Buluk

For his first expedition after his kidney transplant, in 1981, Richard decided to explore a region slightly northeast of Lake Turkana called Buluk.

Ancestral Passions Virginia Morell 1995

For his first expedition after his kidney transplant, in 1981, Richard decided to explore a region slightly northeast of Lake Turkana called Buluk.

Ancestral Passions Virginia Morell 1995

Since Buluk was a small site with a limited number of fossil exposures, Richard decided to keep the size of this expedition small; besides, he no longer wanted to organize and be responsible for a huge team of scientists in the field.

Ancestral Passions Virginia Morell 1995

Since he had never been to Buluk, Richard flew up for a quick visit in January 1983, during a family holiday at Koobi Fora.

Ancestral Passions Virginia Morell 1995

Still, it was that expedition to Buluk, Richard would say later, that “had relit his fire” for paleoanthropology.

Ancestral Passions Virginia Morell 1995

Yet Buluk itself was wild and remote enough, with a hint of danger from armed nomadic tribes, to evoke some of the adventure and excitement Richard had encountered in his first years at Turkana.

Ancestral Passions Virginia Morell 1995

The Buluk fossil was even older: seventeen million years.

Ancestral Passions Virginia Morell 1995

Richard invited the anatomist Alan Walker, who had published many articles about the Miocene monkeys and apes, to return to Buluk with him in 1981 to see if additional hominoid fossils might be found.

Ancestral Passions Virginia Morell 1995

Still, it was that expedition to Buluk, Richard would say later, that “had relit his fire” for paleoanthropology.

Ancestral Passions Virginia Morell 1995

“[W]e view [the Buluk fossil] as an early species of a genus from which both African apes and hominids could be derived,” he and Walker wrote in an article about their find in Nature in 1985.

Ancestral Passions Virginia Morell 1995