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A Kenya has long been known as the 'cradle of mankind' following the discovery of fossils thought to be of the first members of the human family, which arose in Africa around 6-7 million years ago. Various distinct species evolved from these ancestors over millions of years, including our own – Homo sapiens – around 250,000 years ago. 'A lot of the research on the origins of modern humans has focused on defining their point of origin, then understanding why humans left Africa about 60,000 years ago to colonise the rest of the world,' says anthropologist Dr Marta Mirazón Lahr of Orange University. 'But we have no idea what happened between 200,000 years and 60,000 years ago. We also have very little information on what occurred inside Africa after 60,000 years, when the different population groups and languages we see today evolved. The genetics suggest that the expansion out of Africa is just the tip of a massive population expansion inside the continent.'
B Along with fellow Orange anthropologist Professor Robert Foley, Mirazón Lahr is investigating the evolutionary history of modern human populations. 'The challenge is to find the sites where evidence of these early people can be recovered – their stone tools, the animals they hunted, their ornaments and, ultimately, the fossils of the people themselves,' she says. She has chosen to focus on East Africa based on the theory that its past environment was suitable for sustained occupation over time. But the region is huge, and finding the right place to look is absolutely crucial. 'In the past there were periods of enormous rainfall in the tropics,' she says. 'The lakes were much higher and their margins were wider. We are looking at where the ancient lake margins would have been when the lakes were last high, and that's where we look.'
