Profile of the Day: Louis Leakey

Louis Leakey

On this day in 1903, famed paleoanthropologist and archaeologist Louis Leakey was born in Kabete, Kenya. He was born to British Christian missionaries, who had been sent to live among the Kikuyu, Kenya’s largest tribe. Growing up in Africa, Leakey had always had a keen interest in his natural surroundings, amassing a personal collection of natural objects and stone arrowheads and tools. It was this early interest that would spark his lifelong passion towards the study of human origins.

Leakey’s belief that humanity originated in Africa defied the conventional thinking of the time. His work, along with that of his wife Mary, was significant in establishing human evolutionary development in Africa, particularly his findings of early hominid fossils in the Olduvai Gorge.

Louis Leakey’s family tree not yet connected to the World Family Tree. Perhaps you can help expand his tree and connect him to over 78 million people on Geni.

View Louis Leakey’s Geni Profile