Meave Leakey, a member of a renowned family of paleoanthropologists who have dominated their field since the beginning of the 20th century, gave a talk on Monday, April 6, at West Virginia University.

Leakeys presentation,A Look at Evolution from the Basis of Fossil Evidence in Africa,was part of WVU s David C. Hardesty Jr. Festival of Ideas and DarwinFest, a series of activities surrounding the 200th birthday of naturalist Charles Darwin.

For 70 years, the Leakeys have been digging in Africa, uncovering fossilized clues to the origins of humansearliest ancestors. Meave Leakeys field and laboratory work have established her as one of the most visible and distinguished scientists in a highly competitive and male-dominated profession.

She was part of the research team that in 1999 unearthed theflat-faced man of Kenya,a 3.5 million-year-old skull which represented a new branch of the early human family tree. Five years earlier, her field expedition discovered an important piece of the evolutionary puzzle: a new species of hominid, or early human, that began to walk upright at least 4 million years ago, half a million years earlier than previously thought.

For more information, go to festivalofideas.wvu.edu