The problem is that during the 1980s, a decade of heavy poaching, the elephants retreated to safer areas. And now people have moved into the corridors once used by the elephants.
Scientific innovations continually provide us with new means of analyzing the finds.
Ritual disposal of the dead speaks clearly of an awareness of death, and thus an awareness of self.
For fossils to thrive, certain favorable circumstances are required. First of all, of course, remnants of life have to be there. These then need to be washed over with water as soon as possible, so that the bones are covered with a layer of sediment.
It is virtually impossible to control Northern Kenya, which is populated chiefly by migrant nomads.
The elephants were being slaughtered in masses. Some were even killed in the vicinity of big tourist hotels.
Sadly, I am not able to take part in the fieldwork myself so much anymore, as both of my legs were amputated following an airplane crash twelve years ago.
Whether or not all this came to pass in an East African ditch, I wouldn't like to say. Perhaps it happened in North Africa or further west, but Africa was definitely the place.
Along the borders to Ethiopia and Somalia, anarchy reigns, the police and military have retreated quite some distance.
It occurred to me that if I did not handle the crash correctly, there would be no survivors.
As every parent knows, children go through an adolescent growth spurt, during which they put on inches at an alarming rate. Humans are unique in this respect: most mammalian species, including apes, progress almost directly from infancy to adulthood.
When out fossil hunting, it is very easy to forget that rather than telling you how the creatures lived, the remains you find indicate only where they became fossilized.
We are bipedal apes, and it should not be surprising to see that fact reflected in the way our ancestors lived.
