PAST was once again a key funder for African students attending the 2018 Koobi Fora Field School which took place in Kenya from June 9th to July 22nd.

This acclaimed international field research and training programme provides a deeply immersive experience for palaeoanthropology students to explore one of the most remote parts of Africa and search for remains of fossil human ancestors, the stone tools they made, and evidence of the environments in which they lived.

A project of The National Museums of Kenya and George Washington University’s Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology,  the Koobi Fora Field School works with a team of experts currently conducting exciting long-term as well as new field projects in Kenya.

This year these projects include the study of the biology of long-distance travel in modern communities of pastoralists; finding evidence of pre-human scavenging and hunting two million years ago; exploring evidence of climate change and animal communities over the last 4 million years; and discovering the changes associated with the emergence of domesticated animals in East Africa about 5,000 years ago.

PAST’s support of students attending the 2018 programme is part of an ongoing commitment to funding and backing African research and leadership within the origin sciences.