With his now fueled love for and success around stone tools Leakey set about formalizing his education in anthropology and archaeology at Cambridge.
There he was able to get access to some of the best material and gain valuable field experience from fossil hunting trips to East Africa as part of his studies.
Once qualified he launched an expedition of his own calling it the "East African archaeological expedition" anticlimactically consisting of him and 1 other.
As with Broom and Dart, the Brits weren't encouraging about searches for early man in Africa... Once again pointing to Asia, but Leakey had already found ancient tools scattered everywhere and was convinces that Africa was the "Cradle of mankind".
After the expedition in 1926 and some recognition he arranged another in 1928. This larger "expedition" was able to make very significant discoveries and figure out the stone tool cultural sequence for Kenya.
He attended a conference in Johannesburg in 1929 and totally outshone the, at that time outcast, Professor Dart with his Taung Child skull and as yet unaccepted interpretations.
With another success under his belt plans were made for a 3rd expedition. This one would be the one with Hans Reck to Olduvai to confirm Oldoway Man and look for his tools.
Within days they had 70 odd handaxes and other material.
Oldoway Mans skull now had accompanying tool's... But there would be significant hurdles to overcome.