Richard Leakey - Life Quotes

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Next to the discovery of the Turkana boy, the visit to Lascaux ranks as one of the great moments of my life.

Richard Leakey
Prehistoric images speak to us more evocatively than any other element of the archeological record: colorful, vibrant paintings of horses, of bison, of a panoply of animals and humans that often seem alive and in motion. And yet there is a dimension of unreality about them... The images seem plucked from life... often arranged chaotically to our eye, frequently superimposed... sometimes apparently incomplete.... There is an enigma in these images, a profound challenge to our understanding of the past.

Richard Leakey
The first era of the Upper Paleolithic, the Aurignacian, is notable for several reasons, one of which is the absence of painted caves.... One of the most evocative pieces from this era, from the Abri Blanchard in southwestern France, is a flute. Music must have been an integral part of Upper Paleolithic life too.

Richard Leakey
The neurobiologist Harry Jerison has made a long study of the trajectory of brain evolution since the advent of life on dry land.... the origin of new faunal groups is usually accompanied by a jump in the relative size of the brain, known as encephalization.... the first archaic mammals... were equipped with brains four to five times bigger than the average reptilian brain... primates are twice as encephalized as the average mammal. Within primates, the apes... are some twice the average size. And humans are three times as encephalized as the average ape.

Richard Leakey
Three revolutions mark the history of life on earth. The first was the origin of life itself... The second... was the origin of multicellular organisms... The origin of human consciousness... was the third... Life became aware of itself, and began to transform the world of nature to its own ends.

Richard Leakey