figuratively speaking, when they were there. Dinner guests were frequent. Important guests stayed for weeks if they could stand it. They shared the quarters and the dinner table with the Dalmatians, hyraxes, a monkey, a civet cat, an African eagle owl, tropical fish, rattlesnakes, vipers and a python. The extended families of twenty African staff lived in cinderblock huts in the yard. Mary had switched to cigars and the ashes often fell into the food. Both Louis and Mary cooked. Louis never stopped talking; his stories were endless. [This section is based on Morell, Chapter 5, "Mary's Dig." There was another side to the Leakey family, written about by Morell in Chapter 17, "Chimpanzees and Other Loves". Louis was a notorious womanizer. He was faithful neither to Frida nor to Mary. Mary tolerated this behavior well until his relationship with Rosalie Osborn, 1954/55, threatened to break up her marriage. The two fought constantly, upsetting the boys. After Richard nearly died in a fall from a horse, Louis broke with Rosalie for the sake of the boys. In 1960 Louis and Mary were especially close, which lasted until the arrival of Vanne Goodall.] He literally ran through the day, making long lists of things to be done, which he never completed. He drove recklessly through the streets of Nairobi, often reading and writing as he drove.

Floruit

Jonathan achieved some brief fame before he quit palaeoanthropology altogether. He started his own site, "Jonny's site" in the Leakey lingo, FLK-NN. There he discovered two skull fragments without the Australopithecine sagittal crest, which Mary connected with Broom's and Robinson's Telanthropus. The problem with it was its contemporaneity with Zinj. Mailed photographs, Le Gros Clark retorted casually "Shades of Piltdown." Louis cabled him immediately and had some strong words at this suggestion of his incompetence. Clark apologized. [Morell, Chapter 14, "Mary's Dig."]

Not long after in 1960 Louis, his son Philip and Ray Pickering discovered a fossil he termed "Chellean Man", as it was in context with Olduwan tools, the first such find. After reconstruction Louis and Mary called it "Pinhead." It was subsequently included with Homo erectus and was in fact contemporaneous with Paranthropus, which on that account cannot have been in the human line. For many years Louis believed erectus was the user of the tools and Australopithecus was not, (It is now conceded that both Hominids used them).

In 1961 Louis got a salary as well as a grant from National Geographic and turned over the acting directorship of Coryndon to a subordinate. He created the Centre for Prehistory and Paleontology on the same grounds, moved his collections to it, and appointed himself director. This was his new operations center. He opened another excavation at Fort Ternan on Lake Victoria. Shortly after, Heselon discovered Kenyapithecus wickeri, the species name from the owner of the property, which Louis promptly celebrated with George Gaylord Simpson, who happened to be present, aboard the "Miocene Lady" with Leakey Safari Specials, a drink made of condensed milk and cognac.

In 1962 Louis was visiting Olduvai when Ndibo Mbuika discovered the first tooth of Homo habilis at MNK. Louis and Mary thought it was female and named her Cinderella, or Cindy. Phillip Tobias identified Jonny's Child with it and Raymond Dart came up with the name Homo habilis at Louis' request, which Tobias translated as "handyman." [Morell Chapter 16, "The Human with Ability." Richard Leakey tells a different story about the name. See in the "Notes" section of Homo habilis.] It was seen as intermediary between gracile Australopithecus and Homo. [These few paragraphs rely on Morell, Chapter 16, "The Human with Ability."]

Leakey's Angels

One of Louis's greatest legacies stems from his role in fostering field research of primates in their natural habitats, which he understood as key to unraveling the mysteries of human evolution. He personally chose three female researchers, Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birute Galdikas, who were later dubbed 'Leakey's Angels' and each went on to become important scholars in the field of primatology.

The last years

Kenya became independent at 12:00 p.m. on December 12, 1963, with Jomo Kenyatta as the first prime minister. The settlers were already leaving the country in large numbers. Kenyatta saw that he had to act swiftly to prevent a descent into chaos. He took a conciliatory view. There were a few deportations, but no reprisals. Louis had felt considerable trepidation about the future of palaeoanthropology in Kenya. A meeting was arranged between him and Jomo at the suggestion of the last colonial governor, Malcom MacDonald. He was introduced by his old friend, Peter Koinange. They spoke in Kikuyu. The meeting ended with an embrace and reassurances. [Morell, Chaper 19, "A Girl for the Gorillas."]

During his final years Louis became famous as a lecturer in the United States and United Kingdom. He brought audiences cheering to their feet. He did not personally excavate any longer, as he was crippled with arthritis, for which he had a hip replacement in 1968. He raised funds and directed his family and associates. In Kenya he was an indispensable facilitator for the hundreds of scientists then exploring the East African Rift system for fossils. Without his say-so, permits could not be obtained and access to museum collections was denied. Once he gave permission, his advice was invaluable.

In 1963 he helped Ruth De Ette get started at a site in the Calico Hills of the Mojave Desert in California. The date then accepted for the arrival of humans in the Americas was about 12,000 BCE. On the basis of the time required for the evolution and distribution of native American languages, Louis hypothesized that the arrival must have been thousands of years previously. He encouraged Ruth to view the apparent artifacts she was finding as older than 100,000 years.

Mary did not share his visionary view. She was increasingly disrespectful, viewing him as incompetent, from 1963 on. The old intimacy was gone. Her professional opposition began over Calico Man. Under the rationale of trying to stop Louis from making a mistake that would tarnish his reputation, she persuaded the National Geographic Society to refrain from publishing Calico and pull funding from the project, but Louis found other means. On March 26, 1968, Alan and Helen O'Brien of Newport Beach, California, and some prominent Californians formed the Leakey Foundation. When Louis stayed with them when he was in California, the O'Briens noticed that he was very much underpaid on the lecture circuit. From then on Louis worked with them in fund-raising.

Mary's opposition soon turned into a major schism in the palaeoanthropological village. For example, in 1968 Louis refused an honorary doctorate from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, primarily because of apartheid in South Africa. Mary accepted one. Now it was Louis' turn to be concerned about her reputation. The two still cared about each other, but were apart and conducted different professional lives. [ Morell Chapter 23, "Mining Hominids at Olduvai."]

In the last few years Louis' health began to fail more seriously. He had his first heart attacks and spent six months in the hospital. An empathy over health brought him and Dian Fossey together for a brief romance, which she broke off. Richard began to assume more and more of his father's responsibilities, which Louis resisted, but in the end was forced to accept. Everything bad seemed to happen to him in a run of unfortunate luck: he had more heart problems, he was swarmed by bees and nearly killed, he had a stroke, he was involved in controversy over Calico man, and he had to brook Mary's opposition. One good thing that happened is that he found increasing support and comfort in his friend, Vanne Goodall (mother of Jane Goodall), whose London apartment Louis visited when he could. [These details and many more can be found in Morell, Chapters 27-30.]

Death and legacy

Passing

On October 1, 1972, Louis was stricken with a heart attack in Vanne Goodall's apartment in London. Vanne sat up all night with him in St. Stephen's Hospital and left at 9:00 a.m. He died at 9:30. He was 69.

Mary wanted to cremate Louis and fly the ashes back to Nairobi. Richard intervened. As Louis was a Kikuyu, he ought to be buried in Kikuyuland. He was flown home and interred at Limuru near the graves of his parents.

In denial, the family did not face the question of a memorial marker for a year. When Richard went to place a stone on the grave he found one already there, courtesy of Rosalie Osborn. The inscription was signed with the letters, "ILYFA", "I'll love you forever always", which Rosalie used to place on her letters to him. Richard left it in place. [Morell Chapter 30, "An End and a Beginning."]

Prominent organizations

*1958. Louis founded the Tigoni Primate research Center with Cynthia Booth on her farm north of Nairobi. Later it was the National Primate Research Center, currently the Institute of Primate Research, now in Nairobi. As the Tigoni center, it funded Leakey's Angels.
*1961. Louis created the Centre for Prehistory and Paleontology on the same grounds as Coryndon Museum, appointing himself director.
*1968. Louis assisted with the founding of [http://www.leakeyfoundation.org/ The Leakey Foundation] , to ensure the legacy of his life's work in the study of human origins. The Leakey Foundation exists today as the number one funder of human origins research in the United States.

Prominent family members

Louis Leakey was married to Mary Leakey, who made the noteworthy discovery of fossil footprints at Laetoli. Found preserved in volcanic ash in Tanzania, they are the earliest record of bipedal gait.

He is also the father of paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey and the botanist Colin Leakey. Louis' cousin, Nigel Gray Leakey, was a recipient of the Victoria Cross during World War II.

Books by Louis Leakey

Louis's books are listed below. [Most of them have many publishers in many editions.] The gaps between books are filled by too many articles to list. It was Louis who began the Leakey tradition of publishing in "Nature".

Notes

References

*Virginia Morell, "Ancestral Passions: The Leakey Family and the Quest for Humankind's Beginnings ", Copyright 1995.
*Mary Bowman-Kruhm, "The Leakeys: a Biography", Copyright 2005, Greenwood Press, ISBN 0-313-32985-0. Online preview found at [http://books.google.com/books?id=6LmiKnyVAxgC&printsec=frontcover&dq] in Google Books.

See also

* Calico Early Man Site
* Leakey family
* List of fossil sites "(with link directory)"
* List of hominina (hominid) fossils "(with images)"

External links

* [http://www.leakeyfoundation.org/ LeakeyFoundation.org] - The Leakey Foundation: a non-profit organization committed to increasing scientific knowledge, education, and public understanding of human origins, evolution, behavior and survival.
* [http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/lleakey.html Talk Origins.org - Louis Leakey]
* [http://www.leakey.com/louis_leakey.htm Louis S. B. Leakey] , the leakey.com biography.
*" [http://www.ntz.info/gen/n00334.html#id00496 Louis Leakey] ", article by Brian M. Fagan in CD Groliers Encyclopedia.
*" [http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/leakey.htm Louis Seymour Bazett Leakey (1903-1972)] "