What Visitors Can Explore on the Leakey Journeys Website

Leakey Journeys (leakeyjourneys.org) is the public-facing site of Leakey Journeys and Expeditions (LJE), founded by third-generation Kenyan paleoanthropologist Louise Leakey. It is built around East Africa's Turkana Basin and the Koobi Fora Research Project, and visitors can explore four main areas: a photo and document archive, a video library, written updates and publications, and a live fossil camera from the field and lab. The site is for anyone interested in human origins, paleoanthropology fieldwork, or the Leakey family's research legacy; it is an educational and research-outreach resource rather than a booking or e-commerce site.

What the site covers at a glance

The homepage frames the mission as deepening understanding of humanity's origins and safeguarding a shared legacy through educational outreach, research, and "journeys through time." The scale of the work is stated directly on the page:

The site also notes why the work matters: fossils in the Turkana Basin degrade when exposed by erosion, so teams focus on exploration, discovery, and recovery of irreplaceable specimens.

From the Archives

This section presents six decades of discovery through photographs, field notes, fossil records, and stories of the people involved in rewriting the human timeline on the eastern shores of Lake Turkana. The page highlights archival images with captions such as Kamoya Kimeu and Richard Leakey in 1972, field research at Lake Turkana in 1971, a camel expedition to Ileret in 1969, and Alia Bay in 1968. If you want a visual sense of how fieldwork was done in the late 1960s and early 1970s, this is the most direct entry point on the site.

Video library and live fossil cam

The video library offers a look at the team uncovering history at Lake Turkana, with footage of ancient fossil sites and the evidence behind the story of human origins. Separately, the "Fossil Cam" is described as a live window into the workday, positioned either at a fossil being prepared in the lab or at an excavation. Expect the camera view to depend on where the team is working that day; the site presents it as a small, real-time glimpse rather than a scheduled broadcast.

Latest updates and publications

The "Our Latest Updates" and publications sections carry expedition reports and discoveries. A current example is the announcement by the Koobi Fora Research Project of new hand and foot fossils of Paranthropus boisei, a distant cousin to humans. The site says the find significantly extends understanding of the evolution of tool use and bipedality within the human family tree, and links to further reading. Checking this section is the way to follow new fieldwork results as they are posted.

Background on the research behind the site

The Koobi Fora Research Project is the fieldwork program featured throughout the site, tied to the 1967 first expedition and the fossil collections described above. The site also includes a "Significant hominins" section for readers who want to move from individual discoveries to the broader fossil record. For context on why this region matters, the site's own framing is that several million years of the evolutionary story are preserved in the Turkana Basin, which is why sustained fieldwork there continues to produce hominin fossils.

How to use the site

Start with the archive if your interest is historical fieldwork and the people who conducted it; use the video library and Fossil Cam for a sense of current work; and follow the updates and publications for new discoveries such as the Paranthropus boisei hand and foot fossils. The site does not list prices or offer a sign-up flow in the material available, so treat it as a place to read, watch, and follow the research rather than a transactional service.