| Citation | Richard Leakey is the world's best-known palaeo-anthropologist. In 1970 he launched his research project at Lake Turkana, where he had earlier discovered the celebrated skull "KNM ER 1470" (Homo habilis). Ever since, a stream of important fossils has flowed from his Turkana site to the Nairobi centre which he founded as Director of the National Museums of Kenya. Among many remarkable specimens that he and his team discovered, named, described and dated is the well-known Turkana Boy (Homo erectus). In a second career as its famously incorruptible founding Director, he made the Kenya Wildlife Service a showcase for Africa. |