Bio: Luchterhand, Kubet (Research Expedition – 1968)

Contact: stan@wiclarkcountyhistory.org 

Surnames: Luchterhand, Howell, Leakey

----Source: Tribune/Phonograph (Abbotsford, Clark Co., Wis.) 15 Aug 1968

Kubet Luchterhand, son of Mr. and Mrs. Emil Luchterhand of route 1, Unity, left Chicago's O'Hare International Airport August 6, 1968 for East Africa on an archaeological research expedition.

The trip is being financed through a grant from the Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, New York, N.Y.

It is to prepare Mr. Luchterhand for his doctoral dissertation in anthropology at the University of Chicago. He will spend time at a number of projects in Ethiopia and Tanzania, East Africa, including the University of Chicago On(?) River Archaeological project with Dr. F. Clark Howell and the Oldovan Gorge project with Dr. Mary Leakey and Dr. Lewis Leakey.

The East African sites are part of an intensive effort on the part of archaeologists to discover the origins of the ancestors of man. Mr. Luchterhand will do his thesis work on the social organization of an early for of man called Home erectus, which was living in Africa, Asia and Europe over 500,000 years ago. The visits to the East African sites will provide material for that study.

Upon leaving Africa, Mr. Luchterhand will continue on to Tokyo, Japan, to attend an international congress of anthropology to be held there Sept. 2 – 10. At the congress, scholars from all over the world will gather to present and hear papers on research that has been going on since the last international congress five years ago.

After the Tokyo congress, Mr. Luchterhand will spend several weeks in Europe, visiting archaeological sites and museum there, and will attend a three-day meeting in London late in September. The sites he will visit are in France and Spain, and are being excavated at the present time by teams of archaeologists from thos countries and from the United States.

Mr. Luchterhand will return to the United States about October 1, and will be engaged in full time graduate study at the University of Chciago in the autumn.

Kubet is a 1962 graduate of Colby High School.