Richard Leakey

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Richard Leakey (2015)

Richard Erskine Frere Leakey (born December 19, 1944 in Nairobi , † January 2, 2022 ibid) was a Kenyan paleoanthropologist . He was, together with his wife Meave Leakey to a world-renowned family of important paleoanthropologists and found at Lake Turkana u. A. fossil skulls of Homo habilis and Homo erectus . From 1989 to 1995 and from 1998 to 2004 he headed the Kenya Wildlife Service . In 1995 he helped found the opposition party Safina ( Swahili for "Arche"), for which he entered the Kenyan parliament in 1997.

Career

Richard Leakey was the second son of paleoanthropologists Louis Leakey and Mary Leakey ; his older brother Jonathan Leakey found the first fossilized remains of a homo habilis in 1964 . There was no way Richard Leakey wanted to become a paleoanthropologist when he was young. He did not finish high school but left at the age of 16 and devoted himself to organizing safaris . During this work he discovered the fossil site Peninj , to which he led an expedition together with Glynn Isaac in 1964 . Inspired by this work, Richard Leakey went to England in 1965 to study there. After only six months, however, he returned to Kenya and returned to the safari business.

With the support of the National Geographic Society , he led excavations on the east bank of Lake Turkana from 1969 to 1975 , where he discovered a nearly two-million-year-old Homo habilis in 1972 . He recognized the site as "suspect of fossils" during a chance overflight in 1967 as part of his safari business. In 1984 he also dug up parts of a Homo erectus , later known as the Nariokotome boy . His finds made him so popular in the USA at times that a photo of him appeared on the cover of an issue of Time magazine in 1977 .

From 1974 to 1989 Richard Leakey was director of the National Museum of Kenya and chief chief of all archaeological sites in the country. His paleoanthropological activity ended in 1989 after he was appointed director of the Kenya Wildlife Service by President Daniel Arap Moi ; his restructuring measures led to a significant decrease in poaching in the national parks within a short period of time. Richard Leakey lost both legs below the knee in a plane crash in 1993, which is why he gave up this post in 1994.

In 1995 he took an active part in the founding of the opposition party Safina . He campaigned against the widespread corruption in Kenya, which in the following years made him the victim of politically motivated allegations of alleged mismanagement, racism and colonialism. He was elected general secretary of the Safina party and elected to the Kenyan parliament in 1997, whereupon he was reappointed head of the Wildlife Service in 1998 , but was again forced to resign from this position in 2004. After this withdrawal from official politics, he resorted to a kind of guerrilla tactic: he gave speeches to shake people up politically and then went back to a safe place to avoid too much trouble. Richard Leakey was repeatedly threatened with death and politically monitored by the government, but was considered to be one of the most respected personalities in Kenya and an authority in the field of environmental and nature protection: his death was announced to the media by President Uhuru Kenyatta .

In 2005, Leakey initiated the Turkana Basin Institute , which - in cooperation with Stony Brook University and the National Museums of Kenya - is to provide logistical support for research projects and to bring the prehistoric finds discovered in this region closer to the local population on Lake Turkana.

Prior to his marriage to Meave in 1970, Leakey was married to his first wife Margaret until 1968. With Meave he has the daughters Louise Leakey (* 1972) and Samira Leakey (* 1974). In 1969 he was diagnosed with incurable kidney disease, for which he was treated on dialysis in England in the summer of 1979 . His brother Philip donated a kidney to Leakey in November 1979.

Honors

Fonts

  • 1977: with Roger Lewin : How people became people. New knowledge about the origin and future of man. (Origins) Hoffmann and Campe, 1978, ISBN 3-455089313 .
  • 1978: with Roger Lewin: The people from the lake. Latest discoveries in the prehistory of mankind. (People of the Lake) Bertelsmann 1980, ISBN 3-570016420 . Ullstein 1982, ISBN 3-548320511 .
  • 1981: The search for the human being: what we became, what we are. (The Making of Mankind) Umschau-Verlag, Ffm. 1981, ISBN 3-524690289 .
  • 1983: One Life. To Autobiography. Salem House Publishers, 1983, ISBN 0-881620556 .
  • 1992: with Roger Lewin: The Origin of Man. In search of traces of the human. (Origins Reconsidered) S. Fischer 1993, ISBN 3-100432053 . TB: 1998.
  • 1994: The first tracks. About the origin of man. (The origin of humankind) Bertelsmann 1997, ISBN 3-570120112 . Goldmann, 1999.
  • 1995: with Roger Lewin: The sixth extinction. Diversity of life and the future of humanity. (The Sixth Extinction) S. Fischer Verlag, 1996, ISBN 3-100427033 .
  • 2001: with Virginia Morell : Wildlife. A life for the elephants. (Wildlife Wars) S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt 2004, ISBN 3-596160529 .

literature

Web links

Commons : Richard Leakey  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Ulf von Rauchhaupt: A convinced African. In: faz.net , January 3, 2022, accessed January 3, 2022.
  2. ↑ Fabian Urech: "A daredevil Indiana Jones of real life": On the death of the jack of all trades Richard Leakey. In: nzz.ch , January 3, 2022, accessed on January 3, 2022.
  3. ^ Richard Leakey: New Hominid Remains and Early Artefacts from Northern Kenya: Fauna and Artefacts from a New Plio-Pleistocene Locality near Lake Rudolf in Kenya. In: Nature . Volume 226, 1970, pp. 223-224, doi: 10.1038 / 226223a0
    Richard Leakey: Further Evidence of Lower Pleistocene Hominids from East Rudolf, North Kenya. In: Nature. Volume 231, 1971, pp. 241-245, doi: 10.1038 / 231241a0
    Richard Leakey: Further Evidence of Lower Pleistocene Hominids from East Rudolf, North Kenya, 1971. In: Nature. Volume 237, 1972, pp. 264-269, doi: 10.1038 / 237264a0
    Richard Leakey: Further Evidence of Lower Pleistocene Hominids from East Rudolf, North Kenya, 1972. In: Nature. Volume 242, 1973, pp. 170-173, doi: 10.1038 / 242170a0
    Richard Leakey: Further Evidence of Lower Pleistocene Hominids from East Rudolf, North Kenya, 1973. In: Nature. Volume 248, 1974, pp. 653-656, doi: 10.1038 / 248653a0
  4. ^ Colin Barras: Richard Leakey: Passionate, prickly and principled. In: New Scientist. No. 2730, October 17, 2009, pp. 32-33
  5. ↑ Renowned Kenyan conservationist Richard Leakey dies aged 77. On: france24.com from January 2, 2022.
  6. ^ Turkana Basin Institute: About TBI.
  7. ↑ Richard Leakey at the IAU Minor Planet Center (English)
personal data
SURNAME Leakey, Richard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Leakey, Richard Erskine Frere; Leakey, Richard E .; Leakey, REF
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Kenyan paleoanthropologist
BIRTH DATE December 19, 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH Nairobi
DATE OF DEATH January 2, 2022
PLACE OF DEATH Nairobi