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Louis Seymour Bazett Leakey (7 August 1903 – 1 October 1972), also known as L. S. B. Leakey, was a Kenyan paleoanthropologist and archaeologist whose work was important in establishing human evolutionary development in Africa, particularly through his discoveries in the Olduvai Gorge. He also played a major role in creating organizations for future research in Africa and for protecting wildlife there. Having been a prime mover in establishing a tradition of palaeoanthropological inquiry, he was able to motivate the next generation to continue it, notably within his own family, many of whom also became prominent. Leakey participated in national events of British East Africa and Kenya during the 1950s. In natural philosophy, he asserted Charles Darwin's theory of evolution unswervingly and set about to test Darwin's hypothesis that humans arose in Africa. Leakey was also a devout Christian.〔Reported in ''Ancestral Passions'', Chapter 3.〕 One of Louis's greatest legacies stems from his role in fostering field research of primates in their natural habitats, which he understood as key to unraveling the mysteries of human evolution. He personally chose three female researchers, Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birutė Galdikas, calling them The Trimates.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=The Vanishing Man of the Forest )〕〔Morell, Virginia, "Called "'Trimates,' Three Bold Women Shaped Their Field". ''Science'', Vol. 260, 16 April 1993, pp. 420–425.〕 Each went on to become an important scholar in the field of primatology. Leakey also encouraged and supported many other Ph.D. candidates, most notably from the University of Cambridge. ==Background== Louis' parents, Harry and Mary Bazett Leakey (called May by her friends), were British missionaries of the Christian faith in then British East Africa, now Kenya.〔Harry: 1868-1940; Mary: ?-1948. Harry later became canon of the station and had a distinguished career. Louis reports in his ''Memoirs'', Chapter 6, that the Leakeys were of the Church of England, or Anglican.〕 Harry was the son of James Shirley Leakey (1824-1871), who was one of the eleven children of the portrait painter James Leakey, and the brother of John Arundell Leakey (1854-1924), through whom Louis Leakey was related to his cousin Arundell Gray Leakey, a farmer in Kenya killed by the Mau Mau in 1954, and Gray's sons, Nigel Leakey VC and Rea Leakey. Harry Leakey had taken a previously established post of the Church Mission Society among the Kikuyu at Kabete. The station was at that time a hut and two tents in the highlands north of Nairobi. Louis' earliest home had an earthen floor, a leaky thatched roof, rodents and insects, and no heating system except for charcoal braziers. The facilities slowly improved over time. The mission, a center of activity, set up a clinic in one of the tents, and later a girl's school for African women. Harry was working on a translation of the Bible into a Kenyan language, Kikuyu. Louis had a younger brother, Douglas, and two older sisters, Gladys and Julia. Both sisters married missionaries: Gladys married Leonard Beecher, Anglican Bishop of Mombasa and then Archbishop of East Africa from 1960 to 1970; Julia married Lawrence Barham, was the second Bishop of Rwanda and Burundi from 1964 to 1966; their son Ken Barham was later the Bishop of Cyangugu in Rwanda. Louis' primary family came to contain also Miss Oakes (a governess), Miss Higgenbotham (another missionary), and Mariamu (a Kikuyu nurse). Unsurprisingly, Louis grew up, played, and learned to hunt with Africans. He also learned to walk with the distinctive gait of the Kikuyu and speak their language fluently, as did his siblings. He was initiated into the Kikuyu ethnic group, an event of which he never spoke, as he was sworn to secrecy.〔According to Blake Edgar in (Louis Leakey's Legacy: Celebrating the Centennial of His Extraordinary Life and Finds ) in AnthroQuest Online for Fall, 2003, Louis received the Kikuyu name Wakuruigi, "Son of the Sparrow Hawk." Harry also had a name, apparently not an initiation name, but rather descriptive: Giteru, "Big beard".〕 Louis requested and was given permission to build and move into a hut, Kikuyu style, at the end of the garden. It was home to his personal collection of natural objects, such as birds' eggs and skulls. All the children developed a keen interest in and appreciation of the pristine natural surroundings in which they found themselves. They raised baby animals, later turning them over to zoos. Louis read a gift book, ''Days Before History'', by H. R. Hall (1907), a juvenile fictional work illustrating the prehistory of Britain. He began to collect tools and was further encouraged in this activity by a role model, Arthur Loveridge, first curator (1914) of the Natural History Museum in Nairobi, predecessor of the Coryndon Museum. This interest may have predisposed him toward a career in archaeology.〔Canon Leakey also was a naturalist and must have been a significant model, as Louis wished originally to pattern his life after his father's. Canon Leakey was one of the original founders of the East Africa and Uganda Natural History Society, according to Louis' ''Memoirs'', Chapter 8.〕 Neither Harry nor May were of strong constitution. From 1904-1906 the entire family lived at May's mother's house in Reading, Berkshire, England, while Harry recovered from neurasthenia, and again in 1911-1913, while May recovered from general frailty and exhaustion. During the latter stay, Harry bought a house in Boscombe.〔The facts for this section were gathered mainly from ''Ancestral Passions'', Chapter 1, "Kabete", and from the "Publisher's Prologue" of the Harcourt Brace Jovanovich edition of ''By the Evidence''.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Louis Leakey」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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