Fredrick Kyalo Manthi

Dr. Richard Leakey’s role in advancing paleosciences in Kenya

Prehistory research in eastern Africa is synonymous with the family of Louis and Mary Leakey. In Kenya, paleontological and archaeological explorations were initiated by Louis and Mary Leakey in the late 1920’s but it was Louis and Mary Leakey’s son, Dr. Richard Leakey (1944-2022), who led some of the most successful fossil hunting explorations in Kenya that recovered a large wealth of fossils remains attributable to genera, Australopithecus, Paranthropus and Homo. Dr. R. Leakey’s passion for prehistory research influenced many people across the globe. Further, his passion for laying a strong foundation for paleosciences in Kenya and across the World was unrivalled.

FULL TRANSCRIPT 

First of all, let me begin by thanking the organizers of this workshop. Really for hosting, a wonderful, wonderful event in which we'll be celebrating such a big name and such a big person or touch the lives of so many of us in different ways. I want to thank obviously the TBI, Stony Brook University and Lawrence Martin and Fred Grine, Alicia for all the logistics for making this possible for us to fly all the from Nairobi, me and my colleagues from Kenya to this wonderful event. On a very light note, Richard Leakey worked with a lot of people from my part of the world where I come from in Ukambani, especially Machakos and Makueni area, the likes of Kamoya, the likes of Nzube, Wambua, and many, many people. And when I joined the museum when I was a little young boy, let me just put it that way. I found Kamoya, I found Nzube and Wambua and many other people. So it was easy for me to get into the system fairly easy because they all took me like a young boy. They could send me around sometimes bully me, especially in Nzube would bully me a lot. And very interestingly, they had all kinds of names for Richard. 

Don't ask me Craig, the names that they have for you, but they had names for Richard and one of the names for Richard was that name there. Don't try to read it. They called him “kavyu” because they believed he could cut almost everything. He was able to cut almost everything. They also named him “Musango” because they felt he was able to scatter but also assemble together. Sometimes they also called him “bulldozer” and they could also run away when they see him coming. So those are the kind really interactions and the kind of really person that the likes of Nzube and Kamoya and those colleagues worked with Richard Leakey really looked at him and they really had a wonderful time working with them. And I remember very well when I joined Richard Leakey, when I joined the NMK as a young person, a young guy. One of my first encounters with Richard Leakey was working at the Turkana side. I remember, let me just give you a bit of my story. When I finished what in Kenya we call O level, I did very well in my exams. But coming from this very humble background, I didn't have school fees to go to the next level of my education. 

Mary Leakey worked with my dad at Olduvai Gorge and my dad told me, “you know what, let's go talk to Mary Leakey”. And before then, when I was in my secondary school, I wrote to Mary a number of times because my dad used to bring me a lot of books, archeology and paleontology. So I developed a very, very special interest and passion for paleontology. So I began to read those books. So when I was finishing my secondary school, I knew I was going to be a paleontologist and I wrote to Mary Leakey, but she never wrote back to me so when my dad told me, “you know what, let's go talk to Mary Leakey, see what can come out of this”. We went to Langata with my dad and Mary Leakey remembered that I wrote to her and she said, “I'm sorry I didn't get back to you, but I'm happy to see you”. So Mary told my dad, “go talk to Richard, see what you can do for your son”. I went to see Richard, that time he was the director, the Chief Executive at the NMK. I went to meet him and unfortunately the day I went to meet to see Richard, they'd gone to Rusinga with Alan Walker. I still remember that day really, really very well. They'd gone to Rusinga with Alan Walker for some field work. So I didn't get to meet him. 

So Teresa Ng’ang’a told me to come the following week and that's when I met. I didn't even really meet Richard that following week. So when Richard was told by Teresa that I'm there to see him, he asked Teresa, “ask Kyalo, give Kyalo a small piece of paper and ask him to write all he can do about himself and what I want to do at the NMK”. So I sat down and I wrote really a nice, nice really give, really a nice impression about myself and what I want to do for a career. And Richard Leakey read it and he asked me to come I think two weeks after. And the rest is history, like they say. So that's how I began, that's how I joined the NMK. And my first assignment was to go to Turkana and I took part in the excavation of the Turkana Boy. I was really a skinny, very skinny guy. Much of this was not there those days. Yeah, so 

Sorry about that. Okay, 

Just to summarize, after giving you that brief background, we all know that Kenya is really, really a hotbed in terms of paleo sciences and the main regions that really represent or record a rich history of our pre-history are the Lake Turkana Basin, Baringo Basin, Lake Victoria Basin, Olorgesaille Basin, Nakali, and all those other parts of the country. And there's hardly any of these basins that Richard never worked or encourage people directly and sometimes even indirectly for a lot of work to be undertaking those areas. But my focus today will not will largely be the Turkana Basin, but all those different places. The Lake Victoria, I spoke about Rusinga, I spoke this also the Songhor and other sites that really Richard and encouraged many, many people to start projects or even pick up projects that were lived by other people earlier on. I know much later Isaiah Nengo worked at Songhor and much later also Kieran (McNulty) from Minnesota Works, worked at Rusinga and um another site so virtually all these different sites. Richard Leakey was able to encourage young people and friends and colleagues and really have those different sites worked by different people. 

Oh my god, 

This particular photo, I'm sure you've seen these a million times, but again, it's really, really showcases or really speaks to the journey that Richard and colleagues Kamoya, I'm sure you can see Kamoya there and Nzube there and the other guys really the journey that they began to work, especially when Richard began to work in the Turkana Basin-Koobi Fora and all those other different areas. 

That particular slide there just summarizes the paleoanthropological findings. And that slide there is not enough. It's just really like a glimpse, like a snapshot of really the wonderful discoveries that were made through the efforts of Richard Leakey’s team that was led by Kamoya and other people. And indeed really we've been able to understand our ancestry as a species in a big way thanks to those wonderful discoveries that have been made. And again, also aside from paleoanthropology, we know that Richard, when I first joined the museum those first days, I remember a small team driven from Nariokotome to the Turkana grids near Lokita’ng and they began to look for fossils, of fossils. So again, also that was meant possible by the kind of rare dreams that Richard Lake had for the basin and for understanding the evolution of different faunal species, not just hominids but all other faunal taxa in the basin. And in fact, as we speak right now, there has been numerous projects, numerous groups and teams, especially Jo Tic and other colleagues that have worked in the Turkana grids and the record now has really tremendously expanded. And so really this really speaks to the vision and the dream that Richard had for the Turkana basin and for paleo sciences in Kenya. 

Again, also a summary. We have tons and tons of projects and different teams that are doing different work, work across Kenya and most of these, I may have not got the names of your project correctly, don't shoot me after this, but that summarizes some of the wonderful teams that are doing work all over the country and all of Kenya. And really these are people who are doing really wonderful research and all those different projects. There's definitely some direct hand or indirect hand or Richard Leakey really encouraging the different teams and there's been some wonderful discoveries that have come out of those particular research projects 

In terms of archeology, that's matter there I think you can see Marta there. There's also the stone tools that Sonia spoke about and again, also the same also goes to other parts of the country. That's a team from NMK. Some of our colleagues there are doing some work at Kakapel, which is a clear indication that a lot of things are taking place not just within the Turkana Basin but also outside the basin. And really, really more young people coming on board and taking up leadership positions and really taking the lead in research. Obviously the main focus for a long time was at early stone age. Now there's lot of focus on the middle stone age and then now there's the late stone age and my colleague Dr. Ndiema will be talking about the later periods this evening. So definitely the foundation for this, we can associate that largely to the strong foundation that vision, the dreams that Richard had for paleo sciences in Kenya. Geology, I don't need to speak a lot about that and especially after Craig and Patrick have spoken, a lot of work has been done in terms of understanding the geology of the Basin.  And thanks to those different programs, different projects and different surveys, we're able to really understand the age of our different fossil remains and archeological sites across the basin. So again, like Craig also mentioned a few minutes ago, those particular achievements have been meant possible thanks to the dreams and the vision that Richard has had for the basin 

Field training, there has been a few years ago. We know in this, I think Craig, correct me if I'm wrong, the Harvard Field School began in the 80s. Is that true 80s then after it was taken up by Rutgers, then after it was taken by GWU and now we have the TBI field school and your guess is as good as mine as to all that could be there. So again, the vision that Richard has or had for really paleo sciences and again also the future being secure by having more young people taking leading roles in paleo sciences and again, also creating generations of researchers who take up the button from him and others who came behind him. 

I would change gears a bit and just talk about the West Turkana Paleo Project, which I lead. I would like to begin by saying I was very honored to be the first TBI postdoc when TBI formed. I was the first TBI postdoc and it's through that particular opportunity that Richard and Lawrence Martin and John Fleagle gave me that I was able to really, really start the West Turkana Paleo project. And I can happily say that we've done pretty well as a project. We've made some wonderful discoveries. We've done, we've done some wonderful field work and really field projects. We worked on Kanapoi and we did some wonderful research there. Some wonderful papers came out of that particular project at Kanapoi. 

Nariokotome we've done a bit of that as well. Then Lomekwi, we've been working in Lomekwi in the last few years. We got some good work and we've now began to study the fauna and begin, we'll start publishing those faunal remains from Lomekwi very, very soon again. Also further north, we working at a site called an Natodomeri in the Kibish formation where we are making some wonderful, wonderful discoveries and really I believe that we also begin to publish this particular fossils. We've already published the big carnival, the big Lion from Natodomeri. We've also published the elephants from Natodomeri. So definitely there'll be more stuff coming out very, very soon. 

I mean, don't spend a lot of your time looking at that. That's the Lomekwi baby will be publishing very, very soon. So keep your eyes and ears open. Definitely, it'd be very interesting to see really what it tells us about and whether it to be platyops, whether it be something else. I don't want to discuss that now, but this is really work in progress and we found this in 2019 I think, and this is work in progress. If it wasn't for Covid, I think we would've done a lot by now. But this is a wonderful, wonderful fossil that we recovered at Lomekwi. 

Again, also in the Kibish formation, we are working at Natodomeri, which is further up if I can get myself there. See how far it is from Lake Turkana, so we're working up there. As we speak right now my team is up there. The information is we have wonderful discoveries. I just got a text the other day, they found some hominins, I don't want to say which ones. We are working at two sites, Natodomeri 1 there,  then two there. And this site was first worked in the 60s and Carl Vondra made a very strong store over there and it recovered some elephant fossils and for a long time nobody wanted to work there for a number of reasons. It's very, very insecure. I remember when Frank introduced me to that particular site, he told me he's only a crazy guy who can work here. And he told me, always make some sensible decisions and I'm very happy that so far we've done pretty well and there's not been any major, major challenges. But the good news is that now the Nyangatom of Southern Ethiopia and the Turkana now are living together very happily. So now it makes it very easy for us to work now at Natodomeri, but we are always really very careful, not really make some stupid decisions going forward. So we've done some wonderful, wonderful work. The site dates to a quarter million. We've recovered some wonderful fossils. There's one fossil, sorry, there's one fossil, I can go back. 

Sorry. 

There's one particular fossil that we recovered a few years ago and it sits there it is two new days suggesting that the fossil will be around 230,000 years old. And we know that particular time period is very key to understand about the ancestry or the man of all members of our own species, sapiens. So this site is very, very critical really. And I believe that it'll fill a very critical gap in the fossil record and especially the story about our evolution as a species. I think I'll jump that slide. Yeah, like I said, that particular fossil sits there, KNM ND70800 sits there. So we are still working on refining the days working with a number of us. Patrick Gathogo who is here. He is also involved with the project and we'll be pretty sure that we'll be able to refine the dates even before we publish this particular faunal material. So far we've recovered some wonderful fossils. That's rhino there, black rhino there. Then also some wonderful hippos, wonderful elephants there. I'm sorry, 

Sorry about that. 

Wonderful elephants. And then again, also we have a very nice hominid that we've also recovered there. That's how many there. We've done some micro-CT scan of the same. And we should be able to also publish this hopefully very, very soon. I'm not trying to preempt, but just wanted to let you know what we have already. Archeologically, I'm not an archeologist myself, but definitely we've also been able to recover some wonderful archeological remains. This year we began archeological excavations and we do hope that we'll be able to really, really find more stuff in situ. And indeed, indeed the archeological material will complement the other information that we're getting from the faunal record in a very, very big way. So we find lots of archeological stuff from Natodomeri as well. 

The future, that's a big jump from Natodomeri to the future. We all know that Richard always thought about the past. He thought about the present, but he also thought about the future. And indeed one area that now is becoming a big area of interest is ancient DNA. And we are all very keen to understand really what ancient DNA can tell us about how different populations relate to one another. And a few weeks ago we had a conference in Nairobi and that conference discussed how they demand this new margin, really new frontier ancient DNA and how best we can begin to think about that, how best we can begin to think about which samples to sample and how to do that and what are the protocols and the procedures. And we know that this is an issue that we'll have to engage. We'll have to engage many museums across Africa. 

We know collections are not always easy to access. We know that museums and curators don't always want to let go collections, but we want to begin that discussion with our view to encouraging our museums and curators in African museums to really support this. But again, also we also have to be alive to the fact that we must protect the collections in a big way. We must come up with procedures that will cause less damage to the fossils as possible. But again, also this is an area that I'm sure Richard Leakey could've really loved to see getting advances into these and really trying to address some of the questions that we are all really interested in and how different populations across the landscape relate to one another. 

The feature, again, we've been talking about the last few days we've been talking about and we know for a very long time the interest has been the Plio-Pleistocene sites that are going to yield hominins. But I'm so happy to see teams coming. I mean Craig's team and Ellie Miller looking into the Miocene, Oligocene. This is really wonderful and I'm so happy that all those different projects are going to fill a gap that we didn't have for a long time in the fossil record in the Turkana Basin. So I think as a museum, as NMK, I think our business is to really, and all the different players and partners our businesses to really support all these different projects that are going to make the story of the Turkana Basin and the evolution of different species more complete as opposed to just constricting ourselves to one particular period. 

Going to the Oligocene, going into the Miocene, and really looking for new sites. This is exactly what we should be always thinking about. How can we find sites that will fill in the gaps that already exist? Where are the sites and what are some of the missing links that will help us understand how different species have evolved over time. So really seeing, I mean hearing from Ellen Miller and other teams are doing work in the Miocene, this is really wonderful and I really like to encourage more teams to really look into that. Oligocene, Miocene and other earlier time periods that there was less really attention or focus on for a long time. 

Again, also new approaches. We need to really begin going forward. We need to ask ourselves some very hard questions. We need to think about how we can digitize our collections and make our collection relevant to the people around us, to schools around us, to the different stakeholders around. Because people are asking questions. And I'm pretty sure that Turkana Basin Institute, they can attest to that. The Turkana are asking, how can we benefit from these collections? How can our children also benefit from these collections? So we need to think about how we can digitize those collections, make them accessible to the communities and the people around our sites. And again, also make them relevant and accessible to schools and colleges across the different parts of Africa where we work. Again, also micro-CT scanning we need to really, really in a big way, and I'll be talking to some of us here, it doesn't really make sense. 

I mean it makes sense maybe up to now, but I think we need to begin seriously thinking about how can we have a micro-CT scanner facility in Kenya. And I've talked to Dino Martins about this. I know that was one of Richard’s dreams and also Isaiah's dream. I think we need to engage ourselves much, much, much more and find a way of having a facility in which you'll be able to scan our fossil as opposed to taking them to South Africa and other parts of the world. So Dino Martins and my, a colleagues from NMK and all of us let us think together, how can we have a facility in Kenya in which we can have our fossils scanned. And things are changing, the government is becoming stricter with export permits. They're becoming very, very strict and things aren't getting better. So I think we need to really, really ask ourselves the different institutions that are here. And all of us here are stakeholders because those collections belong to all of us. It's not just a Kenyan thing belongs to all of us. We have to be protective in this. So we need to ask ourselves, how can we raise funds to establish a micro-CT scanner facility in Kenya that will make things much, much, much easier for all of us. And I believe, I was just thinking about this this morning and my dream and my dream is as we celebrate 50 years of the Turkana Boy, which will be when? 19 ?34? 34?. 

I hope we can have a micro-CT scanner just by that time. Way before that. Way before that. Way before that. Yeah. So I'd like to throw this to all of us. Let's begin working to that on that. I know Marta, Robin, I and a few of us here, we will be discussing that and we've discussed that with Dr. Martins and with Louise. We need to really, really work, come up with a roadmap or how we can make that happen. And again, also we need to begin thinking seriously now we decolonize our museums and research and having really more Kenyans and more Africans play a bigger role in all these different discourses and really different programs and projects that are going to be running in different parts of the continent.

Again, also, we're working pretty well in this, through the Prehistory Club of Kenya, we have been going to schools across the country. Dr. Ndiema and I now working together, we've been taking the gospel of prehistory human evolution to schools across the country. It's been extremely successful. And really we are beginning to see a lot of young Kenyans coming to our museums and really wanting to take careers in paleo sciences. And for those of you being at NMK recently, you'll be amazed to see the number of young Kenyans who are in art sciences department, and I'm sure the same also applies at TBI. So I think all these efforts are bearing wonderful fruits, but the journey just began. We need to really work in this in a bigger way and ensure that we can find support to those young learners, the young Kenyans and the young Africans who are really interested in taking careers in paleo sciences. Again. Also, a few years ago we got some support from the Wenner Gren Foundation and we organized a workshop in Nairobi. We brought teachers from across the country because we believe that one teacher will be able to share information with so many students. So also using teachers is one way of reaching out to as many learners as possible. I'll be finishing shortly. Shortly. 

Then again, also, sorry about that. The mentorship programs. We've been working also very closely. Some of us in the department, the senior colleagues, Dr. Ndiema, myself, Rashina and others. We've been talking to many other young students and young Kenyans, those are young, some interns. We will be talking to them and encouraging them towards taking career in paleo sciences and really trying to mentor them so that I would like us to really say our best. We can really grow this mentor more Kenyans mentor, more Africans into paleo sciences. I think I should be finishing shortly. Warren Buffet said, “someone is sitting in the shed today because someone planted a tree a long time ago”. Richard Leakey did that. He planted a tree. I think he planted many trees and we were able to sit under those trees. Let's carry on the legacy that Richard left. Let's plant more trees. Let's have more people enjoy the shade of those trees that we plant right now. And NMK, we all know it was behind that wonderful building. TBI is beyond that as well. 

Sorry, 

The future of the NMK, the NMK has a dream. We have a dream of having or establishing what we will refer to as the National Research and Collection Center. It's a dream of the NMK board, the dream of the NMK, I mean the Kenya government. And very, very soon we'll be calling upon different partners to work with us in this journey that will provide a home for our many collections that are coming from across the country, that are coming from across the country, thanks to different programs and projects by all of us city here. 

Again, also Richard would've, Richard always got concerned about the environment, fauna, and flora that's the Gibe dam. We know the effects that Gibe dam is having on the Lake Turkana ecosystem. That's an area that we can't also ignore. Let's think about really what we can be done. The Lake Turkana ecosystem is being, in a big way being affected by the Gibe dam. So as we think about technology, let's also ensure that we can also protect and conserve the environments in which we live. Then lastly, I would like to appreciate and also celebrate those wonderful people, Richard Leakey. We are here to celebrate him today. Frank Brown was in a big way, my mentor, again, also Kamoya was also my mentor. He trained me when I first went to Turkana. He trained me, showed me with the fossils. And again, also my senior brother Isaiah, who passed on unfortunately last year. And Peter Nzube passed on, Wambua Mang’ao passed on, Ngeneo passed on, and the wonderful people who discovered the wonderful fossils that have been subject in the last few days. Thank you so much.

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