Results 1 - 14 of 14
- A boy from Turkana
- Yes, I'm actually holding the original cranium of one of the most famous fossils in the world. It's a male boy, catchily nicknamed "Turkana Boy", who died 1.6 million years ago. His fossilized skeletal remains were found nearly complete near the Nariokotome River in the Lake Turkana Basin in 1984. The individual is ancestral to our own species, being assigned to the Homo erectus...
- Discovering hominins
- Initially, we thought that the sediments around an area adjoining the Turkwel river near the small settlement of Kang'athota would be early Holocene, i.e. around 11'000 years old. However, after sensationally discovering two robust partial frontals, the front part of the skull, during an initial survey, we knew that the sediments in the area must be much older than thought. Subsequent...
- Exploring Lothagam
- Lothagam is a famous paleontological site on the West side of Lake Turkana about an hour's drive from our base camp. The site is very rich in fossils of extinct fauna which roamed the landscape as far back as 11 million years ago. Important fossil specimens of early primates have been found at Lothagam as have some isolated pieces representing the hominin clade, including suspected remains...
- Traveling back to the Frontier
- Traveling back again to the Turkana Basin felt great. The Basin is a frontier on many fronts. It is home to pastoralists, who eke out a living from a region characterized by arid scrubland and desert. It also represents the leading edge of scientific research into the origins of humans and the evolutionary history of modern fauna. Nowhere else on the planet is the fossil record of the Pliocene...
- City in the Sun
- Nairobi is called the "Green City in the Sun" and it's quite an appropriate description for the capital of Kenya with its all-year warm climate and surrounding forests. It started as a depot on the railway line linking Mombasa on the coast with Lake Victoria, developing to the largest city during the colonial period and eventually becoming the capital of an independent Kenya in 1963....
- Primates and rhinos at Nakuru
- Lake Nakuru National Park is noted for its large number of bird species including the Greater and Lesser Flamingo, the diverse vegetation featuring the most extensive euphorbia forest in Africa and its population of Black and White rhinos. It's within reachable in a day trip north-west from Nairobi, sitting at the floor of East African Rift Valley. The lake normally occupies about a third of...
- Hill of the Hyraxes
- Hyrax Hill archeological site complex, from whose highest point fabulous views of the city of Nakuru can be enjoyed, revealed artifacts dating back to the Neolithic period. The site complex is named after the hyrax, the cute furry mammal with a short tail looking like a rodent but actually closely related to elephants, which populate the site in great numbers. The stratigraphy suggests that the...
- Getting hitched
- In Africa, weddings are all-day affairs with a packed program of church service with song and a reception for hundreds of guests including, for the wedding of a colleague from the National Museums of Kenya, a single white guy.
- With cap and gown
- The University of Nairobi was originally conceived as an independent external college of the University of London, my alma mater, but became a university in its own right in 1970. The only institution of higher learning in Kenya for a long time, the University of Nairobi responded to a great national, regional and continent-wide demand for skilled manpower by developing a flexible and diversified...
- Collecting more fossils
- The Karari Escarpment is part of the Koobi Fora Formation, which records stages in human evolution over a 3 million period, from ca. 4 to 1 million years ago. We surveyed and excavated mainly in the Upper KBS and lower Okote Members around the crucial age of human evolution of 1.6 million years ago. The stratigraphy is composed of "Member" strata of sediments which derive their names...
- Relocating inland
- After spending nearly a week collecting fossils near the Koobi Fora Spit, we relocated inland to the Karari Escarpment. The photo collection shows the range of transport vehicles. We had Range Rovers, the majority of them having seen their best days well behind them but still shrugging off the heavy punishment from the rough landscapes we traversed. We also had two trucks which transported all...
- Meeting President Mandela
- Marie Tussaud was born Anna Maria Grosholtz in 1761 in Strasbourg. Her mother worked as a housekeeper to Dr. Philippe Curtius in Berne, Switzerland, a physician skilled in wax modelling, who eventually trained young Marie in that fine art. She created her first wax figure, of Voltaire, in 1777. Other famous people she modeled at that time include Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Benjamin Franklin. By...
- At the heart of football
- From England's glorious World Cup victory in 1966 to FC Barcelona's stunning UEFA Champion's League triumph in 2011, Wembley Stadium, both the former edifice and the new structure, has witnessed some of the greatest moments in football history. I always wanted to experience how Roy Hodgson felt on the hot-seat in the Press Room, to sit in the Royal Box and get my hands on the FA Cup....
- Transport for London
- The story of London's transport systems is beautifully told at the London Transport Museum. Exhibition themes include transport art and design heritage, public transport at war, London's massive expansion during the 20th century, and how transport systems have shaped the other world cities of New York, Paris, Delhi, Shanghai and Tokyo. Through the history of transport, the lives of Londoners...