Born in Africa_ The Quest for the Origins of Human Life - Martin Meredith [37]
The area that Richard Leakey marked out as his research territory in 1968 was a 500-square-mile stretch of volcanic badlands, extending northwards from Allia Bay to the Ethiopian border and inland from the lakeshore for some twenty miles. Much of it resembled a lunar landscape, a boundless expanse of lava and sand littered with the wrecks of ancient volcanoes. The winds and the heat were ferocious.
Only a small team set out on the first expedition. It consisted of a handful of young scientists willing to throw in their lot with Leakey and a group of Kamba fossil-hunters trained at Olduvai. No one knew what to expect. Leakey had no idea of the real conditions at Lake Turkana; nor did he have a clear plan to follow.
From the outset, however, the team found an abundance of animal fossils. During three months’ exploration, they also turned up three hominid specimens—australopithecine jawbones. ‘I realized then’, wrote Leakey, ‘that we had stumbled on to something far bigger and far more important than anyone suspected’.
The National Geographic Society was suitably impressed with the results and agreed to provide funds for further exploration. The team that Leakey assembled for his 1969 expedition was once again a small one consisting of fossil-hunters and scientists. Led by Kamoya Kimeu, the fossil-hunters soon became known as the Hominid Gang. Among the scientists there was a notable newcomer. Meave Epps was an English zoology graduate who had first arrived in Kenya in 1965 after responding to an advertisement that Louis Leakey had placed in the London Times seeking an assistant to work at a primate research centre he had established at Tigoni near Nairobi. She had spent two years at Tigoni, helping to run the centre and undertaking research on modern monkey skeletons, before returning to university to complete a doctorate. Although she did not meet Richard Leakey during her first visit to Kenya, she had heard much gossip about how brash, arrogant and unpleasant he was. ‘I was always told, “You don’t want to meet him. Meet any of the other Leakeys, but not Richard. You don’t want to meet him”’. She returned to Kenya in 1968, invited by Louis Leakey to help out as acting director of the Tigoni research centre, and shortly after her arrival met Richard for the first time, finding him far more agreeable than his reputation suggested. The attraction was mutual. Richard’s marriage to Margaret had fared badly and he was seeking a divorce. When Richard asked Meave Epps to join him on his second expedition, they were already lovers. They married the following year.
The site that Leakey chose for a base camp in 1969 was a sandy spit known as Koobi Fora that juts out for nearly a mile into Lake Turkana, ten miles north of Allia Bay. Surrounded by the lake on three sides, it was blessed by cool breezes blowing off the water. At first, Leakey’s camp consisted of a few tents and a grass hut that was used as a laboratory, but in time he established a permanent base there, using local flagstones as building material. The lake itself was ideal for swimming but had to be shared with crocodiles and hippos.
With romantic notions of himself as a heroic explorer riding across the African desert, Leakey hired a collection of camels. The idea was largely impractical. The camels proved difficult to control, and by the end of each day, Leakey and other riders were left ‘absolute wrecks’. The camels nevertheless provided him with spectacular photo opportunities. Like his father, Richard Leakey was adept at publicity and self-promotion, ensuring that press photographers were on hand to make the most of his exploits. The camel trips were soon abandoned. But the image of Leakey astride a camel heading out across the desert endured.
Aside from such antics, Leakey’s second expedition to the Turkana basin was as successful as his first. Walking down a dry stream bed, he suddenly saw lying in the sand a complete fossil skull that bore a distinct resemblance to Zinjanthropus—the robust australopithecine skull that Mary Leakey had found at