Program
AFRICA: The Human Cradle
An International Conference Paying Tribute to Richard E. Leakey
We invite you to join us in celebrating the life and achievements of Richard Erskine Frere Leakey in the arena of African Prehistory during a five-day conference at the Charles B. Wang Center in Stony Brook University.
MONDAY, June 5, 2023 |
||
---|---|---|
1:00 - 2:00 pm | Check-in at the registration desk | |
2:00 - 2:15 pm | Welcome remarks by SBU President Maurie McInnis & National Geographic Society CEO Jill Tiefenthaler | |
Session 1 - Fred Grine, Chair |
||
2:15 - 3:00 pm |
|
Although Richard Leakey liked to stress his lack of formal education and training in paleoanthropology, this talk will emphasize that his contributions to human origins research were not just evidential. His intellectual curiosity was infectious, and by deliberately gathering like-minded colleagues around him, he is indirectly responsible for an impressive range of research initiatives, many of which continue to this day. |
3:00 - 3:25 pm |
Yohannes Haile-Selassie |
The presence or absence of mid-Pliocene hominin diversity has been a subject of debate
for the last two decades. The talk will address this issue based on the available
fossil evidence from eastern Africa.
|
3:25 - 3:50 pm |
Dino J. Martins |
Dr. Richard Leakey's vision for science grew from the pioneering work in Turkana to
engage with and address questions about our origins, survival and future. This talk
will cover some of the big questions and debates through time and the growing research
in the Turkana Basin.
|
3:50 - 4:15 pm |
Lee R. Berger |
Richard Leakey's impact on the field of paleoanthropology has been profound, perhaps
no more so than in the field of exploration for human origins. In this talk, Lee Berger
will discuss Richard's personal impact on his career and discuss recent discoveries
and the future of discovery and exploration into human origins in this new 'greatest
age of exploration'.
|
4:15 - 4:45 pm |
PM Coffee Break |
|
5:00 - 6:00 pm |
PUBLIC LECTURE |
An overview of the discoveries and expeditions of the Koobi Fora Research Project
in the Turkana Basin.
*This lecture will be in the Staller Center Recital Hall. It is free and open to the
public, but registration is required.
|
TUESDAY, June 6, 2023 |
||
---|---|---|
Session 2 - Carrie Mongle, Chair |
||
9:00 - 9:45 am |
Anna K. Behrensmeyer |
Interest in human evolution in the Turkana Basin has helped to generate a wealth of knowledge about the ancient faunas and floras of this rift basin. Kay Behrensmeyer will present highlights of this extraordinary fossil record and how it provides essential information for understanding human evolution. |
9:45 - 10:10 am |
John G. Fleagle / Osbjorn Pearson |
In 1967, Richard Leakey led the Kenyan research team in the exploration of the Plio-Pleistocene
sediments along the Omo River. The Kenyans recovered portions of three crania, one
of which (Omo I) dated to 130,000 years in age, making it the earliest modern human.
On a flight to the field camp, Richard spotted promising sediments at Koobi Fora.
The Omo Kibish fossils remained important but some experts rejected their date. In
the early 2000s, at the instigation of Zelalem Assefa, John Fleagle, Frank Brown,
John Shea, Zelalem Assefa, and Solomon Yirga revisited the sites in the Kibish Formation,
conducted a more detailed stratigraphic study, found even more of Omo I, and dated
the stratum that contained the fossil to 195,000 years in age. Another recent study
also suggests an early age. The new dates underscore the importance of Richard Leakey's
discoveries from this early portion of his scientific career.
|
10:10 - 10:35 am |
Denné N. Reed |
The Turkana Basin represents one of the largest assemblages of early hominin fossils.
This paper presents the first, comprehensive, validated digital catalog of all the
published hominin fossil material from this area.
|
10:35 - 11:15 am |
AM Coffee Break |
|
11:15 - 11:40 am |
Natasha S. Vitek |
Topernawi, a new site on the western side of Lake Turkana, Kenya, preserves vertebrate,
plant, and ichnofossil remains from a period in time that is otherwise unknown in
the African paleontological record. Here, recent discoveries, including their effect
on our understanding of African faunal communities and evolution of major clades,
will be discussed.
|
11:40 am - 12: 05 pm |
John W. Kappelman |
The sites of Nakwai and Losodok in West Turkana preserve evidence of late Oligocene
and earliest Miocene sediments that document both apes and Old World monkeys from
a time period that is not well represented in the geologic record. These sites also
offer evidence of older African mammal groups and some of the first immigrants from
Eurasia.
|
12:05 - 12:30 pm |
Q&A and discussion |
|
12:30 - 1:50 pm |
Lunch Break |
|
Session 3 - Gregory Henkes, Chair |
||
1:50 - 2:15 pm |
Robert Foley |
Turkana and Eastern Africa are well known for their fossiliferous environments, hominin
record, and the many field projects that have exploited its potential. However, equally
important is their biogeographical context, and in this paper we explore ideas from
biogeography and ecology and their implications for human evolution.
|
2:15 - 2:40 pm |
Marine Frouin |
Past advances in radiometric and relative dating techniques have fundamentally changed
our capacity to piece together our evolutionary past over millions of years. Marine
Frouin's research is focused on the development and application of luminescence dating
techniques for the study of Human evolution.
|
2:40 - 3:05 pm |
Mikael Fortelius / Indrė Žliobaitė |
As everybody knows, and as Richard Leakey was fond of pointing out, fossils are collected
under many kinds of bias. Mikael Fortelius and his team explore how knowledge of such
biases might be obtained post hoc, from understanding of the general processes and
priorities involved.
|
3:05 - 3:45 pm |
PM Coffee Break |
|
3:45 - 4:10 pm |
Patrick Nduru Gathogo |
The geochronology of Pliocene and Pleistocene deposits in the Turkana Basin, where
many hominin fossils have been discovered, is largely based on isotopic dating and
geochemical correlation of volcanic materials such as tephra and basalts. Age control
therefore remains challenging for fossil sites that are isolated by faults and which
lack suitable materials for isotopic dating or geochemical correlation. This talk
will present a petrology approach, based on which key rock features can be used for
the physical stratigraphic dating method at local and regional scales.
|
4:10 - 4:35 pm |
Ellen Miller |
Buluk is well-known in paleoanthropology for the recovery of primitive apes and monkeys,
from a time period after the divergence of the two lineages but before the evolution
of modern forms. New discoveries provide additional insights into the early phases
of African ape and monkey evolution, and these findings are discussed in light of
current work reconstructing the Buluk paleoenvironment.
|
4:35 - 5:00 pm |
Q&A and discussion |
WEDNESDAY, June 7, 2023 |
||
---|---|---|
Session 4 - Natasha Vitek, Chair |
||
9:00 - 9:45 am |
Sonia Harmand & Hélène Roche |
Hélène Roche and Sonia Harmand will present, past and new evidence on the Early Stone Age of the Turkana basin since Richard Leakey noticed the first stone tools on the west side of the lake while excavating the Turkana Boy in 1984. They will discuss the evidence in light of biological and environmental changes in East Africa and will present future research directions. |
9:45 - 10:10 am |
Craig S. Feibel |
Geological context is a critical component in the broader understanding of fossils
and sites in East Africa. From Olduvai Gorge to the Turkana Basin, field geologists
have explored the geology and geochronology of the Human Cradle and their broad shoulders
provide a solid platform upon which future generations will continue to discover new
and exciting perspectives on the past.
|
10:10 - 10:35 am |
Fredrick Kyalo Manthi |
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.
|
10:35 - 11:15 am |
AM Coffee Break |
|
11:15 - 11:40 am |
Kevin Uno |
Much of Dr. Richard Leakey’s research career focused on the fossil record of the Plio-Pleistocene
(~4-1 Ma) deposits of the Omo Group. Here, I present new data on ecosystems and mammal
diets from the Turkana Miocene Project that focus on the less well-studied deposits
spanning the Oligocene to Miocene epochs.
|
11:40 am - 12: 05 pm |
Zeray Alemseged |
Our understanding of the paleobiology ofAustralopithecushas substantially evolved since its discovery in 1925. In this presentation, an updated
picture of the genus will be presented based on recent data from field and lab research
with focus on A. afarensis.
|
12:05 - 12:30 pm |
Q&A and discussion |
|
12:30 - 1:50 pm |
Lunch Break |
|
Session 5 - Tara Smiley, Chair | ||
1:50 - 2:15 pm |
Carrie Mongle |
One of Richard’s lasting legacies is undeniably the extraordinary number of hominin
fossils he was able to add to our collective understanding of human evolution. Phylogenetic
inference is a critical step in figuring out how all of these fossils come together
to form the human family tree. This talk will review our recent work in reconstructing
the hominin phylogeny, including new analyses to incorporate geochronological information
into these inferences.
|
2:15 - 2:40 pm |
Ignacio de la Torre |
When and how the Oldowan was replaced by the Acheulean are key questions in the archaeology
of human evolution, and will be discussed in the context of biological and ecological
change in East Africa.
|
2:40 - 3:05 pm |
Jason E. Lewis |
In 2011, the Koobi Fora Research Project team recovered a broken and weathered hominin mandible and associated vertebrate remains from Area 40 at Koobi Fora. Dated to 4.3 million years ago, it is the oldest known representative of Australopithecus anamensis by ~200,000 years penecontemporaneous with Ardipithecus ramidus from Gona, Ethiopia. Its morphology indicates that the reconfigured masticatory system differentiating basal hominins from earliest australopiths existed in the narrow temporal window, if any, separating the two, suggesting that Ar. ramidus was a closely related sister-taxon of Australopithecus rather than its phyletic ancestor. |
3:05 - 3:45 pm |
PM Coffee Break |
|
3:45 - 4:10 pm |
Emmanuel K. Ndiema |
Today, thousands of households in east Africa depend on the widespread subsistence
practice of pastoralism. However, in recent years, unpredictable climatic conditions,
such as prolonged droughts and floods, have put thousands of lives at risk, especially
those living in drier, more arid environments. Understanding how early herders and
foragers coped with environmental transformation will clarify the issues of long-term
pastoral resilience and provide lessons that can be applied to modern issues of climate
change. These mechanisms are as relevant today as they were in the past, and will
contribute to the well-being of an increasingly multicultural and globally connected
modern society.
|
4:10 - 4:35 pm |
Krishna Veeramah |
A synthesis of how the analysis of modern and ancient DNA has helped better understand
African prehistory.
|
4:35 - 5:00 pm |
Q&A and discussion |
THURSDAY, June 8, 2023 |
||
---|---|---|
Session 6 - Marine Frouin, Chair |
||
9:00 - 9:45 am |
Thure Cerling |
When Richard Leakey first set foot in the Turkana Basin in the late 1960s, paleoenvironmental interpretations of terrestrial deposits were rudimentary compared to today. Questions posed by paleontologists and anthropologists were the catalyst for developing methods to understand paleoecology; hand-in-hand, new tools prompted further questions and today, isotope geochemistry is used in virtually every site of interest to human evolution. |
9:45 - 10:10 am |
José Braga |
José Braga will present new evidence on the paleobiology of the 'robust' australopithecines
in South Africa, and its evolutionary implications.
|
10:10 - 10:35 am |
Darryl Granger |
Cosmogenic nuclide dating shows that Australopithecus-bearing cave breccias at Sterkfontein were deposited from about 3.4-3.7 million years
ago, considerably older than previously supposed. Newly recognized stratigraphic unconformities
at the site reconcile these older ages with previous work by showing that the faunal
assemblage is mixed with a much younger member, and that dated flowstones are younger
than the breccia in which they crystallized.
|
10:35 - 11:15 am |
AM Coffee Break |
|
11:15 - 11:40 am |
Gregory Henkes |
The stable isotope geochemistry of terrestrial carbonates is among the most important
recorders of paleoclimate and paleoenvironments in East Africa. In this talk, Greg
Henkes will describe our efforts to apply clumped isotopes - a novel isotope thermometer
- to reconstruct ancient climates in Turkana, and he will discuss future advances
and research directions.
|
11:40 am - 12: 05 pm |
Julia Lee-Thorp |
This talk will look back at the genesis of isotope chemistry applied to the hominin
record, examine what we have learned, and pick out some opportunities for future progress.
|
12:05 - 12:30 pm |
Q&A and discussion |
|
12:30 - 1:50 pm |
Lunch Break |
|
Session 7 - Sonia Harmand, Chair |
||
1:50 - 2:15 pm |
Curtis W. Marean |
Modern humans have a unique psychological and cognitive machinery that evolved in
the late Middle Pleistocene. Paleoanthropologists have focused on climate and environmental
change as the driver for much of human evolution. While this might be a productive
paradigm for explaining earlier phases of human evolution, it fails to explain the
final steps to the evolution of modern humans. The evolution to modern humans involved
a shift out of the high mobility-light technology niche to one focused on dense and
predictable resources with a consequent reduction in mobility and increased complexity
of technology and human social relations.
|
2:15 - 2:40 pm |
Troy Rasbury |
The talk will focus on the discovery of carbonate petrified wood with extremely favorable
U/Pb ratios and similar carbonate precipitates found broadly across the Turkana Basin
at about 14 Ma. Troy Rasbury will put this in the context of the basin setting at
the time based on geodynamic models.
|
2:40 - 3:05 pm |
Lucía Nadal |
The collection of mandibular fossils attributed to Paranthropus boisei holds a striking variability that has been explained as being the result of either
sexual dimorphism, taphonomic damage, chronological change, or potential taxonomic
heterogeneity. This talk presents new research characterizing the three-dimensional
shape variability of this hypodigm using unsupervised machine learning algorithms
to test for various contributing factors and describe patterns of morphological variability
in ‘robust’ australopithecines.
|
3:05 - 3:45 pm |
PM Coffee Break |
|
3:45 - 4:10 pm |
John J. Shea |
This lecture surveys the survival challenges ancestral Africans faced and the survival
skills they used to overcome those challenges. It proposes a new hypothesis about
how early humans became so widely dispersed in Africa before launching their global
diaspora.
|
4:10 - 4:35 pm |
Thomas "Cody" Prang |
This talk will review the functional and evolutionary implications of fossil hominin
foot morphology in the Turkana Basin with special emphasis on a new partial foot (KNM-ER
64062).
|
4:35 - 5:00 pm |
Q&A and discussion |
FRIDAY, June 9, 2023 |
||
---|---|---|
Session 8 - Lawrence Martin, Chair |
||
9:00 - 9:25 am |
John Hawks |
The talk will look at recent innovations in field and laboratory approaches to human origins, including how researchers are finding new ways to integrate them. John Hawks will take a look at what questions these approaches are likely to answer over the next decade. |
9:25 - 9:50 am |
Gabrielle A. Russo |
Napudet is a Middle Miocene locality in the Turkana Basin well known for yielding
ape fossils, including an infant cranium of Nyanzapithecus alesi. This talk focuses
on primate fossils that the Napudet Research Project has since discovered, including
an ape partial postcranial skeleton, highlighting the continued importance of Napudet
for contributing to our understanding of primate evolution.
|
9:50 - 10:15 am |
Tara Smiley |
This talk will present recent work from the Turkana Miocene Project investigating
ecological dynamics of mammalian communities in the context of tectonic, climate,
and environmental change over the Late Oligocene to Late Miocene in Turkana Basin,
Kenya.
|
10:15 - 10:55 am |
AM Coffee Break |
|
10:55 - 11:20 am |
Denise F. Su |
Australopithecus afarensis was a long-lived and widespread species, found at sites in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Tanzania
that range in age from 3-3.8 Ma. This talk will look at the habitat diversity of A.
afarensis and its implications for hominin evolution.
|
11:20 am - 12:05 pm |
Marta Mirazon Lahr |
One of the most important of Richard Leakey’s many legacies is the establishment of
the Turkana Basin as one of the major palaeontological and archaeological areas of
the world. But this legacy goes beyond his discovery of Koobi Fora and all his and
subsequent work around the basin. Richard supported and inspired exploration and
discovery, as well as the building of collections and the institutions that curate
them. In this talk, I will discuss the role of rich areas, such as Turkana, in the
building of models of human evolution, use our work in Turkana, and Richard’s influence
on how it developed, to illustrate the potential of rich sites to challenge some long-standing
views, and end with a call for new sites, new areas and new challenges.
|
12:05 - 12:20 pm |
Q&A and discussion |
|
12:20 - 12:30 pm |
Lawrence Martin |