This volume comprises papers delivered at a five-day International Conference honoring the immense contributions of Richard E. Leakey to furthering our appreciation of the centrality of Africa to the narrative of human evolution. The discoveries by Richard in the Turkana Basin of northern Kenya have impacted our interpretation of the fossil evidence for human evolution, the geochronology of hominin phylogeny, and our appreciation of the palaeoecological diversity and changes that shaped our tree. The papers presented at the conference range from the interpretation of the fossil, archaeological and palaeoecological records to recent advances in geology, geochronology and genomic research in Africa.