Louis Leakey was born near Nairobi, Kenya. His parents were Harry and Mary Leakey and were both missionaries. Some people say he was born to be an archaeologist. He grew up with children from the Kikuyu tribe. Leakey went to school at Cambridge University, majoring in Anthropology. He graduated from Cambridge in 1926. After leaving school, Leakey got a job as an African expert on an archaeological mission to Tanzania. When it was finished, Leakey returned to Cambridge and studied anthropology.
Leakey had a view that early man developed in Africa. He studied the Olduvai Gorge and the Homo sapiens skeleton. He studied many sites and found many interesting things, such as tools, bones and other artifacts. After few years, he had gained recognition from other archaeologists, went back to England with a two year Fellowship at St. John’s College and got married to Frida in 1928.
Leakey published his first book The Stone Age Cultures of Kenya Colony. While working at St. John’s, Leakey received a grant to go back to Olduvai Gorge. While he was there he discovered some of the oldest Homo sapiens in the world.
In 1936 Leakey wrote his autobiography entitled White Africa and went back and wrote about the Kikuyu culture. During this time he remarried to a woman named Mary. In 1939 Leaky became a Civilian Intelligence Officer for the Kenyan government. He was later drafted to the African Intelligence Department. Interestingly enough Leaky was somewhat of a spy and collected information for the government. Leaky and his wife continued to do archaeology in their free time at the Olduvai site and others.
In June of 1947, Leakey began an excavation at Rusinga Island. In 1949 Leakey discovered the first Proconsul skull complete with a face; this was indeed a missing link between monkey and ape. From this find Leaky got an increase of research funds. Leakey then went back to Rusinga Island to find more artifacts. In 1951 Louis and Mary went back to the Olduvai site, here he searched for the first man to have created tools. In 1959 their excavations paid off; Leakey and his wife found a new skeleton. Louis called it "Zinj" and displayed it at the fourth Pan African Congress, this new skeleton was eventually named Australopithecus boisei. Later in 1962 Leaky discovered the bones of the, what is now known as, Homo habilis. More shocking then the discovery itself was the fact that the Australopithecus Leaky discovered was living side by side with his new discovery, Homo habilis. Leakey's achievements were many but overall he revolutionized and proved that mankind descended from and have evolved from Africa.
Louis Leakey died in 1972 of a heart attack at age 69. Mary and their son, Richard, went on to continue his work.
References:
http://www.utexas.edu/courses/wilson/ant304/biography/arybios97/weimanbio.html, Discovering the Secrets of Humankind's Past
Written by: Students in an Introduction to Anthropology Class, Minnesota State University, Mankato 1998
Edited by: David Gardner 2007.