Dr. Meave Leakey, head of the Division of Paleoanthropology at the National Museum of Kenya, spoke to about 400 people Tuesday evening in the Sun Room of the Memorial Union about her field research on the first human ancestor.

Leakey documented her discovery in 1995 of the hominid found in Lake Turkanal in Africa.

Leakey and her crew first found a jaw and then teeth that were ape-like, she said. Later, they found a tibia bone.

“The species has a more primitive ape-like jaw but much more modern human tibia,” Leakey said. “It was a great discovery and a great thrill to find.”

Leakey said the tibia bone had similarities to a modern human’s.

Other concerns for her were the evolution of the modern-day hands and a larger brain than the apes.

“The development of hand is very important,” she said. “A dexterous hand and large brain enables the great technology we have today.”

Leakey began finding fossils, writing papers and publishing her findings in 1969.

She obtained her degree and doctorate from the University of North Wales in zoology and marine zoology.

Her studies are getting science closer to the separation between ancestral human beings and ancestral great apes, said Michael Whiteford, chairman of the anthropology department.

“It is a rapidly changing and exciting field, and Leakey’s studies have brought us closer to the fork-in-the-road where contemporary human being branched off from great apes and began evolving.”

Leakey’s lecture was sponsored by the Anthropology Club, the Committee on Lectures and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

The anthropology, botany, biophysics and biochemistry, history, philosophy, animal science, animal ecology, geological and atmospherical sciences and women’s studies departments also sponsored her presentation.