To of the world's leading fossil hunters, mother and daughter Meave and Louise Leakey are carrying on the work of a legendary scientific dynasty. They talk to Sanjida O'Connell

The Guardian Monday June 23 2003

Louise Leakey's first experience of her future career took place when she was only two weeks old. Her mother, the fossil-hunter Meave Leakey, took her to where she and her husband, the charismatic palaeontologist-turned-politician Richard Leakey, were searching for the bones of our ancestors in the baking heat of a dried-up lake in Kenya. Meave left her daughter in her husband's care for a few minutes with instructions on how to bottle-feed her. When she returned, she found Louise soaked in milk. It was all taking too long, Richard complained, so he'd cut a bigger hole in the teat.
Thirty years later, Louise is following in her father's footsteps, and working with her mother - two female palaenontologists in a cut-throat academic world which was, until recently, fiercely male-dominated. The two Leakeys have been made the first joint mother and daughter Explorers-in-Residence at National Geographic.
The award means that the society will fund their work; in return they will spend a number of weeks in Washington at National Geographic's headquarters developing television documentaries about their research.
The society has been supporting the Leakeys' work since 1959, but the Leakey dynasty was established 80 years ago. Louise's grandfather, Louis Leakey almost single-handedly put Africa on the map as the cradle of humanity. Louis, his wife Mary, and later his charismatic son, Richard, and his wife Meave, are the world's most well-known and powerful palaeontologists. Richard, who lost both his legs in a plane crash in 1993, now leaves fieldwork to his wife and daughter.
But what really brought Louise and Meave to prominence was a discovery that changed the face of human history. In 1999 they found a 3.5m-year-old skeleton of a completely new species of proto-human, or "hominid", named Kenyanthropus platyops (Kenyan flat-face).
For the previous 20 years scientists had thought that Australopithecus afarensis, a species known as "Lucy", was our ancestor. Meave and Louise's discovery proved that humans did not descend from Lucy, and that instead of a neat ancestral line linking us to chimps, there were probably many species of hominids living at the same time.
"The find was significant because it showed us that the situation was a lot more complex than we'd thought," says Meave, who was head of palaeontology at the National Museums of Kenya until 2001.
Palaeontology is tough work. The two spend at least three months a year in the field at Turkana Basin in Kenya. They get up before first light at 5am and, apart from a lunch break, work until 8pm. "It's almost desert-like," says Meave, "there's little vegetation, it's very windy, the temperature reaches 40C, and there is no water. Logistics are an effort and there are always lots of unforeseen problems, such as running out of water or the car breaking down."
It takes four days to reach the site, where they work with up to 16 other scientists, half an hour to fetch water, there are no toilets and only a bucket of strictly rationed water to wash with. "I never get fed up of the hardships, but I do get tired," says Meave. From dawn until 5pm they survey the area, sieve sand, and dig for bones. "We're primarily looking for hominids, but any fossils we find are useful because they tell us about the context in which they lived." From 5pm until 8pm they sort through the day's findings, taking digital photographs and entering data into the computer.
The idea of working alongside your mother is not everyone's cup of tea but, says Louise, "We work very well together. We compliment each other. I fly and take aerial photos, and organise the logistics - I make things work, and I learn the science from my mother. We have no tensions - unless I make a bad landing."
Louise began helping sort bones at the age of five, and by the time she was 12, she could drive a Land Rover and would go off by herself to pick up water for the team.
"Louise is very similar to Richard in many ways. Her style of management is the same, she's firm, humorous - she can make anyone laugh, and she's a good leader. We have always got on very well, we've been terribly lucky, we've never had any teenage tantrums," says Meave.
Being taught by your mother could lead to friction, but Meave says, "You teach whomever you're working with. If I find a fossil, I'll talk about it, explain where it comes from."
The pair don't just talk about fossils, but most of their conservations seem to be focused on the camp. "There's always so much going on. It's not like the UK, which is so safe. When you're living in the bush you don't know what is going to happen next," says Meave. "We have rules: don't gossip, especially in a small expedition, don't complain and don't whinge."
Meave's father-in-law, Louis Leakey was responsible for hiring the three most famous primatologists of our time: Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birute Galdikas. He employed Meave, originally from London, to work in his primate research centre. His 27-year-old son, Richard, helped his father run expeditions and managed his affairs when he was away. It was during Louis' absence in January 1969 that Meave met Richard for the first time.
Funds were low and Richard summoned Meave to tell her that the primate centre should be saving more money. "It was a bit of a lecture," she says wryly, but she still fell for him. The trouble was that he was married and his wife was seven months pregnant.
"I didn't want to get involved with someone who was married. I wanted to be sure I wasn't the one to break up their marriage," says Meave. Nevertheless, by October 1970 they were married.
A family pattern was emerging, Louis had also married twice, and his second wife, Mary, worked with her husband in the same scientific field, at the same fossil sites, but very much remained out of the limelight. Exactly as Meave, now Richard's second wife, was to do.
Like Mary, Meave only came to prominence late in her career. After Louis' death in 1972, Mary discovered fossilised footprints at Laetoli, south of the Olduvai Gorge in Kenya, made by Australopithecus afarensis. What was groundbreaking about the footprints was that they showed Lucy and her kind were not ape-like, but walked upright, a human trait.
"Mary was the key to Louis' success," says Meave, "she ran the whole operation, put in the hours, did all the tedious science." When I ask whether Meave's relationship with Richard mirrors that of Mary and Louis, she says: "When you're bringing up a family, you only need one person in the public eye. I didn't want the kids to think that they were not really important. Now that they've grown up, I'm willing to play a more prominent role."
Stepping into a powerful family like the Leakeys, must have been difficult but Mary smoothed Meave's passage. "Mary was definitely the matriarch. Fortunately, Mary liked me, and Louis loved the romance [between Richard and me]."
Just as Richard hesitated for several years, uncertain whether to follow in his father's footsteps, Louise also seemed undecided. Although she and her sister, Samira, who is two years younger, had spent every summer digging for fossils, Louise resisted. But it was clear to Meave from the start that Louise was going to be a good palaeontologist. "Both children had sharp eyes and were good at sorting bones," she says, "but it's dangerous to push kids in one direction. I've tried not to do that. I've always wanted them to do what they liked."
Like her mother, Louise started out wanting to be a marine biologist. Meave did not succeed because at the time women were not allowed on research vessels so she switched to zoology. It wasn't until 1993, as Louise was finishing her degree in geology and biology at Bristol University, that she became more heavily involved, and then only because of her father's accident. Meave had to stay with Richard in hospital; it was not clear whether he would live. "If Louise hadn't taken over Richard's expedition, we would have had to close it. She knew that. I didn't have to ask her," says Meave.
Samira took a different route from the start. She now works for the World Bank in Washington. But though Meave sees one of her daughters most of the time, and the other usually only at Christmas, she and Louise insist that they all get along well. "We are a close-knit family - growing up in Kenya, we've learned to appreciate what's important," says Louise.
Louise went on to study for a PhD at UCL. But following in her father's footsteps has not always been easy. "People know who you are, so it does have its negative side and it does have its pressures, but I have to get on with the job. I am only me, and I can only do it in my own little way. And life isn't meant to be easy." She admits that there can be benefits. She's had years of hands-on experience and learned from the best palaeontologists around - her parents and grandparents.
Meave had to struggle in a chauvinistic field, but Louise has had it slightly easier. "In the past there were far fewer people involved with somewhat bigger egos. Now it's no longer so male-dominated," says Louise. According to the American Anthropological Association, the number of women in the field nearly matches men, although women still face discrimination.
However, Louise believes there are positive advantages to being a woman. "If I was a young man, people might have wanted to knock me off my perch." And it's a dizzying perch for the woman who will take up the reins of the Leakey empire. Her dream is to set up an international research centre focusing on the Turkana fossils, as well as modern flora and fauna in the Sibiloi national park. "There is a lot to do," says her mother, who is now 60, "but more and more I'm handing over to her. She has to get into the driving seat."
In addition, Louise looks after the family's vineyard, and has set up a number of local projects, working with street kids in Nairobi, and raising money for health and education in the north. As for continuing the Leakey dynasty, she admits that she would like a family, but says, "I've got to find a partner first. At the moment I leave men in my wake."