It is known based on DNA analysis that chimpanzees are the closest living relatives to humans, the two together are closest to gorillas, then three together to orangs. Furthermore, humans, the great apes (chimpanzee, gorillas, and orangs) together with the lesser apes (gibbons and siamangs) belong to the superfamily named Hominoidea. The closest living [...]
A groundbreaking study has found the earliest and largest monumental cemetery in eastern Africa built 5,000 years ago by early pastoralists living around Lake Turkana, Kenya. This group is believed to have lived without major inequalities and hierarchies, contradicting long-standing narratives about the origins of early civilizations. The study, led by Elisabeth Hildebrand, PhD, Department [...]
Ancient DNA recovered from fossils is a valuable tool to study evolution and anthropology. Yet fossil DNA has not been found yet in any part of Africa, where it’s destroyed by extreme heat and humidity. In a potential first step at overcoming this hurdle, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and [...]
The discovery in Kenya of a remarkably complete fossil ape skull reveals what the common ancestor of all living apes and humans may have looked like. The find, announced in the scientific journal Nature on August 10th, belongs to an infant that lived about 13 million years ago. The research was done by an international [...]
On Tuesday May 30th, a vast storm hit the Ileret area and brought an immense amount of rain. Within a short period of 9 hours, TBI Ileret facility documented a record-high rainfall of more than 200 mm (8 inches). This amount is much more than a typical rainstorm at Ileret (~20 mm), and more than [...]
As most people are enjoying the beach and sunshine in the US, some Stony Brook students took a long shot and came to the shores of Lake Turkana, Kenya. They are here for the brand-new Global Innovation Field School! The Global Innovation summer program is organized by the College of Engineering & Applied Sciences, Stony [...]
It is finally the end of the Archaeology module and our field school students have learned a lot about stone tools. Now it is time to put them in good use! Cracking nuts using a hammer stone and an anvil is just the beginning of technology. To convince ourselves that the stone flakes we made are capable [...]
Rethinking Tool-making August 2-6, 2016 TBI-Turkwel Participants at the thirteenth Human Evolution Workshop "Rethinking Toolmaking" The Turkana Basin Institute hosted the 13th workshop of the Stony Brook/TBI Human Evolution Workshop series at its Turkwel campus from August 2 - 6. Entitled Rethinking Tool-making, the workshop was organized by archaeologists Drs. Sonia Harmand and Hélène Roche. The 2015 discovery [...]