Trailblazing Talks with Louise Leakey, Paleoanthropologist Digging for Humanity’s Origins

This show explores the burning question that consumes African-born Louise Leakey — as it consumed her famed parents Meave and Richard Leakey, and grandparents Louis and Mary Leakey before her — “How is it that Homo Sapiens are the only surviving member of the human family out of all of the upright ape species that have called Earth home over the past 8 million years?” Was it due to cross breeding with other human species? Was it due to the size of our brains? These are the questions Dr. Leakey seeks to answer. The Turkana Basin region of East Africa is a source of unprecedented fossil and archaeological evidence for all major stages of human development. This is the place where our story is written. Every human being alive today shares DNA inherited from a common ancestral population currently believed to have lived within a few hundred miles of the Turkana Basin, about 60-70,000 years ago. Discoveries over the last few decades continue to reshape our understanding of the human family tree.

You may also like the following events from Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts:

• Happening on, 10th February, 07:30 pm, Trailblazing Talks with Conor Knighton, CBS Sunday Morning Correspondent Leave Only Footprints in Kansas City
• Happening on, 10th March, 07:30 pm, Trailblazing Talks with Albert Lin, Explorer In Search of Lost Cities in Kansas City
• Happening on, 4th April, 07:30 pm, Pat Metheny, Side-Eye III+ in Kansas City