Field Schools

The last course at the Turkana Basin Institute's Field School is Paleontology, the study of animal evolution through fossil remains, taught by Professors William Anyonge and Fredrick Kyalo Manthi.

Nearing the end of their Archaeology course, TBI students returned to the Aiyangiyang depression where, led by Veronica Waweru and Helene Roche, they conducted an excavation. Their efforts helped document some of the stone tools made by Holocene inhabitants of Turkana, and introduced them to techniques that many will use in their careers for years [...]

Sometime in the last few thousand years, a group of people who lived in the Turkana Basin erected a series of large stone pillars, also known as megalithic structures, underneath which they buried their dead. Though the people are gone, the structures remain remain behind them, and are a source of wonder to the Turkana [...]

The TBI Field School is situated in a broad and arid steppe, inhabited by Turkana pastoralists thought to have arrived in the last 300-400 years. The Turkana raise cattle, sheep, goats and camels, and are traditionally mobile, following rain and pasture with their herds. To differentiate the valuable herds or flocks of different families, the [...]

Having butchered two goats using stone tools the students produced themselves, TBI students and staff then held a roast last Saturday night, to celebrate and relax after a long week of work. Having butchered two goats using stone tools the students produced themselves, TBI students and staff then held a roast last Saturday night, to [...]

Stone tools first appear in the Archaeological record over 2 million years ago, and many believe that their production was perhaps the most important factor distinguishing our early ancestors from other animals. The Rift Valley, and Turkana Basin itself, are both home to the earliest sites of stone tool production: early stone tool creation is [...]

Raymonde Bonnefille brought TBI Field School students to the local town of Lodwar, at the start of her course on paleoecology, to show them its local meteorological station. Lodwar is the largest town in northern Kenya, and its meteorological station has collected data benefiting the local airport and climate scientists worldwide for over 50 years. [...]

French paleoecologist Raymonde Bonnefille led TBI Field School students to Kalodirr last Friday, with hopes of finding fossil wood among the rocks. Heading farther north than on previous expeditions, Raymonde and TBI students had to hike over difficult terrain, impassable by their lorry. West of NW Kenya's Lake Turkana, the region is among [...]