Puzzling Out Man's Ascent

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meeting with the National Geographic Society's research committee and listened patiently as his father outlined plans for the coming year. Then, when the committee members turned to him, he surprised them by outlining some plans of his own. He had spotted some intriguing sediment layers and stone tools during a brief reconnaissance at Lake Turkana and asked for funds to go back for a closer look. Taken by his brashness, the committee granted his request. But it came with a warning: "If you find nothing you are never to come begging at our door again."

Young Leakey's self-confidence was justified; the Turkana region has proved to be an anthropological mother lode. In a basin several kilometers deep, walls of strata lie exposed, many-layered sandwiches of volcanic ash and ancient sediments containing the remains of complete prehistoric environments. Organizing a team of fossil hunters, Leakey established a base camp at Koobi Fora, a mound at the inboard end of a long, crocodile-infested sand spit that curves out into the lake. Then he began following his nose—with remarkable success. Turkana has yielded the richest accumulation of remnants of man and his predecessors ever found in one area.

Louis Leakey did not take kindly to the acclaim that began pouring down on Richard. For years Louis had dominated African anthropology, at least in part by intimidating his rivals. But the elder Leakey's rugged existence was beginning to exact its toll. Never one to take care of himself, he had been suffering for years from the cumulative effects of tropical diseases, concussions, bee stings and snakebites. He had also seen his son assume the directorship of the National Museums of Kenya. Now the conflict between the two became so intense that it threatened to split the family. Mary began to spend more and more time away at Olduvai, while Louis and Richard pointedly avoided each other. Says Richard: "He was a sick old man at the end of his career, and he found my successes very difficult. I was not old enough or mature enough to respond to that adequately."

The feud had ended in 1972 when the elder Leakey flew to Koobi Fora to spend an exciting evening with his son, examining fossils late into the night by the harsh light of a gas lantern. That night Louis predicted that Richard would find evidence of three hominid species at Turkana. A few weeks later, he died, unaware that events would prove him right. Says Richard: "I think his sheer dogged persistence—and his follow-through on ideas to the point where they were proved either right or wrong—was his greatest gift. In many ways, his greatest achievement was his ability to stimulate others."

The same qualities seem to have passed on to Richard, who resembles his father in more ways than even he cares to admit. "Richard's just like the old man," says a colleague who has worked with both. "You could talk to either one of them and know he was in another world thinking about some theory and not hearing a word you said." Says Brother Jonathan: "Just like his father, Richard is involved in ten different things at the same time. He's very ambitious."

Richard does not deny it. Still director of the National Museums of Kenya, he is also a research associate of the recently created International Louis Leakey Memorial Institute for