# The Leakey Foundation **Domain:** Institution / Human Origins / Primatology **Doc Type:** Canonical Institution Node **Maturity:** Developed ## Definition **The Leakey Foundation** is a San Francisco-based nonprofit founded in 1968 that funds research and public education on human origins, archaeology and primatology. ## Nexus Context The Foundation has supported work associated with Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, Birutė Galdikas, Donald Johanson and later generations of researchers. [[articles/The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley|The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley]] uses it to show that Bay Area evolutionary infrastructure includes field-science funding, not only universities and companies. ## Evidence Boundary Foundation support for Donald Johanson and subsequent Afar and Hadar research is verified. Johanson's Arizona State University curriculum vitae lists his first L.S.B. Leakey Foundation grant in 1975 for “Continued paleoanthropological studies in the Afar, Ethiopia,” followed by further awards in 1976–1978, 1980–1981, 1982 and 1983. The same chronology lists a 1973–1974 National Science Foundation grant for paleoanthropological research in the lower Awash River Valley and a 1973 Wenner-Gren Foundation grant for Central Afar research. The Foundation's own fiftieth-anniversary account dates Johanson and Tom Gray's discovery of AL 288-1 to November 24, 1974 but does not claim that the Foundation financed that expedition. The 1978 description of _Australopithecus afarensis_ acknowledges the Leakey Foundation among several supporters of fieldwork associated with the Hadar and Laetoli collections. Because that acknowledgement aggregates multiple seasons, sites and specimens, it cannot assign the financing of Lucy's particular discovery to the Foundation. The canonical distinction is therefore: - **Leakey Foundation support for Johanson:** verified. - **Leakey Foundation support for subsequent Afar and Hadar research:** verified. - **Participation in the broader research program behind _A. afarensis_ scholarship:** verified. - **Financing the 1974 season or the specific recovery of AL 288-1:** not demonstrated by the currently cited record. ## Continuity Context Funding institutions are selection systems: they decide which questions, sites and researchers persist long enough to generate knowledge. Their criteria and archives are therefore part of scientific provenance. ## Sources / Provenance - The Leakey Foundation, “About Us”: https://leakeyfoundation.org/about-us/ - Donald C. Johanson curriculum vitae, Arizona State University: https://search.asu.edu/profile/50790/cv - Leakey Foundation, “Lucy, the iconic ancestor”: https://leakeyfoundation.org/lucy-the-iconic-ancestor/ - Johanson, White and Coppens, “A new species of the genus Australopithecus,” 1978: https://afanporsaber.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/A-new-species-of-the-genus-Australopithecus-primates-Hominidae-from-the-Pliocene-of-eastern-Africa.pdf - “The Fossil Trade: Paying a Price for Human Origins,” _Isis_ 103, no. 2: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/666365 - Leakey Foundation archive on Goodall: https://leakeyfoundation.org/janes-archive/ ## See Also [[wiki/Donald Johanson|Donald Johanson]], [[wiki/Hadar|Hadar]], [[wiki/Gombe|Gombe]], [[wiki/Jane Goodall Institute|Jane Goodall Institute]], [[wiki/Scientific Patronage|Scientific Patronage]], [[wiki/Provenance|Provenance]], [[wiki/Evidence Boundary|Evidence Boundary]]