Editing Richard Leakey (section)

===The Omo===
Plans for the museum had not matured when Louis, intentionally or not, found a way to remove his confrontational son from the scene. Louis attended a lunch with [[Emperor of Ethiopia|Emperor]] [[Haile Selassie]] and [[President of Kenya|President]] [[Jomo Kenyatta]].<ref name="slt">{{cite web |last1=Lavine |first1=Greg |title=Skulls crown Ethiopia's place in evolutionary studies |url=https://archive.sltrib.com/story.php?ref=/healthscience/ci_2581199 |website=The Salt Lake Tribune |access-date=3 January 2022 |date=22 February 2005}}</ref> The conversation turned to fossils, and the Emperor wanted to know why none had been found in [[Ethiopia]]. Louis developed this inquiry into permission to excavate on the [[Omo River (Ethiopia)|Omo River]].<ref name="slt"/>

The expedition consisted of three contingents: French, under [[Camille Arambourg]], American, under [[F. Clark Howell]], and Kenyan, led by Richard.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Coppens |first1=Yves |title=Camille Arambourg et Louis Leakey ou un 1/2 siècle de paléontologie africaine |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27918393 |journal=Bulletin de la Société préhistorique française |access-date=3 January 2022 |pages=291–323 |language=fr |date=1979|volume=76 |issue=10/12 |doi=10.3406/bspf.1979.5159 |jstor=27918393 }}</ref> Louis could not go because of his arthritis. Crossing the Omo in 1967, Leakey's contingent was attacked by [[crocodiles]], which destroyed their wooden boat.<ref name="wapo" /> Expedition members barely escaped with their lives. Richard radioed Louis for a new, aluminium boat, which the [[National Geographic Society]] was happy to supply.<ref name="wapo" />

On site, Kamoya Kimeu found a hominid fossil. Leakey took it to be ''[[Homo erectus]]'', but Louis identified it as ''Homo sapiens''.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Leakey Family |url=https://leakeyfoundation.org/about/the-leakey-family/#:~:text=The%20first%20significant%20hominid%20fossil,and%20called%20it%20Zinjanthropus%20boisei. |website=The Leakey Foundation |access-date=3 January 2022}}</ref> It was the oldest of the species found at that time, dating to 160,000 years, and was the first find contemporaneous with ''[[Homo neanderthalensis]]''. During the identification process, Leakey came to feel that the college men were patronising him.<ref>This section is based on Morell, 1995, Chapter 20, "To the Omo".</ref>