The old man in Odyey Canyon

More important than anyone else, Louis Leakey established paleoanthropology with extraordinary efforts. Thirty years ago this month, when he died, his name had become synonymous with exploring the origin of mankind. Li Ji is an enthusiastic naturalist, a shrewd chronicler and an artist who tirelessly publicizes his findings to audiences all over the world. "He likes to be recognized and motivated by talking about his behavior and identity," said his 57-year-old son Richard, who is also a fossil hunter.

The oldest human fossil unearthed in Ethiopia, the moral dilemma we face in the human era, Louis pursues a series of amazing interests. He studies bone fossils, stone tools and cave paintings. He has published a monograph on the social customs of Kikuyu people in Kenya, and a string of characters similar to cat cradles made by Angolans. He thought that the behavior of monkeys and apes provided clues for us to evolve the nature of our ancestors, so he set up a research station to study primates near Nairobi and encouraged famous researchers such as Jane Goodall, Diane Fossey and Birut Gar Dickas to join the ranks of chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans respectively. Long before wildlife conservation became popular, Li Ji helped Kenya establish a national park. He is a skilled stonemason or a tool maker. He likes making sharp tools. As long as there is an audience, he will use these tools to skin animals quickly. He has extensive knowledge about animal behavior. He is an enthusiastic ornithologist. At one time, he thought it would be his career.

Andrew hill, a professor of anthropology at Yale University, recalled: "Everything Louis did was full of enthusiasm. "He will even be enthusiastic about his breakfast or dinner. If you are not an early riser, it may be a little old, especially at breakfast. " Perhaps not surprisingly, some colleagues find minority eclecticism annoying. Alan walker, a professor of anthropology and biology at Penn State University, said, "It annoys many people. They feel that it is impossible for him to take their chosen research field seriously because of his wide interests. " . To critics, xiaosheng seems to be more sophisticated than people in the Renaissance.

Although Louis made headlines, his second wife, Mary, was an archaeologist. She made many practical discoveries related to niche names. Until later, in their relationship, when their marriage relationship was almost cut off for personal and professional reasons, she made her husband the focus of attention when she conducted her favorite field investigation.

Louis Leakey is an easy target for critics, partly because of his contempt for social customs, but mainly because some of his most dramatic statements are wrong. In his excitement, he sometimes announces a bold new theory before sorting out all available evidence, which is a method that hates meticulous science. By any standard, he is a maverick-"except for the typical Englishman", as he said to himself and the ridiculed bookworm scholar: "They are only going to invest a few months in field research and then go back to college to engage in more profitable and comfortable jobs." Paradoxically, however, he was also eager to be accepted by the academic community and was elected as a member of the Royal Society, the most prestigious scientific organization in Britain. However, he didn't get the honor. On the one hand, some of his colleagues think that small people are grandiose and sometimes fantasy works are not scientific enough. But his private life is also an obstacle. At the age of 30, he left his wife Frida, who was pregnant with a second child, to stay with Mary Nicole, which shocked his colleagues in Cambridge. He later married Mary Nicole. In Leakey's own opinion, what is more serious is that he privately criticized an article by Sir Soli (later Lord) Sakerman, who is a powerful member of this association and the chief scientist of Fraser International College. According to Virginia Morell, the biographer of the Leakey family, Leakey believes that Sakerman has repeatedly blocked his election as a member of the Royal Society.

Consistent with the absent-minded scientist prototype, he is famous for his indifference to his appearance; Hill recalled that in rare cases, he would wear a tie, but his charm was impeccable. Mary Smith, editor of the National Geographic Society, told the biographer Morrel, "He can get birds down from trees." . Rosemary Ritter, an archaeologist working with Niche in California, once said that Niche "has a way that even the smallest and least important people will feel important. This is why people are so willing to work for him.

Niche attracts many women. Irven Devall, emeritus professor of anthropology at Harvard University, recalled to Morrel the first meeting with Li Ji in Nairobi in 1959: "He was wearing a bad boiler suit, and his disheveled white hair, wrinkled face and about three teeth surprised him. When my wife Nancy and I returned to the hotel, I said to her, "Objectively speaking, he must be one of the ugliest men I have ever seen." She said, "Are you kidding? " ? This is the sexiest man I have ever seen. "Ricky knows his attraction to the opposite sex and flirts with his own unique enthusiasm. His aimless love finally ruined his marriage with Mary.

He was born in the Kenyan colony of Cabete, the son of Harry and Mary Bazite Leakey, who was on an Anglican mission in northwest Nairobi. Louis spent most of his youth among the children in Kikuyu, and his three brothers and sisters were often his only European peers. From Kikuyu, he gained a feeling of being close to nature and instilled a lifelong passion for wildlife. /kloc-at the age of 0/6, he was sent to a public school in England, and later called himself "shy and simple", awkwardly out of touch with the British lifestyle.

He still studied at his father's alma mater, Cambridge University, and obtained a bachelor's degree in archaeology and anthropology. Later, he studied for a doctorate in East Africa. His plan to find early human remains in Africa was met with suspicion. "I can't find anything meaningful there," he recalled what a Cambridge professor told him. "If you really want to study early humans all your life, go to Asia." Homo erectus, now called Homo erectus, was discovered in Java at the beginning of this century. In the 1920s, a similar early human named Beijinger was found in China.

Ricky stubbornly followed his intuition. "I was born in East Africa," he later wrote. "I found traces of early humans there. Besides, I think Africa, not Asia, is the cradle of mankind.

Charles Darwin pointed out in his book Descendants of Man published in 187 1 that the earliest humans may have lived there because our recent evolutionary relatives chimpanzees and gorillas lived in Africa. /kloc-at the age of 0/3, Li Ji decided to devote himself to prehistoric research to find out whether Darwin was right. As a young man, he therefore challenged traditional wisdom, which attracted his reverse nature. He later explained, "I'm glad everyone is in the wrong place." . 193 1 autumn, he made his third expedition to East Africa, but during his first expedition to Oduye, he found primitive stone axes in ancient sediments, which proved that human ancestors really lived in Africa. This was a major discovery-"I was almost ecstatic," he recalled, but Niche's hobby of excessive contact quickly made him better.

In addition to pinning his career on the concept that Africa is the cradle of mankind, he also believes that according to fossil evidence, he believes that the earliest biped human ancestors, or humans, must be hundreds of thousands of years earlier than most other scientists are willing to say. As a matter of fact, I went to the Olduy Gorge for the first time to verify the point that the German scientist Hans Reko discovered a modern-looking skeleton in 19 13. As Rico said, elephant fossils were found here about 500 thousand years ago.

1935 The exploration in Odoje discovered elephant fossils, which consolidated the relationship between Xiaosheng (middle) and archaeological student Mary Nicole (right). They got married on 1936. Li Ji, who initially doubted Rick's statement, visited the website with Rick and quickly agreed with him. Together, they wrote a letter to the British magazine Nature, reporting new evidence of Rick's original theory, which seems to confirm Niche's premonition that our first real ancestor lived in ancient times. Sonia cole, Li Ji's biographer, said: "(Rick) must be one of the few people who successfully influenced Louis after he made up his mind." . But a few years later, other researchers used improved geological methods to conclude that the skeleton was not ancient at all, but was buried in older sediments.

1932, Li Ji still made extravagant antique demands on fossils from two places in western Kenya-Kanam and Kanjela. Li Ji boldly declared that Kanan Jaw "is not only the oldest human fossil in Africa, but also the oldest human fossil not found anywhere in the world." Finally, it was found that the specimens of Kanan and Kanan were relatively new. When a British geologist visited Kanjela, Li Ji's reputation had been hit. He reported that Ricky didn't know where he found his famous fossil, which was an amazing mistake for anthropologists.

Li Ji shrugged off his critics. He and Mary continued to work hard. 1948, they found an ape-man skull180,000 years ago, which was the first time they really felt the praise of the public. This is the first hominid skull fossil discovered so far. Mary brought it to England so that Wilfrid Le Gro Clark, a friend of Niche and an anthropologist at Oxford University, could examine this specimen. Journalists, photographers and photographers joined the plane. Later, Mary exhibited the skull at the airport. She said to Li Ji, "Send two plainclothes detectives to guard it. They never let it leave their sight. "

Then in 1959, a famous skull1750,000 years ago was found in Alduway, and Leakey named it Zinjanthropus boisei, which he claimed was "the connection between South African neighbors". The skulls are similar to those of strong apes found in South Africa, but the difference is that they have heavier bones and bigger teeth. It seems that nearly 30 years of work has finally paid off, and the great publicity surrounding this discovery has promoted the leakers, especially Louis, although Mary has actually discovered this skull and is more famous.

Louis began to lecture in the United States and Europe, and established a long-term and close relationship with the National Geographic Society, which often published these leakers in its magazines and provided them with financial support. 1960 1 1 In June, 2008, Jonathan, the eldest son of the couple's three sons, made a discovery more important than Zinjanslops. While working near the site of Jinji, he found a lower jaw that was more like a human. It was later called Qianjin, because it was unearthed from deep sediments, and it was considered to be older than Jenkins rope. (Li Ji later reclassified marigold as Australopithecus; Now it is generally called whooping cough.

As the niche team discovered more fossil materials, Louis was convinced that the former marigold was the gay man he had been looking for for for so long. Its brain is bigger and not as strong as the so-called ape-man. He called it an "able man" or a "handy man", referring to the stone tools that Xiaosheng thought were made by this creature. He thinks it is the ancestor of modern Homo sapiens.

1964, Li Ji and two co-authors submitted their discovery of homo habilis to Nature. The reaction was quick, and it was largely anger. Anthropologists sent letters of condemnation to The London Times and scientific journals. Their message is that Xinji was just an Australopithecus, not a single human species. Part of the criticism is that when naming new species, Li Ji recklessly changed the definition of human beings in order to make former singers meet the requirements. For example, at that time, an ancient human had to have a brain volume of at least 700 cubic centimeters to be called a human being. According to this standard, pre-Zinj is a bit like a needle, and the brain is only 675 cubic centimeters (the average volume of human brain is 1300 cubic centimeters).

Other discoveries of niches in the 1960s also caused controversy. On an island in Lake Victoria, he found fossil evidence of two new primates, which he said pushed the origin of human beings forward millions of years. His statement was immediately severely criticized. He called primates Kenyan apes. One of the species is 20 million years old. He named it Africa and claimed that it was the oldest hominid ever discovered. At that time, experts opposed this statement and thought it was a kind of ape fossils, which was still the mainstream view. Another species, KenyapithecusWickeri, is about14 million years old. Its pedigree is complicated. Ricky initially said that it was more like an ape than a human, but later revised this view. Scientists now believe that this is the most advanced ape fossil in East Africa at that time.

At a scientific meeting in 1967, Li Ji once again surprised his colleagues, when he argued that a piece of lava found in the fossil site of Lake Victoria had been used as a tool by the Kenyan ape wickeri. Li Ji announced the news angrily as usual, but the result plummeted. None of the scientists in the audience asked questions, perhaps as the paleoanthropologist Erwin Simmons later observed, because they thought the idea was "strange" and Mary Leakey didn't believe it. After Li Ji's death, she said to the biographer Morrel, "I can't believe he really thinks this is a stone tool14 million years ago." . In the book "Ancestors' * * *" published by 1995, Morrel wrote that this incident "intensified people's growing doubts about the decline of Xiaosheng's scientific judgment. "

This is the essence of paleoanthropology, as the search for new competitors of the earliest primitive humans showed last summer. Constant revision is the essence of paleoanthropology. French paleoanthropologists found a skull 6 to 7 million years ago in Chad. It is older than modern specimens, but more modern in several key aspects. These characteristics, together with its discovery in places far away from Kenya or Ethiopia (other major candidates for the separation of humans and apes from their ancestors), have prompted experts to re-recognize human family lineage.

By the end of 1960s, Li Ji seldom took part in field work, partly because of his poor health, but also because he spent too much time raising funds for many research work he directed. However, he dug in the Calico Mountain in eastern Los Angeles. Hundreds of stones were found from the scene, which the digger thought were human handicrafts. This is an unusual statement because this site has a history of more than 654.38 million years. Most anthropologists believe that humans came to America not earlier than 30,000 years ago, but probably recently.

Ricky's support for Calico not only frustrated his friends and colleagues, but also alienated Mary from it. In her autobiography, she painfully described his position as "disastrous for his career". .. is largely responsible for our parting ways.

However, although he occasionally loses his enthusiasm, Li Ji is still a pioneering figure. Alan walker of Pennsylvania State University said: "Although Louis's science is not highly praised, he has made great contributions to opening up East Africa for paleoanthropology exploration and making science possible." Others remember his pioneering spirit. David Purbe, a professor of anthropology at Harvard University, said: "He has inspired the field and people engaged in this research." . "He may be careless and clever, prescient and stupid. However, considering his working hours, his intuition is generally correct.

Yes, in fact, the niche view will prevail, and most anthropologists will eventually accept homo habilis as a legitimate member of the human family, although it is not necessarily the direct ancestor of Homo sapiens. Inspired by his father's research on the origin of human beings, Richard Leigh, the third son, is famous for his fossil discovery. 1In late September, 972, Richard flew to Nairobi from the research site of Rudolph Lake (now Lake Turkana) and showed his father the latest discovery of his team, a large skull that was thought to have a history of 2.6 million years at that time. This specimen is named 1470.

"Great," Louis exclaimed. "But they won't believe you." Recalling his experience with skeptics, Louis is looking forward to the debate on whether 1470 is a human species, which Richard thinks is a debate. When Richard recalled this encounter, the skull "showed [Louis] the final proof of his views on the great ancient times in a very advanced primitive form throughout his career."

But on June 6th 10, just a few days after he held the fossil in his hand, Louis Leakey died of a heart attack and visited London. Thirty years later, the debate he expected continues.