The Great Adventure: The University of California Southern Africa Expedition of 1947-1948

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The Great Adventure

In 1947, after four years with the Navy in the South Pacific, Tom Larson returned to the University of California at Berkeley just in time to become a member of the University’s Africa Expedition. He was to collect mammal and reptile specimens for The Museum of Vertebrate Zoology of the University.

With Professor Charles Camp, the paleontologist leader of the expedition, they explored Doris Crater in the remote Kaokoveld of Nambia. Then Tom joined Professor Edwin Loeb in Ovamboland where he filmed 115 Kung Bushmen. From there he traveled alone, hunting for specimens at Finkenstein Farm and Omataka Flats in Nambia. He then joined the Camps and Dr. Frank Peabody at the Transvaal caves at Gladysvale, and Bolt Farm. Then it was off to Northern Transvaal, and into Mozambique to collect more specimens. With Dr. Peabody they made excavations for early man at Wunderwek cave in Bechuanaland.

Everyday was a great adventure for the 30 year-old Tom Larson. He is the only survivor of the expedition who wrote a journal.