Richard Leakey, fresh from his coup of the National Geographic funding, assembled a small team of Kenyans and headed of to lake Turkana.

Meanwhile Richard Leakey was aging badly. Arthritis was leaving him finding it hard to walk, irritable and grumpy. The marriage to Mary wasn't going to well and he was cut of from the very Ethiopian project he had initiated.

At Lake Turkana things were looking up, the small team of Kenyans under Richard, nicknamed the "Hominid Gang", was having a great time. Fossils were plentiful and in a couple of months they had discovered three hominid jaw bones (austrolopithicenes). National Geographic were suitably impressed and the funds kept rolling in. One the second expedition they found a complete Robust Astrolopithicene skull and parts of another. Later they would find stone tools and these would be dated to the oldest date up till then found at 2.6 million years old.

By the third expedition Leakey had recruited many specialist scientists and simply co-ordinated the work. By 1970 they had 16 himinid finds and but the next year 26.

In 1972 the most stunning and soon to be controversial find of a large brained homo skull would occur.

By Durova, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

It was pieced together from 150 fragments but with a brain capacity of likely 800 cc this was no Australopithicene.

Louis was suitably impressed and enthusiastic when shown it by his son Richard. His controversial Homo habilis now had a contemporary, but he would suffer a major heart attack and die but a few short weeks after.

Soon Richard would reveal his find to the world and grab the headlines. The old star had set, the new Leakey star was rising.