Author Description

Richard E. Leakey is rewriting the history of our species. At Koobi Fora, on the shores of Lake Turkana in Kenya, he and his team are piecing together not only the anatomy of our ancient ancestors, but their social behavior as well. Heir to one of the most renowned names in anthropology, Leakey and his colleagues have discovered more fossils in a few short years than most anthropologists do in a lifetime. At Lake Turkana, Leakey, his wife, Meave, and their fossil hunting team have unearthed over 300 bones belonging to more than 180 of our early forebears. These include one of the most significant finds of this decade, skull 1470, which suggests that the human line may have emerged in Africa an amazing four million years ago. Now, in people of the lake, Leakey tells how he uncovered these clues to our prehistoric past and what they reveal about our emotional and intellectual life. A brilliant scientific detective story by one of the great anthropologists of our time, PEOPLE OF THE LAKE provides a new perspective not only on mankind’s evolutionary past, but on the meaning of human nature itself. BOOK JACKET.