RICHARD LEAKEY
Celebrated as a palæoanthropologist who discovered more ground-breaking hominid fossils than anyone else, Richard Leakey, who has died aged 77, lived a colourful, controversial and varied life.
The son of famed primatologist Louis Leakey, who held the record for discovering the most hominid fossils until Richard surpassed him, he went on his first fossil hunting expedition aged three and discovered his first important fossil at six – the jaw of an extinct giant pig. His formal education ended at 16 and he initially took a different path to his father, setting up a safari firm catering to tourists, but he was soon taking part in fossil hunting expeditions again, although he was angered by being sidelined by academics for his lack ofFora on the shore of Lake Turkana, Kenya, with his “hominid gang”, turning up fossil after fossil that threw new light on human evolution, finding 35 hominid specimens in the 1972 season alone, including the famed 1470 skull. This was an almost complete fossil of a new species, . Much controversy surrounded this find, its identity and dating, and this brought Leakey’s combative side to the fore, as did the arrival in Africa of Donald Johanson, later discoverer of the “Lucy” fossil, with whom Leakey was furiously competitive. His family life was similarly turbulent, and Leakey had fallings out with his brother and his father, only reconciling days before Louis died.
