The Discovery of ‘1470’
Richard E. Leakey
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OVERVIEW
The earliest humans left us virtually no record of their existence at all, and what little we
know of them has been pieced together, quite literally, from fragments of their skulls and
other bones. The following personal account by Richard E. Leakey, son of the famed
anthropologist Louis Leakey, provides a fascinating look at the work of tracking down
human ancestors from millions of years ago. The important discovery reported here, known
as skull 1470, belonged to a hominid ancestor called Homo habilis and was found in 1972 at
Koobi Fora, a site in Kenya.
GUIDED READING As you read, consider the following: The title of this piece is
“The Discovery of ‘1470’”; however, only a portion of the piece describes the actual
discovery of the fossil.
• What in addition does Leakey describe?
• How do these additions influence the story of the fossil’s discovery?
T
he 1972 discovery of ‘1470’ has had tremendous publicity and is certainly
the best-known fossil from Koobi Fora. When found, however, it caused
no real excitement other than the usual good feeling that another hominid had
been discovered. I was away in Nairobi at the time, but when I visited the site
several days later on 27 July … nothing had been disturbed. The specimen was
badly broken and many fragments of light-coloured fossil bone were lying on
the surface of a steep-sided ravine. None of the fragments was more than an
inch long, but some were readily recognizable as being part of a hominid
cranium. One good thing that was immediately apparent was that some were
obviously from the back of the skull, others from the top, some from the sides,
and there were even pieces of the very fragile facial bones. This indicated that
there was a chance that we might eventually find enough pieces to reconstruct
a fairly complete skull. It was clear, however, that a major sieving operation
was required to recover other fragments that might be lying buried in the top
few inches of soil or which had been washed down the steep slope. This
sieving operation was not begun until a fortnight later and it continued over
many weeks.
A number of fragments were collected in the first few days of sieving. On
the fifth day, Meave, Bernard Wood (a friend who had been with me on
several previous expeditions) and I flew to the site to help. At lunch time we
returned to Koobi Fora with a number of fragments and after eating and a
welcome swim we retired to the shady verandah of our house to examine the
pieces. Meave carefully washed the fragments and laid them out on a wooden
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The Discovery of ‘1470’
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tray to dry in the sun and before long we were ready to begin to find which
pieces could be joined to others. In no time at all, several of the bigger pieces
fitted together and we realized that the fossil skull had been large, certainly
larger than the small-brained Australopithecus such as we had found in 1969
and 1970. By the end of that exciting afternoon, we knew that we could go no
further with the reconstruction without more pieces from the sieving.
Over the next few weeks more and more pieces were found in the sieving
and Meave slowly put the fragments together. Gradually a skull began to take
shape and we began to get a rough idea of its size. It was larger than any of the
early fossil hominids that I had seen but the question was, how large was the
brain? We decided to attempt a crude guess. Beginning by carefully filling the
gaps in the vault with Plasticine and sticky tape, we then filled the vault with
beach sand and measured the volume of sand in a rain gauge. By a most
complicated conversion we came up with a volume of just under 800 cubic
centimetres. The actual value for the brain size of ’1470’ has since been
established by accurate methods as 775 cubic centimetres, so we were very
close. This was fantastic new information. We now had an early fossil human
skull with a brain size considerably larger than anything that had been found
before of similar antiquity. Also, we had found some limb bones. At the time
we believed that the skull must be older than 2.6 million years—this being
based upon the dating of the KBS tuff and the assurances that we had from
John Miller and Frank Fitch to the effect that this was a good date. It turned
out that we were wrong by at least half a million years but this we only learned
much later.
Not long after, I had to return to Nairobi. I took the skull with me because
I was really anxious to show it to my father who I knew was planning to travel
abroad in late September. I actually showed it to him on the morning before
his departure for England. We had a long and extraordinary discussion in his
office after which it was decided that I should join my parents for dinner to
continue talking about the new find. Meave was still at Koobi Fora and I flew
back the following day to collect her and our daughter Louise.
The meeting and discussions with father that day remain clear in my
memory because, for the first time in many years, he was completely relaxed
and at ease with me. He gave me the impression that he was really pleased and
delighted by our find of '1470' and there was no tension between us. Seeing
and handling the '1470' skull was an emotional moment. It represented to
him the final proof of the ideas that he had held throughout his career about
the great antiquity of quite advanced hominid forms. No discovery of his had
been as complete and he felt sure that there would no longer be serious doubts
about this. He was delighted that it was a member of my team who had made
the find at a Kenyan site. In many ways I felt closer to him that day than I had
since my early childhood. For reasons I cannot explain, I had a distinct feeling
that evening that we had finally made a real peace and I was aware that
something quite extraordinary was happening between us. Curiously I had a
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The Discovery of ‘1470’
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nagging worry about his impending trip and wished then that we had more
time to talk.
At the airport late that night, I bade him farewell with the strongest sense
of parting. In fact we discussed it just before he went through the departure
gate and I urged him to take particular care of his health. That was on the
night of 29 September; he died in London after a severe coronary on 1
October. It is hard to believe but it was as though we had both had a
premonition.
One of the things that father had asked me about was my plans for
releasing the news of the discovery of ’1470’. It was his view that I would
receive considerable opposition from some colleagues who would find it
impossible to accept the new skull as Homo. It so happened that I had been
invited by Dr H. G. Vevers, then Assistant Director of Science of the
Zoological Society of London, to present a paper during a symposium the
society was to hold in November. A number of other people also involved in
the study of fossil man in Africa, were invited to present papers as well. This
particular symposium, the brainchild of Dr Vevers, was organized jointly by
the Zoological Society and the Anatomical Society to commemorate the birth
of Sir Grafton Elliott Smith. Born in Australia in 1871, the latter became a
leading British anatomist, and was involved with the Piltdown skull. The
Zoological Society is a prestigious organization that has a respected publication
record and so it seemed an ideal venue for presenting my recent discoveries at
Lake Turkana. I was, in fact, particularly anxious that my new find should be
presented to the scientific community so that I could obtain its reactions
before the popular press made any announcements. As it turned out, the
scientific gathering received the details in the morning, and in the afternoon I
gave the basic facts about the new skull to the newspapers at a specially
arranged press conference.
I wrote to Dr Vevers telling him that I wished to speak about my exciting
new discovery and that my friend Bernard Wood would call on him to discuss
the question of science reporters. I received a reply from Lord Zuckerman,
then Secretary of the Zoological Society, who pointed out that a meeting
organized to commemorate the memory of Elliott Smith was hardly the
occasion for me to have a press conference, that such an episode would detract
from the scientific value of the occasion and of my work, and he hoped that I
would agree. Although I truly believed that my new skull would create so
much interest that the Society must benefit from the announcement and that
its public image would be enhanced by holding a press conference later in the
day, I was quite prepared to go along with the decision.
Several weeks later I arrived in London and at 9.30 A.M. on 9 November I
presented myself at the meeting rooms of the Zoological Society of London at
the start of the day’s sessions. The anatomist, Professor A.J. Cave was in the
Chair and after some introductory remarks about the symposium, Lord
Zuckerman was invited to give his lecture on Sir Grafton Elliott Smith during
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The Discovery of ‘1470’
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which he touched on the Piltdown skull and the fact that Smith could
certainly never have been one of the hoaxers. The Chairman then called upon
Professor J. S. Weiner to give us more details of the Piltdown affair.
There was just time for one of the other three scheduled speakers to
present his paper before the coffee break and by this time the Chairman
became very strict about keeping time. He told us that as the meeting was
running late, the time for each speaker had to be reduced. During the break
everyone gathered in groups to discuss the morning’s proceedings.
I had thought that I would have 50 minutes to speak and found it
extremely difficult to decide at the last moment what to delete from my
carefully prepared paper, in order to reduce it to the new time of 30 minutes. I
decided that the best thing to do was to abandon the original text completely
and speak ad lib. I spoke briefly about the Koobi Fora site, making reference
to the biological framework to which various fossils could be related. I spoke
of the dating work which had been carried out by Fitch and Miller, who were
in the audience, and I expressed some confidence that the hominid discoveries
from this area would prove crucial to our understanding of human evolution. I
then made reference to the various specimens of Australopithecus that had been
recovered and remarked upon the apparent similarity between the material
from Koobi Fora and that from Olduvai.
At this juncture I introduced the new skull and, using slides, I carefully
described the salient features, stressing the large brain size and remarking that
in my opinion this specimen could not be assigned to the genus
Australopithecus but should be attributed to Homo. I concluded my
presentation by summarizing the overall picture that was emerging from the
work at Koobi Fora and drawing attention to the fact that the new Homo skull
and limb bones were, as I then believed, at least 2.6 million years old. I drew
attention to the fact that Australopithecus could now be seen to have been a
contemporary of Homo for a long period and that the previously assumed
relationship, in which Australopithecus was thought to be an ancestor of Homo,
should be reconsidered. I thanked the Chairman and sat down to heartening
applause led by Lord Zuckerman.
As things quietened down, Lord Zuckerman rose to speak wishing, as he
put it, to be the first to congratulate me on my presentation. I quote directly
from the Proceedings:
’Mr Chairman, may I first congratulate Mr. Leakey, an amateur and not a
specialist, for the very modest and moderated way he has given his
presentation. May I also express my personal gratitude, and certainly the
gratitude of many others who have worked with him and his father, for the
work they have done, not as anatomists, as Mr. Leakey pointed out, not as
geochemists or anything else, but just as people interested in collecting fossils
on which specialists work. The generous offer that these are available to
students is certainly something that we shall take great account of, and I trust
use.’
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The Discovery of ‘1470’
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Several other members of the audience asked relevant questions and after
about fifteen minutes, the Chairman adjourned the meeting for lunch. All the
participants were to have a private lunch in the Fellows’ dining room across
the road. I happened to walk out with Lord Zuckerman ahead of all the others
and as we came into the foyer, there must have been twenty or more reporters,
cameramen and others. I was as surprised as Zuckerman seemed to be furious,
especially when he realized that the correspondents wanted to talk to me about
the new skull. I was quite innocent, for I had not told anyone in the Press that
I was attending the Zoological Society meeting. Lord Zuckerman led me
rapidly into an inner office where I was asked to wait. Not long after, a staff
member of the Society appeared and asked me what sort of sandwiches I
would like to have for lunch! I explained to him that I intended having lunch
with my colleagues but I was informed that I was to remain out of sight until
the Press had left the premises. As the reporters seemed inclined to wait, lunch
was brought in to me. It appeared to me that I was being held, graciously I
grant you, against my will.
After a while I managed to contact my colleague Bernard Wood, and I
persuaded him to ask the reporters, who were still waiting, to meet me
somewhere after lunch. I suggested the venue be Kenya’s High Commission
and after brief discussions with the officials there, all was arranged and the
correspondents left the premises of the Zoological Society. I was then free to
join the others.
The press conference turned out to be a great success and the worldwide
coverage was extraordinarily thorough. I can only imagine that the world just
happened to be quiet that day because it is unthinkable that under normal
circumstances a fossil skull would make the front page in so many papers all
over the world. Of course publicity breeds publicity. Feature editors were
impressed by the importance that their news editors had given the skull and,
without really knowing why, they too gave the skull VIP treatment.
I have never really made up my mind whether the publicity was a good
thing or not. It certainly gave an exaggerated importance to the individual
skull known as ’1470’ and many people seem to believe, quite wrongly, that
only one really important find has been made at Koobi Fora. In fact, ’1470’ is
just one specimen in a couple of hundred and there are at least half a dozen
others that are just as complete and just as important. Nor was the skull the
first Homo habilis to have been found. Indeed, in 1962 my father had
discovered a skull of H. habilis at Olduvai which received virtually no
publicity.
The whole question of whether a skull should be called Homo or
something else is a matter of definition. None of the fossils that we find are
labelled. We give them names for our own convenience. We have to judge
whether ’X’ looks more like ’Y’ than ’Z’ and this decision is often made more
difficult because ’X’, ’Y’ and ’Z’ are incomplete. I called this particular skull
Homo because I believed it to be more like other fossils that had been called
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The Discovery of ‘1470’
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Homo than it was to those called Australopithecus. More importantly, ’1470’
has a brain size which is considerably bigger than any of the known fossils of
Australopithecus and this is, in my opinion, very significant.
The intelligence we have, along with our technology and culture, all stems
from some event way back in time when it was advantageous to be largerbrained. My interest in early Homo is nothing more than a desire to determine
exactly when the brain began to increase in size and there is no doubt, even
after the revision of the dating, that ’1470’ is one of the earliest examples of a
large-brained hominid. What I also want to know is whether the brain
enlargement that occurred actually happened to a species of Australopithecus,
or to a quite different hominid.
The announcement of ’1470’ in London in 1972 began this debate as far
as I have been personally concerned. There were many questions that had to
be dealt with; one of these was whether or not we had correctly reconstructed
the skull from the many fragments. It was suggested that the new skull from
Koobi Fora was incorrectly assembled and if it were redone correctly, the skull
would be typical of Australopithecus. The fact of the matter was that we were
able to recover a sufficient number of skull fragments to provide a continuous
surface from the front of the skull to the back and from side to side. All the
pieces fitted together perfectly and there were no floating fragments whose
position was uncertain. Under these circumstances, the reconstruction of the
skull has to be correct. There is some deformation of the skull as in most
fossils, caused by pressure and movement of the rocks in which it was buried.
The real size of the brain-case, however, cannot be greatly altered by correcting
for this deformation. Unfortunately so much time and energy has been spent
on trivial arguments over the ’1470’ specimen that its real importance is often
overlooked.
Since the discovery of ’1470’ in 1972, other less complete skulls of the
same type have been found and these have confirmed that the specimen is not
unique. The more complete specimens from Koobi Fora have helped to clear
the controversy and most scientists now accept that there is a larger-brained
hominid, distinct but contemporary with Australopithecus, at Olduvai and
Koobi Fora. Most people would now agree that ’1470’ should be called Homo
habilis and that it is a direct ancestor of H. erectus.
Source: One Life: An Autobiography by Richard E. Leakey, Salem House.
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