Africa, the birthplace of humanity. The womb of the first hominins. A continent rich in archaeological sites that continue to produce insights into our interminable human evolution journey.  One such site is Lake Turkana. Its parks are tallied among the UNESCO’s World Heritage list.  Lake Turkana has yielded fossils that include Homo habilis, Homo erectus, and four species of Australopithecus.

The National Geographic film, Bones of Turkana, implicitly rolls several documentaries into one: human evolution, Lake Turkana’s paleoanthropological history, and conservation politics among other things, all set against the legacy background of the Leakeys. Richard Leakey takes you on a Lake Turkana adventure, which is aided by other scientists around the world who also focuses their research on the Turkana Basin. The documentary also features researcher Jason Lewis; I had the distinct opportunity of studying Faunal Analysis in Archaeology under him at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.

Bones of Turkana is directed by John Heminway.  I believe he did an amazing job in the film’s cinematography and story telling to visually tell the long decades of exploration at Lake Turkana. The complete film is available for online viewing below.