Louis S. B. Leakey was born in Kenya, Africa on August 7, 1903. His parents were British missionaries. Leakey was largely responsible for convincing scientists that Africa was the most significant area to search for evidence of human origins. Most anthropologists has sought such evidence in Asia because of the discovery of human fossils in Java (now part of Indonesia) and in China.eakey began leading fossil-hunting expeditions to eastern Africa during the 1920's. He married Mary D. Nicol in 1936 and the couple discovered many important fossils together. These include the remains of ape-like animals that lived in what is now Kenya between 14 and 15 million years ago. During the early 1960's an expedition led by Louis Leakey found fossils at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania that he considered remains of an early human being. Leakey and other scientists named the species Homo Habilis and identified it as the earliest member of the genus of human beings.
eakey was buried in the country of his birth on October 4, 1972. In the course of his life he had won the highest honors -- in 1953 a Doctor of Science degree from Oxford, in 1963 a Doctor of Laws from Berkley, in 1966 he was made an Honorary Fellow of the British Academy, and in 1969 a Doctor of Laws from the University of Gelph in Canada. Dr. Melvin Payne, president of the National Geographic Society, commemorated his passing with the following: "Louis Leakey brilliantly rewrote the history of man as his as his astonishing fossil discoveries in Africa revolutionized our concept of man's development."