Hello and welcome to Herstory. Today on the show we have a bona fide Indiana Jones-ess,
paleoanthropologist and archaeologist Mary Leakey. Cheers. To help our viewers visualize
what you did I have a little model here of one of your greatest discoveries if I'm not
mistaken. Oh dear god. I don't have much meat on my bones. I had nothing to do with dinosaurs.
Monkey, chimpanzee, hominid--but you're--proconsul skull, not dinosaur. Sounds like you really
specialized in monkey business. And the puns continue. Tell me a little bit about your
childhood because from what I understand you were a bit of a firecracker. As a child I
traveled around Europe quite a bit with my parents. My father tragically died at a young
age and I was devastated. My mother felt like she needed to raise me in a proper way so
we moved to London. I was expelled from not one but two Catholic schools. Two? By this
point I knew I had an interest in science, anthropology, archaeology. I set out doing
my own independent studies in these areas and started auditing classes at university.
Pretty soon became quite proficient in flint prints and scientific illustration. There's
a date that I'd like to toss out at you that is not so savory. 1933, the year you met a
man married at the time named Lewis Leakey hence the name that is last of yours. In 1933
I was 20 years old and was invited to a dinner party where I was introduced to a prominent
archaeologist at the time named Lewis Leakey. He was in search of a scientific illustrator
for a book he was working on. Quick question Mary Leakey, what was inside of Frida Leakey's
belly when you met her husband? Frida was pregnant. Put her out of commission, it was
an awful pregnancy, she couldn't illustrate so Lewis said oh, hello young thing, why don't
you illustrate for me? We fell in love alright. Tell you what pick up your passport and let's
hop away from that scandal in Britain to Olduvai Gorge in Africa where you really spent a bulk
of your career. 1948 for instance was quite an exciting year, that's when I discovered
the skull proconsul africanus. It is now thought to have belonged to a human ancestor. 1959
was an incredible breakout year, it make Leakey a household name really after the discovery
that I led of the Australopithecus boisei specimen which was 1.75 million years old.
It completely revolutionized the time scale of human evolution. The highpoint I would
say of your career at least that's what you said in your autobiography and here's a hint--footprint.
You're referring clearly to the Laetoli footprints. This was a discovery I made in the late seventies.
Almost perfectly preserved 89 foot long trail of early hominid footprints. 3.6 million years
old and when I made that discovery the earliest human ancestor footprints that were known
were only tens of thousands of years old. That far back our hominid ancestors were already
demonstrating bipedal locomotion. They were walking around on two feet. By this point
Mary Leakey you and your husband Lewis have had a son Richard and you really become known
as the first family of paleontology. Little Richie, six years old, runs up to me so excited
because he has discovered the bone of an extinct species of pig. I knew he had it in his bones,
there's a pun for you. One little addendum to this happily ever after is that your relationship
with your husband was a little bit strained professionally. By the late sixties and seventies,
Lewis was off doing his own thing, cavorting around professionally speaking with Jane Goodall
and others. I was a much more methodical researcher than he was and I was able to spot flaws in
some of his classifications of fossils. I spoke publicly about them. You continued active
field work until the age of seventy after which point you continued to be an evangelist
for archaeology and paleoanthropology. Your family members continue on in the tradition
as well. You were recently honored with your own google doodle to celebrate your 100th
birthday and on top of that the royal mail in the UK selected you, yes you, as one of
the six Great Britons who got a commemorative stamp. A stamp. Mary Leakey when thousands
of strangers are licking the back of your head you know you've arrived in the halls
of Herstory. More people and especially little girls and young women need to be more exposed
to these sorts of works. Even today archaeology is still quite dominated by men. I only wish
I could encourage even more women. Thank you for coming on the show and if I ever, ever
get married you are not coming over to dinner.