A Trip to Turkana (***Many Pictures***)

[Miocene_Mason]

Howdy Folks,
I am back with a shiny new display name and have just returned from field school in the Turkana Basin of northern Kenya, a place known for its rich paleontological, paleoanthropological, archaeological, and geologic records. It is also a place with a unique environment, a desert with a massive alkaline lake surrounded by pastoralist peoples who are linguistically and culturally diverse. I haven’t posted for a while, so I thought why not leave a summary of what I’ve been doing!
After a 14 hour plane ride from New York to Nairobi, we were able to stay in the city for two days to get used to the time difference and make any last minute purchases in a mall. We were able to visit the Kenyan National Museum, whose collection of casts really allowed me to find my inner primate.

[Miocene_Mason]

 From there, we took a few hours-long car ride north to the Mpala Research Center in Laikipia. There we stayed for four days taking ecology classes and going on game drives to see the critters which call the savannah-woodland home, including elephant, giraffe, dik-dik, gazelle, zebra, hippos, hyena, hyrax, and most pertinently to me, baboons and vervet monkeys. We were also able to hike up a small mountain (Mukenya) to get a view of Mount Kenya in the distance and of the mosaic environment which may have contributed to our evolution as a species. It was the first successful rainy season after a number of failed ones had parched the land, and it was wet and verdant, though it was here we first encountered the drought-hardy, spiky plants which would stay with us for the remainder of the trip (often in the soles of our shoes). I will spare you the wildlife photos, but the animals were very cool to see in person.
A short plane ride took us from Mpala to the west side of the Turkana Basin, giving us a birds eye view of the escarpments which rim the Great East African Rift Valley, which is a stark reminder of the power of the tectonic forces which have shaped our planet. The environment shifts dramatically in the Basin, which even in this relatively wet time is very clearly a more arid place. Though Acacia trees are still ubiquitous, they are not nearly as densely packed on the sandy, dusty landscape. There is a level of low shrubbery around, but most of it is kept short by the massive herds of goats kept by the local pastoralist Turkana People. That is, except for the highly invasive mesquite bushes which have wrought ecological havoc as well as having serious negative impacts on the goats people depend on. They were introduced by misguided international aid and anti-aridification efforts in the 80’s and with no realistic plans to stop them, it seems they will only spread.

View from the Airstrip once I got off the plane in Turkana

[Miocene_Mason]

I’d like to point out that every researcher and student who goes to West Turkana is drinking Turkana water, eating Turkana food, living on Turkana land, and working on Turkana heritage. The local people are extremely kind and welcoming and without them and their support no research would be possible. Local workers often form the backbone of surveying and excavation teams, Turkana employees act as guides, preporators, surveyors, and maintain camp. Yet science continues to be a very extractive endeavor in Turkana (as I presume elsewhere), much more work remains to be done to give back to the local community and to ensure local people are the ones at the helm of research and heritage preservation going forward. Whilst slowly more projects which try to provide those things local people need on their own terms and whilst scholarships, job positions, and other resources are awarded to a limited number of local people, they still reach a very limited number of people and warrant improvement. I hope to see this happen over the course of my career.
We stayed on the TBI-Turkwel Campus for a majority of the trip. The facilities are mostly off-the-grid in terms of water supply, produce is hydroponically farmed on-site, and buildings are engineered to be really quite comfortable despite the lack of air conditioning. Most field expeditions only briefly stop there before heading out to camp at their site and they drop off their fossils to be cataloged into the collections there once they return. It is somewhat hot but by no means unbearably so, especially considering the humidity is more or less zero and there is often a breeze. It was usually somewhere in the 90s during the day, and a good bit cooler at night. It was ingrained in us that we must consume at least 4 liters of water a day. I supplemented that with a refreshing Krest soda once in a while (which tastes better in Turkana than Nairobi for some reason) or a Stoney Tangawizi. A local malaria outbreak meant consistently taking anti-malarials was very important.
I was able to tour the TBI collections, which have pretty crazy fossils from the Cretaceous (including Sauropod and Abelisaur), the oligocene, the pliocene, the pleistocene and even the holocene. This includes everything from giant hyraxes to chalicotheres to amphicyonids. The primate (and hominin/human) material is kept secure in a vault. In my free time I was able to be in both of these places in order to get some measurements for my research. There is also a prep room which busily cleans and skillfully preserves many important fossils. The curation team is usually hard at work making sure every fossil is cataloged correctly, a difficult task since each research team has its own catalog system, TBI has a catalog system, and the National Museum of Kenya has a catalog system. They must integrate all of this, all the while dealing with new fossils coming in and limited space.
Archaeological material is kept in the labs of the various projects which operate in the region. I was able to see the stone tools found at Lomekwi 3 which are currently the oldest known to exist. I should say that hominins and eventually humans continuously made stone tools in this region until very recently, so it's hard to walk a few feet without seeing a flake or a core. I was able to join an archaeological/zooarchaeological/bioarchaeological team in excavating a site from the early pastoral neolithic, but I will not dwell on this as this is the fossil forum.
I’d like to point out that every researcher and student who goes to West Turkana is drinking Turkana water, eating Turkana food, living on Turkana land, and working on Turkana heritage. The local people are extremely kind and welcoming and without them and their support no research would be possible. Local workers often form the backbone of surveying and excavation teams, Turkana employees act as guides, preporators, surveyors, and maintain camp. Yet science continues to be a very extractive endeavor in Turkana (as I presume elsewhere), much more work remains to be done to give back to the local community and to ensure local people are the ones at the helm of research and heritage preservation going forward. Whilst slowly more projects which try to provide those things local people need on their own terms and whilst scholarships, job positions, and other resources are awarded to a limited number of local people, they still reach a very limited number of people and warrant improvement. I hope to see this happen over the course of my career.
We stayed on the TBI-Turkwel Campus for a majority of the trip. The facilities are mostly off-the-grid in terms of water supply, produce is hydroponically farmed on-site, and buildings are engineered to be really quite comfortable despite the lack of air conditioning. Most field expeditions only briefly stop there before heading out to camp at their site and they drop off their fossils to be cataloged into the collections there once they return. It is somewhat hot but by no means unbearably so, especially considering the humidity is more or less zero and there is often a breeze. It was usually somewhere in the 90s during the day, and a good bit cooler at night. It was ingrained in us that we must consume at least 4 liters of water a day. I supplemented that with a refreshing Krest soda once in a while (which tastes better in Turkana than Nairobi for some reason) or a Stoney Tangawizi. A local malaria outbreak meant consistently taking anti-malarials was very important.
I was able to tour the TBI collections, which have pretty crazy fossils from the Cretaceous (including Sauropod and Abelisaur), the oligocene, the pliocene, the pleistocene and even the holocene. This includes everything from giant hyraxes to chalicotheres to amphicyonids. The primate (and hominin/human) material is kept secure in a vault. In my free time I was able to be in both of these places in order to get some measurements for my research. There is also a prep room which busily cleans and skillfully preserves many important fossils. The curation team is usually hard at work making sure every fossil is cataloged correctly, a difficult task since each research team has its own catalog system, TBI has a catalog system, and the National Museum of Kenya has a catalog system. They must integrate all of this, all the while dealing with new fossils coming in and limited space.
Archaeological material is kept in the labs of the various projects which operate in the region. I was able to see the stone tools found at Lomekwi 3 which are currently the oldest known to exist. I should say that hominins and eventually humans continuously made stone tools in this region until very recently, so it's hard to walk a few feet without seeing a flake or a core. I was able to join an archaeological/zooarchaeological/bioarchaeological team in excavating a site from the early pastoral neolithic, but I will not dwell on this as this is the fossil forum.

[Miocene_Mason]

Me with a Lomekwian Stone tool (I have obscured the knapped surface)

[Miocene_Mason]

Our first paleontological visit was to the deposits which you can see from camp as you sip your morning tea. As is a perennial issue in Turkana, complex faulting and tilting combined with endless volcanic tuff layers make stratigraphy confusing to the uninitiated, which also makes it a convenient place to be introduced to the geology of the region. The presumed late miocene Apak member is (as far as I can tell) the oldest rock layer here, and is a lovely red color. We didn’t spend much time surveying this and thus I have no fossils from it to show you, though these outcrops are not considered especially productive anyway. Above that sits the pliocene members of the Nachukui formation, some layers of which have very clear lacustrine layers from when Lake Lonyumun, the prehistoric superlake which once sat here. The fossil fish bones from these layers were ungodly in size, far surpassing any marine fish bones I am familiar with from the east coast. I have been told they belong to nile perch and unfortunately I neglected to take any pictures of these bones. On top of all of this is the sandy holocene-aged Galana Boi formation which is rife with quartz tools.

Morning Tea with the TBI outcrops in the background

[Miocene_Mason]

Me trying to figure out what type of fossil I have just picked up (something fishy if memory serves)

[Miocene_Mason]

Looking for fossils

[Miocene_Mason]

Proximal Part of a hippo scapula

[Miocene_Mason]

A big ol' fault, Apak member on the right

[Miocene_Mason]

Crocodilian Osteoderm

[Miocene_Mason]

Stromatolites

[Miocene_Mason]

Secondly, we visited South Turkwel, a site which has produced hominin fossils. Dating is currently in flux, but it is from sometime in the pliocene. The Fossils there were pretty sparse and I didn’t take any pictures of them, but it had some cool stone tools (likely much younger than the hominins) and was a cool visit. 

[Miocene_Mason]

Looking at a little "chunkosaurus"

[Miocene_Mason]

South Turkwel

[Miocene_Mason]

Next we were able to visit Napudet, an important middle miocene site which was especially important to me because it is where some of the fossils I study come from. It was discovered by legendary fossil hunter Kamoya Kimeu (who recently passed away) and rediscovered many years later by Dr. Isaiah Nengo (who also recently passed). The tour of this area was especially cool because it was led by John Ekusi, an incredible fossil hunter who has found multiple scientifically invaluable fossil ape specimens there including the infant Alesi cranium. We did not do much survey, but this site has a petrified forest you may find interesting (also fossil leaves but I did not take any pictures). This site has a lot more to reveal, which is a very good thing because it happens during a time not well understood in East Africa and a time when climate was changing in a very relevant way. As an aside, it's also roughly contemporaneous with the more recent members of the Calvert Formation.
 

[Miocene_Mason]

Me and one of many Petrified Trees, still in its upright position

[Miocene_Mason]

Another petrified tree

[Miocene_Mason]

Columnar Basalt, which is of geochronological importance

[Miocene_Mason]

Red Hill Locality, an important paleo site in Napudet which is where the fossils I work on come from

[Miocene_Mason]

Though we took a trip to Eliye Springs to take a dip in Lake Turkana, the fossil site there is currently lost, possibly owing to the fact the lake has risen in recent years.

Lastly, we had the chance to visit Lothagam and later on to camp there and join a team looking for fossils. It is one thing to talk about Lothagam and to look at pictures, but there is truly no place on earth which could match the experience of being there. It is twin parallel black basaltic ridges jutting out from a relatively level area (mostly sediments from Lake Lonyumun and other more recent lake expansions). In between them is a martian landscape of tilted red rocks riddled with canyons, caves, and lagas. Though rarely talked about since being published in 2003, there is already published hominid material from the incredibly fossiliferous late miocene rocks here which are among the oldest known. They seem to have some loose affinity with Australopithecus anamensis but are much older. I didn’t take pictures of fossils as they are being actively scientifically studied, but I have some landscapes. I will say there were incredible amounts of hippo remains, crocodilian remains, and turtles/tortoises of insane size. There are also hominins known from the pliocene sediments there which seem to be Australopithecus afarensis. Though later pliocene and pleistocene rocks have deflated out of existence, occasional handaxes have survived. On top of the older layers are burials, bone harpoons, and other evidence of the African Humid Period Fisher-Hunter-Gatherers, people who were there when Lothagam was a peninsula which jutted out into a larger Lake Turkana, connected to land by an isthmus. There would have been a lagoon inside which expanded and retreated. As you move east and north, you find the pillar sites. These are megalithic cemeteries meticulously planned and constructed by the first Pastoralists in the region out of columnar basalt other stones over many years as the lake retreated due to the end of the African Humid Period. It inspires deep reverence, with hundreds of people laid to rest there in a place which was clearly extremely important to the community.  It reminds one of the responsibilities of researchers to have a deep respect for the individuals, the land, and the heritage they study.
 

Edited July 22, 2023 by Miocene_Mason

[Miocene_Mason]

In Lothagam, east of Lokam

[Miocene_Mason]

Rhizoliths in Paleosols (I think miocene Nawata fm if memory serves)

[Miocene_Mason]

The mouth of Lothagam as viewed from the northern ridge, you can see the lake in the distance

[Miocene_Mason]

I feel very thankful for the opportunity to be able to visit this beautiful place and to have met so many wonderful human beings whilst there. As I left, all I could think about was when I might return! 

 

That's all I have for y'all, I hope you enjoyed!

[Ludwigia]

Thanks for sharing your journey with us. Looks like you had a great time.