Lunch with Richard Leakey

In 2003 I had lunch in Nairobi with Richard Leakey, four hours in a small group. Motorola was supplying two-way radios to Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in Laikipia through a Global Environment Facility conservation project, and the lunch came out of that. Leakey spent his life reading the ground: working out, from what was left behind, which forces had acted and when.

The argument that has stayed with me longest: our earliest ancestors were hunter-gatherers. They did not choose their migrations. They followed the animals, because the animals were the food. When the climate shifted, the animals moved, and the humans followed. The dispersal of humanity out of Africa was, at its deepest layer, not a human decision at all.

Surface layer: people moved. Stratum: they were following resources. Deep Structure: the climate of a whole continent had shifted, making familiar land uninhabitable and opening a corridor that had not existed before. The people on the ground thought they were making decisions. They were responding to forces they could not see or name.