KENYA – THE CRADLE OF MANKIND
(Posted 08th March 2015 – Reporting from the Vipingo Ridge, Kilifi County, Kenya)
There is a time to look back at one’s old strengths and unique selling points and Kenya did exactly that before they came to ITB 2015. Almost forgotten, way up north at Lake Turkana, are dig sites where the Leakey’s of Olduvai fame discovered remnants of the early man, earning the area the title ‘The Cradle of Mankind’.
Apart from the annual Lake Turkana Festival in Loiyangalani little other big drum publicity is seen over the year about an area, and its lake, which formerly known as Lake Rudolf, aka the Jade See, is today called Lake Turkana.
It is therefore with some appreciation no doubt that Turkana residents and the county administration have learned of KTB’s decision to pick Turkana and use the archeological digs and finds as a worthwhile cause to showcase the broad range of attractions Kenya holds, not just in terms of game, national parks and beaches but also in terms of history and culture, music and art and not to forget cuisine.
Next month will the ‘Turkana Boy’ be unveiled and it takes a bit of a very brief history lesson to give readers a deeper understanding what will happen in May at the shores of Lake Turkana.
The Turkana Boy, as the skeleton is now called, was discovered by a Kenyan researcher, one Mr. Kamoya Kimeu, who was working together with Dr. Richard Leakey in 1984. It is now known as having existed some 1.6 million years ago. This young boy of about 9 – 12 years of age and a height of about 1.6 meters is the only almost complete skeleton of a human related fossil ever found in the world. Located in the Sibiloi National Park / Koobi Fora, which was created only in 1973 to preserve the dig sites of the Leakey’s and other archeologists, will the so called Turkana Boy be at the centre of a revitalized campaign to draw the world’s attention to Turkana and that indeed, if not being the one Cradle of Mankind surely is one of those where man evolved from the primates millions of years ago.
The Kenya Tourism Board also has other plans to share, like the naming of elephants in the Amboseli National Park and more details about that activity will be published here shortly.
Meanwhile can added information about Sibiloi National Park be sourced via www.kws.go.ke and more details about Destination Kenya is available via www.magicalkenya.com
