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Origin Stories

Explore human evolution one story at a time. This award-winning show blends storytelling with science that will change your understanding of who we are.

The Leakey Foundation

Humans are the only animals that get dressed every day. Clothing is one of our most important inventions, yet we rarely even think about it as a technology. Nina Jablonski joins us to explore when and why our ancestors started wearing clothes, and what that decision meant for our survival, our migration across the planet, and our sense of self. Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to funding human origins research and sharing discoveries. Please support our work at leakeyfoundation.org/originstories. Links to learn more: Nina Jablonski's website Nina Jablonski lecture on "The Evolution and Meaning of Human Skin Color"  The Oldest Sewn Hide Origins of Clothing Lice Blombos Cave Awls  Sewing Needles Reveal the Roots of Fashion

The Not So Naked Ape: The Origins of Clothing

Biruté Mary Galdikas passed away on March 24, 2026, at the age of 79. She spent more than 50 years studying orangutans in Borneo and fighting to protect them. Before she began her work, orangutans were the least understood of the great apes. She changed that. Her research formed the foundation of what we now know about orangutans. She was the first to learn what they ate, how they lived, how they moved, their long interbirth intervals, and so much more. Including the many threats to their survival. Her lifelong dedication inspired generations to care about orangutans and their forests, and to pursue careers in the field she helped shape. ⁠ I had the honor and privilege of interviewing Birute Galdikas in 2021, on the fiftieth anniversary of her study. We're re-releasing this episode in her honor.  Links: Orangutan Foundation International Ways to get involved In Memory of Dr. Biruté Marija Filomena Galdikas: A remembrance by primatologist Erin Vogel Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. Support this show and the science we talk about. Your donations will be matched by the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation. leakeyfoundation.org/donate  Credits: Produced by Ray Pang and Meredith Johnson. Sound design by Ray Pang. Our editor is Audrey Quinn. Thanks to Talain Blanchon for audio of Dr. Galdikas in the field and for recording our interview with Dr. Galdikas in his studio. And special thanks to Marcus Foley and Emily Patton for all their help. Archival lecture audio is from The Leakey Foundation archive. Music by Henry Nagle and Lee Roservere.  

Biruté Mary Galdikas - A Life Among Orangutans

2025 was another exciting year in human origins research! In this episode, four scientists and Leakey Foundation grantees (and one podcast host) share their picks for the top discoveries of the year. Support this show and the science we talk about. Your tax-deductible gift to The Leakey Foundation will be matched! Click here to donate.  Want more science between podcast episodes? Join our monthly newsletter for human origins news and updates from Origin Stories and The Leakey Foundation. Links to learn more All research articles are open-access and free to read New research reveals the hand of Paranthropus boisei Earliest evidence of making fire Complete sequencing of ape genomes Highly selective cannibalism in the Late Pleistocene of Northern Europe reveals Neandertals were targeted prey Denisovan mitochondrial DNA from dental calculus of the >146,000-year-old Harbin cranium

Top Human Origins Discoveries of 2025

This episode features two stories from the Science Podcast. First, Science writer Ann Gibbons tells the story of three ancient hominin species that lived side-by-side in South Africa's Cradle of Humankind. Then, anthropologist Melanie Beasley discusses her new study on why chemical signals in Neanderthal teeth and bones make them look like hypercarnivores. Her research suggests they were just eating a lot of maggots!   Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to funding human origins research and sharing discoveries.  The Science podcast is a weekly show from the journal Science and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Search for Science Magazine in any podcasting app to subscribe. Learn more at https://www.science.org/podcasts Origin Stories is audience-supported. Additional support comes from Jeanne Newman, the Anne and Gordon Getty Foundation, and the Joan and Arnold Travis Education Fund.  

Origin Stories x The Science Podcast

This is a story about sweat, survival, speed, and the peculiar ways running may have shaped us as humans. Armed with a hydration vest, a dream, and paleoanthropologist Daniel Lieberman's endurance running hypothesis, filmmaker Nicole Teeny set out to push the limits of her own endurance. Nicole's mission takes her from the Kalahari Desert to Kansas to see if humans really did evolve to run. Along the way, she discovers humans' unusual superpower and asks, can a human outrun a horse? This episode was written and produced by Nicole Teeny. Sound designed and produced by Ray Pang. Edited by Audrey Quinn. Our host and executive producer is Meredith Johnson. Want more of this story? Listen to Nicole's four-episode series on ESPN's 30 for 30 podcast! Support our show and the science we talk about! Until August 31, all donations to Origin Stories and The Leakey Foundation will be quadruple-matched by Leakey Foundation trustee Nina Carroll and the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation.

Can a Human Outrun a Horse?

After 10 years of exploring the stories behind breakthrough science, it's time to tell our own origin story! In this special anniversary episode, we're flipping the script to share how Origin Stories began. Join us behind the scenes, revisit three milestone episodes, and get an exciting update on the Punan Batu community's fight for their ancestral lands in Borneo. Here's to our listeners who've made this decade of science and storytelling possible, and to many more stories ahead. Links to learn more:  On Two Feet with Carol Ward Ancestor with Isaiah Nengo The Cave Punan with Steve Lansing  Support science: In honor of 10 years of Origin Stories, please consider donating $10 per month to support the show and the science we talk about! Your donation will be matched, doubling your impact! Donate at leakeyfoundation.org/originstories Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and education. This episode was generously sponsored by Don Dana. Origin Stories is also sponsored by our community of listeners, along with Jeanne Newman, the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, and the Joan and Arnold Travis Education Fund.  Origin Stories is produced by Meredith Johnson and Ray Pang. Our editor is Audrey Quinn. Theme music by Henry Nagle. Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions and Lee Roservere.    

The Origin Story of Origin Stories - 10th Anniversary

Shanidar Cave is a unique archaeological site in Kurdistan where scientists found the remains of 10 Neanderthal men, women, and children. Some of these individuals had survived serious injuries, and one seemed to have been buried with flowers beneath his body. The discoveries at Shanidar challenged long-standing ideas of who Neanderthals were and what separates our species from theirs. Now, more than 50 years after the original excavations, scientists have returned to Shanidar to answer lingering questions about the Neanderthals who lived and died there. Double your impact Support Origin Stories with a one-time or monthly donation. Your gift will be matched, and every dollar helps make this show possible. Go to leakeyfoundation.org/originstories to donate. Links to learn more The Shanidar Cave Project Ralph Solecki's excavations Ralph S. and Rose L. and Solecki Papers at the Smithsonian Shanidar Z: 75,000-year-old face revealed More about Shanidar Z Shanidar Cave location New Shanidar research on cooking Revisiting the flower burial Shanidar: The First Flower People (pdf of book by Ralph Solecki) Sponsors Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a donor-supported nonprofit dedicated to funding human origins research and sharing discoveries to advance public understanding of science.  This episode is generously sponsored by Dub and Ginny Crook. Dub and Ginny are long-time Leakey Foundation Fellows who directly support scientific research and science communication projects. They are passionate about human origins research and making science accessible for all. We are deeply grateful for their support. Are you interested in sponsoring a future episode? Email media@leakeyfoundation.org to learn more! Origin Stories is listener-supported. Additional support comes from Jeanne Newman, the Anne and Gordon Getty Foundation, and the Joan and Arnold Travis Education Fund. Credits This episode was produced and written by Ray Pang and Meredith Johnson. Sound design by Ray Pang. Our editor is Audrey Quinn. Michael Gallagher helped record the interviews at Cambridge. Our theme music is by Henry Nagle with additional music by Blue Dot Sessions and Lee Roservere. 

The Shanidar Cave Neanderthals

2024 was another amazing year in human origins research. In this episode, three Leakey Foundation grantees (and one podcast host) share their picks for the most exciting discoveries of the year. Support this show and the science we talk about. Your tax-deductible gift to The Leakey Foundation will be quadruple-matched through midnight on December 31! Click here to donate.  Want more science between podcast episodes? Join our monthly newsletter for human origins news and updates from Origin Stories and The Leakey Foundation. Links to learn more All research articles are open-access and free to read On the genetic basis of tail-loss evolution in humans and apes  Why don't humans have tails? Scientists find answers in an unlikely place  Long genetic and social isolation in Neanderthals before their extinction  Meet Thorin: A cave-dwelling population of Neanderthals isolated for 50,000 years Recurrent evolution and selection shape structural diversity at the amylase locus  How early humans evolved to eat starch Footprint evidence for locomotor diversity and shared habitats among early Pleistocene hominins  Fossilized footprints reveal two extinct hominin species living side by side 1.5 million years ago  

Top Human Origins Discoveries of 2024

In this episode, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the discovery of Lucy, one of the most iconic and important scientific discoveries ever made. Paleoanthropologist Don Johanson tells the story of his early scientific career and the pivotal moment when he discovered 3.2 million-year-old hominin fossils in Ethiopia's Afar region. It's a story that connects us to our deepest roots and shows how one remarkable fossil changed our view of what it means to be human. Links to learn more: Lucy and the Taung Child: A Century of Science - from The Leakey Foundation Institute of Human Origins Lucy 50—A Year for Human Origins Lucy 50th Anniversary Video Playlist from the Institute of Human Origins How the Famous Lucy Fossil Revolutionized the Study of Human Origins - Scientific American Quadruple your impact: Through December 31 all donations will be quadruple-matched! Donate now to quadruple your impact on human origins science and education. Your tax-deductible donation will be matched 4x! Click to donate to The Leakey Foundation today! Sponsors This episode is generously sponsored by the Leis family in honor of Jorge Leis, who has served on The Leakey Foundation board of trustees since 2017.  Jorge and his siblings grew up in a family where curiosity, exploration, learning, and science were the most valued of human endeavors. His family members are proud of Jorge's dedication to helping keep scientific organizations such as The Leakey Foundation relevant and growing.  Special thanks to Dianne and Joe Leis, Donna, and Art Leis for sponsoring this tribute to Jorge.  Origin Stories is listener-supported. Additional support comes from the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, Jeanne Newman, Camilla Smith, and the Joan and Arnold Travis Education Fund. Credits This episode was produced by Ray Pang and Meredith Johnson, sound design by Ray Pang. Our editor is Audrey Quinn. Music by Henry Nagle, Blue Dot Sessions, and Lee Roservere.

Lucy

Are humans the only animals that practice medicine? In this episode, two scientists share surprising observations of orangutans and chimpanzees treating wounds–their own and others'–with plants and insects. These discoveries challenge ideas about uniquely human behaviors and offer insights into animal intelligence, empathy, and the evolutionary roots of medicine. Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. Sign up for our monthly newsletter to learn more about our work!  Videos Rakus and his wound Rakus doing a long call after being wounded Chimp applying insect to wound Caroline Schuppli on Lunch Break Science  Links to learn more SUAQ Orangutan Program Ozouga Chimpanzees (where Alessandra studies chimpanzee behavior) Research papers Active self-treatment of a facial wound with a biologically active plant by a male Sumatran orangutan (open access)  Application of insects to wounds of self and others by chimpanzees in the wild (pdf) Credits Origin Stories is a listener-supported show. Additional support comes from Jeanne Newman, , Camilla and George Smith, the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, and the Joan and Arnold Travis Education Fund.  Origin Stories is produced by Ray Pang. Our editor is Audrey Quinn. Theme music by Henry Nagle. Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions and Lee Roservere.            

Ape Medicine

Over 50,000 years ago on what is now the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, someone climbed a towering rock formation and painted a mysterious image on a cave ceiling. The painting shows three half-human, half-animal figures and a large wild pig. The image, dated to 51,200 years old, is now the oldest known visual story in the world. In this episode, archaeologist Adam Brumm shares the story of this incredible discovery.  Help make more Origin Stories. We're $3,000 short of our quadruple-match fundraising goal and our deadline is August 31! Please donate today and your gift will be quadruple-matched! Click here to 4x your donation!  Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. Links to learn more:  Google Arts and Culture virtual tour of the cave art site Narrative cave art in Indonesia by 51,200 years ago Nature, July 2024 Adam Brumm's website  Blog post by Adhi Oktaviana  Episode produced by Meredith Johnson and Ray Pang Sound design by Ray Pang Edited by Audrey Quinn Theme music by Henry Nagle. Ending credit music by Lee Roservere. Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions. Hungry for more science? Lunch Break Science is The Leakey Foundation's web series featuring short talks and interviews with Leakey Foundation grantees. Episodes stream on the third Thursday of every month. Click here to watch!

The First Story

Early prehistorians had little more than stones and bones to work with as they tried to piece together the story of the Neanderthals, but today's researchers work in ways that early prehistorians could never have imagined. Archaeologist and author Rebecca Wragg Sykes' new book Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Art, and Death synthesizes more than a century of research on Neanderthals – from the first Neanderthal fossil discovered, to the most up to date and cutting edge research - revealing a vivid portrait of one of our most intriguing and misunderstood relatives. Links   Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death, and Art by Rebecca Wragg Sykes Rebecca Wragg Sykes' website  Kindred bibliography with 61 pages of Neanderthal research papers Leakey Foundation grantee Carolina Mallol's Neanderthal Fire Project  The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. Support The Leakey Foundation Support this show and the science we talk about. leakeyfoundation.org/donate 

Understanding Neanderthals

Why do humans have most of our hair on our heads, not our bodies? Why do we have so many varieties of hair color, thickness, and curliness? Dr. Tina Lasisi is a biological anthropologist whose work explores these evolutionary mysteries. In this episode, she shares her research into why humans have scalp hair as well as her insights on why curly hair is uniquely human.  Links to learn more:  Dr. Tina Lasisi's website  Why Am I Like This? - PBS Terra series Dr. Lasisi's AMNH/Leakey Foundation SciCafe lecture Why Care About Hair? Leakey Foundation event  Quantifying variation in human scalp hair - research paper  Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to human origins research and education. Donate to support the show. Your gift will be quadruple-matched! Click here to give! This episode was produced by Ray Pang. Our editor is Audrey Quinn. Theme music by Henry Nagle, additional music by Blue Dot Sessions and Lee Roservere.  

The Story of Human Hair

Music is universal in all human cultures, but why? What gives us the ability to hear sound as music? Are we the only musical species–or was Darwin right when he said every animal with a backbone should be able to perceive, if not enjoy music? Professor Henkjan Honing is on a mission to find out. Learn more  Henkjan Honing's website Music Cognition Group Blog The Evolving Animal Orchestra - Henkjan Honing What makes us musical animals - Henkjan Honing lecture Henkjan Honing TedX Amsterdam Snowball dancing to the Backstreet Boys Ronan the sea lion Songs to make the forest happy It turns out we were born to groove - beat perception study  Support the show All monthly or one-time donations will be quadruple-matched! Click here to turn $10 into $40 or $25 into $100! Credits This episode was written and produced by Ray Pang and Meredith Johnson. Sound design, mixing, and scoring by Ray Pang. Our editor is Audrey Quinn. Theme music by Henry Nagle, additional music by Blue Dot Sessions and Lee Roservere.  This episode uses many sounds from Freesound.org, including: Neon Dreams: A Retro-Futuristic Synthwave Track - Instrument 02 by Robbnix  - License: Attribution 4.0 Music Box, Happy Birthday.wav - by InspectorJ - License: Attribution 4.0    

The Musical Ape

What is it like to be responsible for the safekeeping of the ancestors of everyone in the world? In this episode, we travel to the National Museum of Ethiopia to see our most famous fossil relative – Lucy – and meet Yared Assefa, the person who takes care of her and all of our Ethiopian fossil ancestors and relatives.  If you love fossils, you won't want to miss this episode! Special thanks Thanks to Yared Assefa, Dr. Berhane Asfaw, and Dr. Mulugeta Feseha, who hosted The Leakey Foundation at the National Museum of Ethiopia. Quadruple your impact! Support the show! Your donation will be quadruple-matched! Leave a note and let us know if you'd like a shoutout on the next episode. Click here to donate! ---> https://leakeyfoundation.donorsupport.co/page/originstories  Links to learn more  President Obama's speech to the African Union  Lucy: A marvelous specimen  Top ten human evolution discoveries in Ethiopia  Rare 3.8 million-year-old fossil skull recasts origins of iconic Lucy  Ethiopia is top choice for the cradle of Homo sapiens The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. Funding provided by the Foundation has made many of the fossil hominin discoveries in Ethiopia possible. In addition, Our Baldwin Fellowship program has been building scientific capacity in Ethiopia and other countries since 1978. We also have a new program called the Francis H. Brown African Scholarship Fund that provides up to $25,000 for East African students or early career researchers in botany and geology. Learn about all of our grant programs at leakeyfoundation.org/grants Lunch Break Science Lunch Break Science is The Leakey Foundation's online series featuring short talks and interviews with Leakey Foundation grantees. Feed your brain with Lunch Break Science every third Thursday at 11 am Pacific on Facebook, YouTube, and leakeyfoundation.org/live. Credits Host and Producer: Meredith Johnson Editor: Audrey Quinn Theme Music: Henry Nagle Additional Music: Lee Rosevere "Tech Toys" and music from Blue Dot Sessions.  Sponsors Origin Stories is made possible by support from Jeanne Newman, the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, the Joan and Arnold Travis Education Fund, and donors like you!

Custodian of the Ancestors

Travel through 50,000 years of human history following clues hidden inside beads made from ostrich eggshells. In this episode, researchers Jennifer Miller and Yiming Wang share how these tiny artifacts reveal a sweeping story of ancient social networks, cultural connections, and human adaptability. Support the show Help us make more episodes! All tax-deductible donations to Origin Stories will be quadruple-matched! >>>> Please click here to make a one-time or monthly donation.  Guests  Dr. Jennifer Miller Dr. Yiming Wang  Links to learn more  Ostrich eggshell beads reveal 50,000-year-old social network in Africa (open access) An ancient social safety net in Africa was built on beads Are these snail shells the world's oldest known beads? Zambezi basin (Wikipedia)  Paleoclimatology info and interactive paleoclimate map (National Centers for Environmental Education   Sponsors and credits This episode was generously sponsored by Leakey Foundation Fellow Eddie Kislinger in honor of his wife, jewelry designer Cathy Waterman. Her designs are inspired by nature and influenced by her study of and connection with ancient human history. We are grateful to them for making this episode possible. Additional support comes from Jeanne Newman, the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, the Joan and Arnold Travis Education Fund, and our listener-supporters. Origin Stories is produced by Ray Pang. Our editor is Audrey Quinn. Theme music by Henry Nagle. Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions and Lee Roservere.

A Brief History of Bling

2023 was another exciting year in human origins research! Fossil discoveries and long-term primate studies expanded our understanding of what makes us human. In this episode, four Leakey Foundation scientists shared their favorite human evolution discoveries from the past year. Help us make more episodes! All tax-deductible donations to Origin Stories will be quadruple-matched! >>>> Please click here to make a one-time or monthly donation.  Guests   Briana Pobiner Emma Finestone Nasser Malit  Risa Luther  Links to learn more   Top 13 Discoveries in Human Evolution, 2023 Edition Hunting and processing of straight-tusked elephants 125,000 years ago: Implications for Neanderthal behavior (open-access research paper)  Neanderthals lived in groups big enough to eat giant elephants Evidence for the earliest structural use of wood at least 476,000 years ago (open-access research paper Early Homo erectus lived at high altitudes and produced both Oldowan and Acheulean tools (open-access research paper) The surprising toolbox of the early Homo erectus Demographic and hormonal evidence for menopause in wild chimpanzees (open-access research paper)  Wild chimpanzees experience menopause Chimpanzee menopause revealed ft. Melissa Emery Thompson (Lunch Break Science on YouTube)  Sponsors and credits Origin Stories is sponsored by Jeanne Newman, the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation,  and the Joan and Arnold Travis Education Fund.  Origin Stories is produced by Ray Pang. Our editor is Audrey Quinn. Theme music by Henry Nagle. Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions and Lee Roservere.

Top Human Origins Discoveries of 2023

Sibling relationships can include everything from love and support–to tension, competition, and conflict. They might also play a fundamental role in the evolution of our species. In the final installment of our three-part series on family relationships, researchers Karen Kramer, Cat Hobaiter, and Rachna Reddy explore surprising new science about the role of siblings in primate and human evolution. Links to learn more:  Why are there so many humans? Children and social learning  Karen Kramer Cat Hobaiter Rachna Reddy  Support Origin Stories and help us explore human evolution one story at a time. Your tax-deductible gift makes our show possible. Click here to donate! Credits: This episode was produced by Leo Hornak. Sound design and production by Ray Pang. Host and executive producer, Meredith Johnson. Our editor is Audrey Quinn. Theme music by Henry Nagle, additional music by Lee Roservere and Blue Dot Sessions. Sponsors: Dana LaJoie and Bill Richards, Jeanne Newman, the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, and the Joan and Arnold Travis Education Fund.

Siblings

 Humans invest enormous amounts of time and energy into bringing up our babies. This unique investment is a fundamental part of what it means to be human. In this episode, the second in a three-part series on family relationships, researchers Lee Gettler, Stacy Rosenbaum, and Sonny Bechayda explore how our species' approach to fatherhood may have shaped some of the most important traits that set us apart from other mammals.    Leo Hornak produced this episode. Sound design by Ray Pang. Host and executive producer, Meredith Johnson. Our editor is Audrey Quinn. Theme music by Henry Nagle, additional music by Lee Roservere and Blue Dot Sessions. Sounds effects provided by Kevin Luce by way of  freesound dot org   Support the show! Every donation makes a difference and helps us create new episodes.  Click to make a tax-deductible donation today!   This episode was generously sponsored by father and daughter Bill Richards and Dana Lajoie. Additional support from the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, Jeanne Newman, and the Joan and Arnold Travis Education Fund.   Links to learn more:   Fatherhood, pairbonding and testosterone in the Philippines  Fathers' care in context  Who keeps children alive?   

Fatherhood

Humans invest enormous amounts of time and energy into bringing up our babies. This unique investment is a fundamental part of what it means to be human. In this episode, the first in a three-part series on family relationships, researchers Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Stacy Rosenbaum, and Amy Scott explore how our species' approach to motherhood may hold the key to some of the most important traits that set us apart from other mammals.  Links to learn more:  Sarah Blaffer Hrdy - Childrearing in Evolution (video) Sarah Blaffer Hrdy -  Mothers and Others (article) Citrona Walnut Farm Grantee Spotlight: Amy Scott Stacey Rosenbaum -  Gorilla group structure Stacey Rosenbaum -  Gorillas, humans, and early life adversity The Birth Bliss Academy  Support Origin Stories Origin Stories needs your support. Your donation helps bring the untold stories and latest research in human evolution to thousands of curious minds worldwide. Your gift, no matter the amount, makes a big difference! Click here to support the show. Credits: This episode was produced by Leo Hornak. Sound design by Ray Pang. Host and executive producer, Meredith Johnson. Our editor is Audrey Quinn. Recording assistance Catherine Monahon. Theme music by Henry Nagle, additional music by Lee Roservere and Blue Dot Sessions. Sponsors: Dana LaJoie and Bill Richards, Jeanne Newman, the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, and the Joan and Arnold Travis Education Fund.

Motherhood

How did climate change impact ancient human behavior? This is one of the questions Justin Pargeter and his team are investigating at a site called Boomplaas Cave in South Africa. This site has a unique record of human presence over the past 80,000 years or so. Importantly, the site is helping researchers piece together the story of how humans adapted to rapidly shifting climates in the past. Origin Stories producer Ray Pang interviews Leakey Foundation grantee Justin Pargeter, an archaeologist and professor at NYU about his work at the site, the history and importance of the cave, and why African-led research is critical for the future of science. Links to learn more:  Justin Pargeter, NYU Drone tour of the Boomplaas Cave area Human Origins Migration and Evolution Research Group (HOMER) Joan Cogswell Donner Field School Scholarship Boomplaas Cave (Wikipedia)  New ages from Boomplaas Cave, South Africa, provide  increased resolution on late/terminal Pleistocene human  behavioural variability  Support Origin Stories Origin Stories needs your support. Your donation helps bring the untold stories and latest research in human evolution to thousands of curious minds worldwide. Your gift, no matter the amount, makes a big difference! Click here to support the show. Credits: This episode was produced by Ray Pang. Our editor is Audrey Quinn. Theme music by Henry Nagle, additional music by Lee Roservere.

Boomplaas Cave - Bonus Interview

This special episode takes you inside the world of archaeology students at Boomplaas Cave, one of South Africa's flagship human evolution research sites. Led by Dr. Justin Pargeter, the students chronicle their field school journey through personal audio diaries, offering a candid look at the joys, thrills, and challenges of archaeological fieldwork. Thanks to Justin Pargeter, Monique Niekerk, Asi Ntsodwa, Bacara Spruit, and all the students at Boomplaas Cave field school. Learn more:  Justin Pargeter, NYU Drone tour of the Boomplaas Cave area Human Origins Migration and Evolution Research Group (HOMER) Joan Cogswell Donner Field School Scholarship Boomplaas Cave (Wikipedia)  New ages from Boomplaas Cave, South Africa, provide  increased resolution on late/terminal Pleistocene human  behavioural variability  Credits: Produced by Ray Pang, Meredith Johnson, and Taylor Cook. Sound design by Ray Pang. Edited by Audrey Quinn Support the show: Love Origin Stories? Here's your chance to double the impact! Every dollar you donate helps us explore and explain our shared human origins, and right now, every donation will be matched! Click here to donate!

Field School Diaries

In this episode, we explore the fascinating tale of the Hobbit, an unexpected fossil find that shook the world's understanding of human evolution. Join researcher Matt Tocheri as he shares how this tiny hominin revolutionized the human story and transformed his life.  Links:  From the Field: Matt Tocheri  Homo floresiensis Can rat bones solve an island mystery?   Love Origin Stories? Here's your chance to double the impact! Every dollar you donate helps us explore and explain our shared human origins, and right now, every donation will be matched! Click here to donate!

The Hobbit

Dr. Kira Westaway is part of an international research team working to solve the mystery of Gigantopithecus, the largest ape that ever walked the earth. In this episode, we explore how this massive primate lived, why it disappeared, and what it can tell us about extinctions happening now.  Learn more:  Where Giants Roamed  Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach.  Click here to support this show and the science we talk about. Your donation will be matched by Jeanne Newman. This episode was generously sponsored by Jeanne Newman, the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation and the Joan and Arnold Travis Education Fund.  Origin Stories is produced and sound designed by Ray Pang. Our editor is Audrey Quinn. Theme music by Henry Nagle. Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions and Lee Roservere.    

A Giganto Mystery

How do human bodies use energy? In this episode, Leakey Foundation grantee Dr. Herman Pontzer shares groundbreaking research that upends our understanding of metabolism, calories, and the history of our species.  Origin Stories is hosted by Meredith Johnson, produced and sound designed by Ray Pang, and edited by Audrey Quinn. Support this show and the science we talk about. leakeyfoundation.org/donate  Links: Burn by Herman Pontzer, PhD Pontzer Lab The energetics of uniquely human subsistence strategies  

The New Metabolism

2022 was another exciting year in human origins research! New fossil discoveries and ancient DNA research expanded our understanding of the past. We learned something surprising about the evolution of human speech, and new methodologies and showed promising potential to improve the future of medicine. In this episode, four Leakey Foundation scientists shared their favorite human evolution discoveries from the past year. Our guests  Carol Ward, University of Missouri Sofia Samper Carro, Australian National University Kevin Hatala, Chatham University Megan Henriquez, City University of New York  Links to learn more  Evolutionary loss of complexity in human vocal anatomy as an adaptation for speech When less is more in the evolution of language The face of the first European found in Atapuerca Europe's oldest fossil named after Pink Floyd Meet the first Neanderthal family Genetic insights into the social organization of Neanderthals Population genetics study of Strongyloides fuelleborni   The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing human origins research and outreach.  Want to support the show? Your donation will be matched by Leakey Foundation President Jeanne Newman who is matching up to $5,000 in gifts from Origin Stories listeners. Every dollar helps! leakeyfoundation.org/originstories23 Sponsors and credits This episode was generously sponsored by Diana McSherry and Pat Poe. Origin Stories is also sponsored by Jeanne Newman, the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, Camilla and George Smith, and the Joan and Arnold Travis Education Fund. Thanks as well to the Benevity Community Impact Fund for their support of the show. Origin Stories is produced by Ray Pang. Our editor is Audrey Quinn. Theme music by Henry Nagle. Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions and Lee Roservere. Join us for these events February 8, 6 pm Pacific -  Where is the love?: Secrets of Chimpanzee Relationships - click to register February 16, 11 am Pacific - Lunch Break Science with Tom Plummer - click to watch

Top Human Origins Discoveries of 2022

We've been hard at work on a new season of stories about how we became human. Origin Stories returns on January 31 with monthly episodes!

Origin Stories is back!

 In this episode, we explore five strange fossilized footprints found by Mary Leakey at the site of Laetoli in Tanzania. Decades after their original discovery, these footprints have revealed a new story about our ancient ancestors that expands our understanding of how hominins moved and interacted.  ThanksThanks to Dr. Ellison McNutt and Dr. Charles Musiba for sharing their work.  Thanks as well to Jim Carty and Pat Randall for generously sponsoring this episode. Jim is a long-time Leakey Foundation supporter who actually volunteered to work at Laeotli in the 1980s to help figure out a way to preserve the Laetoli footprints.    Learn more Footprint evidence of early hominin locomotor diversity at Laetoli, Tanzania    Charming video of Dr. McNutt coaxing a baby bear to walk upright   Dr. Charles Musiba's website Dr. Ellison McNutt's website The Kilham Bear Center   Conservation of the Laetoli Footprints - a talk by Dr. Charles Musiba   The Ngorongoro Conservation Area Unesco World Heritage Site   Survey and Discovering Us giveaway Click here to take our short audience survey, and you could win one of three free copies of Discovering Us: 50 Great Discoveries in Human Origins by Evan Hadingham. Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and educational outreach.  Support this show and the science we talk about. Your donations will be matched by the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation. leakeyfoundation.org/donate  Lunch Break Science is The Leakey Foundation's web series featuring short talks and interviews with Leakey Foundation grantees. Episodes stream on the first and third Thursdays of every month. leakeyfoundation.org/live This episode was produced and sound designed by Ray Pang. Our editor is Audrey Quinn. Theme music by Henry Nagle. Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions and Lee Roservere.

First Steps at Laetoli

In this episode, we talk with Evan Hadingham, senior science editor for the PBS program NOVA. His new book, Discovering Us: 50 Great Discoveries in Human Origins, highlights the thrilling fossil finds, groundbreaking primate behavior observations, and important scientific work of Leakey Foundation researchers. Want to win your own copy of the book? Take our listener survey for a chance to win one of three giveaway copies! Discovering Us is also available for sale anywhere you buy books, but when you buy it through bookshop.org, 10% of the proceeds go to support our work. Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach.  Support this show and the science we talk about. Your donations will be matched by the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation. leakeyfoundation.org/donate  Lunch Break Science is The Leakey Foundation's web series featuring short talks and interviews with Leakey Foundation grantees. Episodes stream on the first and third Thursday of every month. leakeyfoundation.org/live This episode was produced by Ray Pang. Our editor is Audrey Quinn. Theme music by Henry Nagle. Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions and Lee Roservere.

Discovering Us

2021 was a big year in science! Fossil discoveries introduced new relatives to our family tree, new findings added fascinating twists to the human story, and breakthroughs in research methods opened new worlds to explore. In this episode, five scientists discuss their favorite human origins discoveries of 2021.  Click here for a transcript of this episode. Our guests: Scott A. Williams, New York UniversityJessica Thompson, Yale UniversityGiulia Gallo, University of California at DavisFernando Villanea, University of Colorado at BoulderErin Kane, Boston University Read more about their top discoveries: Dragon Man  Late Middle Pleistocene Harbin cranium represents a new Homo species   Stunning 'Dragon Man' skull may be an elusive Denisovan—or a new species of human  'Dragon man' claimed as new species of ancient human but doubts remain  SedaDNA  Unearthing Neanderthal population history using nuclear and mitochondrial DNA from cave sediments Bacho Kiro Initial Upper Palaeolithic humans in Europe had recent Neanderthal ancestry  Early Homo sapiens groups in Europe faced subarctic climates  Like Neanderthals, Early Humans Endured a Frigid Europe White Sands footprints Evidence of humans in North America during the Last Glacial Maximum  Ancient Footprints Push Back Date of Human Arrival in the Americas  National Park Services White Sands Website Camera trap research on Dryas monkeys A natural history of Chlorocebus dryas from camera traps in Lomami National Park and its buffer zone, Democratic Republic of the Congo, with notes on the species status of Cercopithecus salongo   Using local knowledge and camera traps to investigate occurrence and habitat preference of an Endangered primate: the endemic dryas monkey in the Democratic Republic of the Congo-  Picture Perfect: Camera Traps Find Endangered Dryas Monkeys  The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. This month, thanks to Jorge and Ann Leis and the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, all donations will be quadruple-matched. Click here to make a donation! Credits This episode was hosted and produced by Meredith Johnson and Ray Pang. Our editor is Audrey Quinn.  Music by Henry Nagle and  Lee Roservere. Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions. Please send us your questions! Have a question about human evolution? Something you've always wondered about? We will find a scientist to answer it on a special episode of Origin Stories! There are three ways to submit your question: Leave a voicemail at +1(707)788-8582 Visit speakpipe.com/originstories and leave a message Record a voice memo on your phone and email it to us at originstories@leakeyfoundation.org Lunch Break Science Lunch Break Science is The Leakey Foundation's web series featuring short talks and interviews with Leakey Foundation grantees. Episodes stream live on the first and third Thursdays of every month. Sign up for event reminders and watch past episodes at leakeyfoundation.org/live

Top Human Origins Discoveries of 2021

As a young girl, Biruté Mary Galdikas dreamed of going to the forests of Southeast Asia to study the least-known of all the great apes, the elusive orangutan. People told her it would be impossible. But, in 1971, she traveled to Borneo and started what is now the longest ongoing study of orangutans in the history of science. This is her story. She was the third in the group of now world-famous scientists known as the Trimates—Jane Goodall in Tanzania, Dian Fossey in Rwanda, and Biruté Mary Galdikas in Borneo. The Trimates were the first women to establish long-term studies of great apes in the wild. They were all mentored by Louis Leakey. Their work formed the basis of everything science now knows about chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans. And they've inspired generations of researchers and conservationists to follow in their footsteps. Today's episode celebrates Dr. Biruté Mary Galdikas and her half-century of field research and orangutan conservation work. About our guest Dr. Galdikas is the founder and president of Orangutan Foundation International. She's a research professor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver and Professor Extraordinaire at the Universitas Nasional in Jakarta. She's a 19-time Leakey Foundation grantee, and she was one of Louis Leakey's last proteges in his lifetime. Links  Orangutan Foundation International Ways to get involved Learn about palm oil  Credits Ray Pang produced this episode. Sound design by Ray Pang. Our editor is Audrey Quinn. Meredith Johnson is the host and executive producer of Origin Stories. Thanks to Talain Blanchon for audio of Dr. Galdikas in the field and for recording our interview with Dr. Galdikas in his studio. And special thanks to Marcus Foley and Emily Patton for all their help. Archival lecture audio is from The Leakey Foundation archive. Music by Henry Nagle and  Lee Roservere. Please send us your questions! Have a question about human evolution? Something you've always wondered about? We will find a scientist to answer it on a special episode of Origin Stories! There are three ways to submit your question: Leave a voicemail at +1(707)788-8582 Visit speakpipe.com/originstories and leave a message Record a voice memo on your phone and email it to us at originstories@leakeyfoundation.org The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. Thanks to Jeanne Newman and the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, all donations to support the podcast will be quadruple-matched. Visit leakeyfoundation.org/donate and use the notes field to let us know your donation is for Origin Stories. Lunch Break Science Lunch Break Science is The Leakey Foundation's web series featuring short talks and interviews with Leakey Foundation grantees. Episodes stream live on the first and third Thursdays of every month. Sign up for event reminders and watch past episodes at leakeyfoundation.org/live

Episode 58: Biruté Mary Galdikas - 50 Years with Orangutans

Scientists agree that dogs evolved from wolves, but exactly how and when that happened is hotly contested. In this episode, Origin Stories contributor Neil Sandell examines the evolution of the relationship between dogs and humans, and explores the journey from wolf to dog. This story was originally produced for the CBC program IDEAS.   Click here for a transcript of this episode. Guests in this episode: (in order of appearance) Angela Perri is an archaeologist at Durham University, U.K. Sebastian Dicenaire is a French playwright and audio producer living in Brussels Greger Larson is director of the Palaeogenomics & Bio-Archaeology Research Network at the University of Oxford, U.K. Kathryn Lord is an evolutionary biologist at the Karlsson Lab of the University of Massachusetts Medical School and the Broad Institute. Mietje Germonpré is a palaeontologist at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels.  Sarah Marshall-Pescini is a behavioural scientist at the Wolf Science Center in Austria, and the  Domestication Lab at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna.  Friederike Range is a biologist and co-founder of the Wolf Science Center. She is a research professor at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna.  Giulia Cimarelli is a biologist at the Wolf Science Center, and a postdoctoral fellow at the Domestication Lab at University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna.  Credits This episode was produced by Neil Sandell. Find him on Twitter. Send us your questions! Have a question about human evolution? Something you've always wondered about? We will find a scientist to answer it on a special episode of Origin Stories! There are three ways to submit your question:  Leave a voicemail at (707) 788-8582 Visit speakpipe.com/originstories and leave a message Record a voice memo on your phone and email it to us at originstories@leakeyfoundation.org  The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. All donations to support the podcast will be quadruple-matched thanks to Jeanne Newman and the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation. Visit leakeyfoundation.org/donate and use the notes field to let us know your donation is in support of Origin Stories. Lunch Break Science Lunch Break Science is The Leakey Foundation's web series featuring short talks and interviews with Leakey Foundation grantees. Episodes stream live on the first and third Thursdays of every month. Sign up for event reminders and watch past episodes at leakeyfoundation.org/live

Entre Chien et Loup: How Dogs Began

Learn about the evolution of our extraordinary ability to cool ourselves down. Biological anthropologist Andrew Best discusses the past, present, and future of sweat in this special bonus episode. About our guest Dr. Andrew Best is a biological anthropologist at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts who studies metabolism, endurance, and the evolution of sweat. Visit his website to learn more about him and his research. Click here for a one-minute video about his Leakey Foundation-supported research project on the evolution of sweat glands. Episode Transcript   Google Doc Transcript  PDF Transcript  Links to more sweaty science    The science of sweat  Giving sweat the respect it deserves   The weird science of how sweat attracts   Open access research papers of interest   Human Locomotion and Heat Loss: An Evolutionary Perspective  Repeated mutation of a developmental enhancercontributed to human thermoregulatory evolution  Credits This episode was produced by Ray Pang. To keep up with and learn more about his work, follow Ray at @PangRay on Twitter.  Our editor is Audrey Quinn. Meredith Johnson is the host and executive producer of Origin Stories. Music by Henry Nagle and Lee Roservere. Send us your questions! Have a question about human evolution? Something you've always wondered about? We will find a scientist to answer it on a special episode of Origin Stories! There are three ways to submit your question:  Leave a voicemail at +1(707) 788-8582 Visit speakpipe.com/originstories and leave a message Record a voice memo on your phone and email it to us at originstories@leakeyfoundation.org  The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. All donations to support the podcast will be quadruple-matched thanks to Jeanne Newman and the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation. Visit leakeyfoundation.org/donate and use the notes field to let us know your donation is in support of Origin Stories. Lunch Break Science Lunch Break Science is The Leakey Foundation's web series featuring short talks and interviews with Leakey Foundation grantees. Episodes stream live on the first and third Thursdays of every month. Sign up for event reminders and watch past episodes at leakeyfoundation.org/live!

Bonus Episode: Short and Sweat

Producer and scientist Kevin McLean travels to an island off the coast of Panama where researchers have found an isolated group of monkeys with a creative approach to surviving in a challenging environment. Links  These tiny monkeys have entered their Stone Age with a bang First report of habitual stone tool use by Cebus monkeys Habitual Stone-Tool Aided Extractive Foraging in White-Faced Capuchins, Cebus Capucinus Video of capuchins using tools Research presentation on social learning by Leakey Foundation grantee Brendan Barrett Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute Department for the Ecology of Animal Societies Claudio Montezo Moreno's biodiversity research website Send us your questions! Have a question about human evolution? Something you've always wondered about? We will find a scientist to answer it on a special episode of Origin Stories! There are three ways to submit your question:  Leave a voicemail at (707) 788-8582 Visit speakpipe.com/originstories and leave a message Record a voice memo on your phone and email it to us at originstories@leakeyfoundation.org  The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. All donations to support the podcast will be quadruple-matched thanks to Jeanne Newman and the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation. Visit leakeyfoundation.org/donate and use the notes field to let us know your donation is in support of Origin Stories. Lunch Break Science Lunch Break Science is The Leakey Foundation's web series featuring short talks and interviews with Leakey Foundation grantees. Episodes stream live on the first and third Thursdays of every month. Sign up for event reminders and watch past episodes at leakeyfoundation.org/live

Episode 55: Monkeys Get Creative

The widely-held idea known as the "obstetrical dilemma" is a hypothesis that explains why babies are so helpless, and why childbirth is so difficult for humans compared to other animals.  The obstetrical dilemma suggests that babies are born early so their big brains can fit through the mother's pelvis, which can't get any wider due to our method of bipedal locomotion. This problem, the idea says, is solved by an evolutionary tradeoff that increases risks to pregnant mothers who must struggle to birth bigger and bigger-brained babies through narrow birth canals.   On this episode, Leakey Foundation grantees Dr. Holly Dunsworth and Dr. Anna Warrener describe their search for the evidence behind the obstetrical dilemma and they discuss the importance of the stories we tell about our bodies. Send us your questions! Have a question about human evolution? Something you've always wondered about? We will find a scientist to answer it on a special episode of Origin Stories! There are three ways to submit your question:  Leave a voicemail at (707) 788-8582 Visit speakpipe.com/originstories and leave a message Record a voice memo on your phone and email it to us at originstories@leakeyfoundation.org  Links The Mermaid's Tale A Most Interesting Problem  There is no 'obstetrical dilemma': towards a braver medicine with fewer chilbirth interventions Metabolic hypothesis for human altriciality  A Wider Pelvis Does Not Increase Locomotor Cost in Humans, with Implications for the Evolution of Childbirth The obstetrical dilemma hypothesis: there's life in the old dog yet YouTube - Close up video of chimp childbirth The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. All donations to support the podcast will be quadruple-matched thanks to Jeanne Newman and the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation. Visit leakeyfoundation.org/donate and use the notes field let us know your donation is in support of Origin Stories. Thanks Thanks to Lynn and Larry Schafran for sponsoring this episode. We are grateful for their support of The Leakey Foundation and our educational programs. Lunch Break Science Lunch Break Science is The Leakey Foundation's web series featuring short talks and interviews with Leakey Foundation grantees. Episodes stream live on the first and third Thursdays of every month. Sign up for event reminders and watch past episodes at leakeyfoundation.org/live  

Episode 54: The Obstetrical Dilemma

Sleep is one of the defining traits of human life. It's also one of the most mysterious. Dr. Horacio de la Iglesia is a neurobiologist who's on a quest to understand how patterns of human sleep evolved. His new research shows an unexpected connection between sleep and the cycles of the moon. Links de la Iglesia Lab Moonstruck Sleep  It's not just the pandemic. The moon may be messing with your sleep, too  The de la Iglesia Lab Sleep and Homelessness Project Science and Evolution of Sleep | Ask a Biologist Podcast Recommendation: Our Opinions Are Correct   The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. All donations to support the podcast will be quadruple-matched thanks to Jeanne Newman and the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation. Click leakeyfoundation.donorsupport.co/page/originstories to donate!   Lunch Break Science Lunch Break Science is The Leakey Foundation's web series featuring short talks and interviews with Leakey Foundation grantees. Episodes stream live on the first and third Thursdays of every month. Sign up for event reminders and watch past episodes at leakeyfoundation.org/live    

Sleep and the Moon

What is it like to study an endangered species like chimpanzees, knowing they may go extinct within your lifetime? Leakey Foundation grantee Dr. Zarin Machanda is a co-director of the Kibale Chimpanzee Project, a long-term field study in Uganda. This study was started by primatologist Richard Wrangham in 1987, and project members have collected daily records of the chimps there ever since. These notes hold the life stories of around 150 chimpanzees, and this long-term data is a powerful way for scientists to understand chimpanzees–and ourselves. The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. Lunch Break Science Lunch Break Science is The Leakey Foundation's web series featuring short talks and interviews with Leakey Foundation grantees. Episodes stream live on the first and third Thursdays of every month. Sign up for event reminders and watch past episodes at leakeyfoundation.org/live Links Kibale Chimpanzee Project Dr. Zarin Machanda First Molar Eruption, Weaning, and Life History in Wild Chimpanzees  No Grumpy Old Men in the World of Chimps Social selectivity in aging chimpanzees The Kasisi Project Primates and social media   Ku0axA3wNaEL2utrbZjy

How to Study an Endangered Species

Your life story is hidden in your teeth. The days, weeks, years, and stressful events of your life are recorded in tiny timelines that can be read by scientists like Leakey Foundation grantee Dr. Tanya Smith. She and her colleagues used fossil teeth to tell a detailed and intimate story about the lives of two Neanderthal children and the changing world they lived in. Links  The Tales Teeth Tell   What teeth can tell about the lives and environments of ancient humans and Neanderthals Wintertime stress, nursing, and lead exposure in Neanderthal children  Reconstructing hominin life history Dr. Tanya Smith's website The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. Support The Leakey Foundation Support this show and the science we talk about. Become a monthly donor and your donations will be matched by the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation. leakeyfoundation.org/donate  Lunch Break Science Lunch Break Science is The Leakey Foundation's web series featuring short talks and interviews with Leakey Foundation grantees. Episodes stream live on the first and third Thursdays of every month. leakeyfoundation.org/live

Episode 51: The Teeth Remember

Early prehistorians had little more than stones and bones to work with as they tried to piece together the story of the Neanderthals, but today's researchers work in ways that early prehistorians could never have imagined. Archaeologist and author Rebecca Wragg Sykes' new book Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Art, and Death synthesizes more than a century of research on Neanderthals – from the first Neanderthal fossil discovered, to the most up to date and cutting edge research - revealing a vivid portrait of one of our most intriguing and misunderstood relatives. Links   Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death, and Art by Rebecca Wragg Sykes Rebecca Wragg Sykes' website  Kindred bibliography with 61 pages of Neanderthal research papers Leakey Foundation grantee Carolina Mallol's Neanderthal Fire Project  The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. Support The Leakey Foundation Support this show and the science we talk about. For the month of February, we are running a campaign in celebration of Charles Darwin's birthday. 100% of the money we raise will go towards funding research grants, and all donations up to a total of $2,500 will be matched by Leakey Foundation trustee Mike Smith and matched again by the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation. leakeyfoundation.org/donate  A Most Interesting Problem As part of our Darwin celebration, we're having a virtual event on Saturday, February 13. "A Most Interesting Problem" celebrates Charles Darwin's contributions to science and explores what Darwin got right and wrong about human evolution - 150 years after the publication of his book The Descent of Man. The speakers will be Jeremey DeSilva, Darwin historian Janet Browne, Brian Hare, Yohannes Haile-Selassie, Augustin Fuentes, Holly Dunsworth, and Ann Gibbons. Visit bit.ly/originsdarwin to get your free tickets. Lunch Break Science Lunch Break Science is The Leakey Foundation's web series featuring short talks and interviews with Leakey Foundation grantees. Episodes stream live on the first and third Thursdays of every month. leakeyfoundation.org/live.

Episode 50: Understanding Neanderthals

If exercise is healthy, why do so many people avoid doing it? If we're born to be active, why is it so hard to keep your New Year's resolutions about exercise? On this episode, learn about the powerful instincts that cause us to avoid exercise even though we know it's good for us. Dan Lieberman, author of the new book Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding, tells the story of how we never evolved to do voluntary physical activity for the sake of health, and helps us think about exercise in a whole new way.  About our guest Daniel Lieberman is a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University, a member of The Leakey Foundation's Scientific Executive Committee, and a pioneering researcher on the evolution of human physical activity. His research is on how and why the human body looks and functions the way it does. He has long been fascinated by the evolution of the human head but his main focus is currently on the evolution of human physical activity. He is especially interested in how evolutionary approaches to activities such as walking and running, as well as changes to our body's environments (such as wearing shoes and being physically inactive) can help better prevent and treat musculoskeletal diseases. To address these problems, he integrates experimental biomechanics and physiology in both the laboratory and the field with analyses of the human fossil record. Links  Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding -  pre-order at bookshop.org Register for Dan Lieberman's January 5 Leakey Foundation lecture  The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. Support The Leakey Foundation Support this show and the science we talk about. Donate today and your gift will be matched. leakeyfoundation.org/donate Lunch Break Science Lunch Break Science is The Leakey Foundation's web series featuring short talks and interviews with Leakey Foundation grantees. Episodes stream live on the first and third Thursdays of every month. leakeyfoundation.org/live.

Episode 49: Exercise

In 2017, Dr. Isaiah Nengo announced the discovery of a 13 million-year-old fossil ape found in Kenya. This remarkable fossil, nicknamed Alesi, was from a time period where there's a big blank spot in the fossil record of our family tree. Alesi tells us something new about the early evolution of apes and shows what the common ancestor of humans and all the other living apes might have looked like. In this episode, Dr. Nengo tells the story behind the discovery. This episode was originally released in 2017. We're revisiting it now because Isaiah Nengo will be featured on our new web series, Lunch Break Science, on December 3 at 11 am Pacific. He will share updates on his research and exclusive footage of his recent field work in the Turkana Basin. Visit leakeyfoundation.org/live and sign up to receive event reminders. Special thanks to Isaiah Nengo of Stony Brook University and the Turkana Basin Institute, and Ellen Miller of Wake Forest University. The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. Support this show and the science we talk about with a tax-deductible donation. Links Click here to see photos of the discovery, along with a 3D animation of the inside of the fossil.  New 13 million-year-old infant fossil ape skull sheds light on ape evolution Questions and answers about Alesi  Skull secrets of an ancient ape Research article in Nature:  New infant cranium from the African Miocene sheds light on ape evolution Credits Produced by: Meredith Johnson and Shuka Kalantari Editor: Julia Barton Sound Design: Katie McMurran Theme Music: Henry Nagle Intern: Yuka Oiwa Additional Music: Tech Toys by Lee Rosevere Can you give us a 5-star rating? If you like the show,  please leave us a review or rating on Apple Podcasts. It's the best way to help other people find the show and we really appreciate it.  

Episode 48: Ancestor (rerelease)

Variation in human skin color has fascinated and perplexed people for centuries. As the most visible aspect of human variation, skin color has been used as a basis for classifying people into "races." In this lecture, Leakey Foundation grantee Dr. Nina Jablonski explains the evolution of human skin color and discusses some of the ways that harmful color-based race concepts have influenced societies and impacted social well-being. Links  Nina Jablonski's website Video - "The Evolution and Meaning of Human Skin Color"  Skin, A Natural History  Skin We Are In Finding Your Roots curriculum and activities  Bill Nye's TikTok on Dr. Jablonski's work  The American Association of Physical Anthropology's Statement on Race and Racism  The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. Support The Leakey Foundation Support this show and the science we talk about. Donate today and your gift will be matched. leakeyfoundation.org/donate Lunch Break Science Lunch Break Science is The Leakey Foundation's web series featuring short talks and interviews with Leakey Foundation grantees. Episodes stream live on the first and third Thursdays of every month. leakeyfoundation.org/live. Learn about the evolution of human hair Join The Leakey Foundation's Young Professionals Group on November 19 for an evening with evolutionary biologists Tina Lasisi and Elizabeth Tapanes to learn all about the evolution of human hair. Visit leakeyfoundation.org/ypg for an invitation to the event.

Episode 47: Skin

September 30 is International Podcast Day and on this episode, we're handing things over to producer Lucía Benavides, who sat down with Leakey Foundation grantee María Martinón-Torres for an interview about her life and career. This bonus episode is entirely in Spanish. We'll be back with an English-language episode in October. Special thanks to Dub and Ginny Crook for sponsoring this episode.   Click here for a transcript of this episode.

Episode 46: Interview with María Martinón-Torres

Atapuerca is a place that holds the mystery of human evolution in Europe from 1.2 million years ago through recent times. You can find, in one place, the oldest human in Europe, the first murder in the archaeological record, and fossils that tell a range of stories from disturbing and grisly to tender and heartwarming. María Martinón-Torres is a Leakey Foundation grantee who is sometimes called a "detective of the dead" because she pieces together clues to learn about the lives and deaths of the people who once inhabited northern Spain. Special thanks Thanks to María Martinón-Torres for sharing her work. Thanks to Dub and Ginny Crook for sponsoring this episode.  Links to learn more  The Atapuerca website  María Martinón-Torres' website Learn about Atapuerca on efossils.org Unesco World Heritage information Sima del Elefante - The First Hominin of Europe  Gran Dolina - Human Meat Just Another Meal for Early Europeans? Sima de los Huesos The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. Support The Leakey Foundation We're looking for 20 new monthly "Bedrock Donors." Become a Bedrock Donor today and your monthly gift will be quadruple-matched! Lunch Break Science Lunch Break Science is The Leakey Foundation's online series featuring short talks and interviews with Leakey Foundation grantees. Episodes resume in October but you can watch all of the past episodes on demand at leakeyfoundation.org/live. Credits Host, Writer, Producer: Meredith Johnson Producer: Lucia Benavides Editor: Audrey Quinn Special thanks to Shuka Kalantari Theme Music: Henry Nagle Additional Music: Lee Rosevere "Tech Toys" and music from Blue Dot Sessions.  Sponsors Origin Stories is made possible by support from Dub and Virginia Crook, Diana McSherry, Jeanne Newman, Camilla Smith, and donors like you! Get Social We'd love to connect with you on Twitter and Facebook. Please say hi and let us know what you think of the show! If you like the show, please leave us a review or rating on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. It's the best way to help other people find the show and we really appreciate it. Call us! We've set up a voicemail line and we'd love to hear from you! Call us at ‪(707)788-8582‬ to let us know how you're doing and if there is anything you'd like to hear on this podcast.   

Episode 45: Detective of the Dead

What is it like to be responsible for the safekeeping of the ancestors of everyone in the world? In this episode, we travel to the National Museum of Ethiopia to see our most famous fossil relative – Lucy, and meet Yared Assefa, the person who takes care of her and all of our Ethiopian fossil ancestors and relatives.  If you love fossils, you won't want to miss this episode! Special thanks Thanks to Yared Assefa, Dr. Berhane Asfaw, and Dr. Mulugeta Feseha, who hosted The Leakey Foundation at the National Museum of Ethiopia.  Links to learn more  President Obama's speech to the African Union  Lucy: A marvelous specimen  Top ten human evolution discoveries in Ethiopia  Rare 3.8 million-year-old fossil skull recasts origins of iconic Lucy  Ethiopia is top choice for the cradle of Homo sapiens The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. Funding provided by the Foundation has made many of the fossil hominin discoveries in Ethiopia possible. In addition, Our Baldwin Fellowship program has been building scientific capacity in Ethiopia and other countries since 1978. We also have a new program called the Francis H. Brown African Scholarship Fund that provides up to $25,000 for East African students or early career researchers in botany and geology. Learn about all of our grant programs at leakeyfoundation.org/grants Lunch Break Science Lunch Break Science is The Leakey Foundation's online series featuring short talks and interviews with Leakey Foundation grantees. Feed your brain with Lunch Break Science every third Thursday at 11 am Pacific on Facebook, YouTube, and leakeyfoundation.org/live. Credits Host and Producer: Meredith Johnson Editor: Audrey Quinn Theme Music: Henry Nagle Additional Music: Lee Rosevere "Tech Toys" and music from Blue Dot Sessions.  Sponsors This season of Origin Stories is made possible by support from Diana McSherry, Jeanne Newman, Camilla Smith, and donors like you!    

Episode 44: Custodian of the Ancestors

Have you ever considered how profoundly food has shaped who we are as a species? Julie Lesnik is a paleoanthropologist who studies the evolution of the human diet. Her special focus is on insects as food in the past, present, and future.  Additional Information Read more about Julie Lesnik's work and check out her book Edible Insects and Human Evolution. Follow her on Twitter: @JulieLesnik Want to try some edible insects? Here are a few places we recommend: Don Bugito Entomo Farms Looking for recipes?  Julie Lesnik's "Insect Bake-Off" recipes  Chef-created recipes from the New York Times Recipes from "The Bug Chef" Call us! We've set up a voicemail line and we'd love to hear from you! Call us at ‪(707)788-8582‬ to let us know how you're doing and if there is anything you'd like to hear on this podcast.  The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. Support this show and the science we talk about with a tax-deductible donation.   Visit leakeyfoundation.org/donate to donate today! Every donation will be matched. Credits Host and Producer: Meredith Johnson Editor: Audrey Quinn Theme Music: Henry Nagle Additional Music: Lee Rosevere "Tech Toys" and music from Blue Dot Sessions.  Sponsors This season of Origin Stories is made possible by support from Diana McSherry, Jeanne Newman, Camilla Smith, and donors like you! Get Social We'd love to connect with you on Twitter and Facebook. Please say hi and let us know what you think of the show! If you like the show, please leave us a review or rating on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. It's the best way to help other people find the show and we really appreciate it.

We Eat Bugs

Deep in the forests of Borneo, lives a society of hunter-gatherers who speak a language never before shared with outsiders. Until now. The Cave Punan are the last surviving hunter-gatherers in Indonesia and they have reached out for help to save their forest home and their culture. In 2018, Leakey Foundation grantee Steve Lansing was invited by the elected leader of the Punan in Borneo to meet the Cave Punan. He soon learned of the Cave Punan's unique song language and their urgent need to protect their forest from illegal palm oil plantations. They asked for his help to share their story and save their forest.  Steve Lansing and his Indonesian colleagues are now working with local organizations on a plan to support the Cave Punan. Origin Stories is the first media outlet to share their story and their songs. We hope you will share this podcast with your friends to help raise awareness of the Cave Punan and their plight. Additional Information Visit our blog to see photos and videos of the Cave Punan. Read more about Steve Lansing's research on his website. Steve Lansing would like to thank his colleagues at the Eijkman Institute of Molecular Biology in Indonesia. Call us! We've set up a voicemail line and we'd love to hear from you! Call us at ‪(707)788-8582‬ to let us know how you're doing and if there is anything you'd like to hear on this podcast.  The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. Support this show and the science we talk about with a tax-deductible donation. Help us raise money to pay teachers to create lesson plans and activities based on this podcast.  Visit leakeyfoundation.org/donate to donate today! Every donation will be matched. Credits Host and Producer: Meredith Johnson Editor: Audrey Quinn Theme Music: Henry Nagle Additional Music: Lee Rosevere "Tech Toys", and music from Blue Dot Sessions.  Sponsors This season of Origin Stories is made possible by support from Diana McSherry, Jeanne Newman, Camilla Smith, and donors like you! Get Social We'd love to connect with you on Twitter and Facebook. Please say hi and let us know what you think of the show! If you like the show, please leave us a review or rating on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. It's the best way to help other people find the show and we really appreciate it.

Episode 42: The Cave Punan

What happens when bows and arrows and face-to-face conversations are replaced by high powered weapons and cell phones practically overnight? Dr. Polly Wiessner is an anthropologist who has studied the Enga of Papua New Guinea for 30 years and her current research is focused on how traditional societies cope with rapid cultural change. This episode features a talk given by Dr. Wiessner at The Leakey Foundation's Survival Symposium in 2019. Videos of the seven talks given at the symposium will be on our YouTube channel next week.  If you want to see more Leakey Foundation talks, check out our events calendar for an upcoming lecture near you! 

Episode 41: Tribes Old and New

A mysterious new human relative was discovered ten years ago from a pinky bone found in a Siberian cave. They're called the Denisovans, and people around the world carry their DNA today. Until just a few months ago, the sum total of all the fossils the Denisovans left behind could fit in the palm of your hand. Now new research is unlocking more of their secrets. Thanks Thanks to Bence Viola and Viviane Slon for sharing their work.  Dr. Viola also wants to give a shoutout to his colleagues, including Anatoly Derevyanko over more than 40 years has excavated countless sites in Siberia, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan. And Michael Sunkov who now heads the excavations at Denisova. I also want to thank Sergey Zelensky who provided the sounds of Denisova cave and the recording of the conference. Click here to learn more about Leakey Foundation grantee Frido Welker's work on ancient proteins. The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. Support this show and the science we talk about with a tax-deductible donation. For a limited time, all donations up to $5,000 will be matched 4:1 thanks to Gianni Amato and Gordon and Ann Getty. Once we pass $5,000, all donations will be doubled. Visit leakeyfoundation.org/donate to donate today!  Credits Host and Producer: Meredith Johnson Editor: Julia Barton Theme Music: Henry Nagle Additional Music: Lee Rosevere "Tech Toys", and music from Blue Dot Sessions.  Sponsors This season of Origin Stories is made possible by support from Dixon Long, Diana McSherry, Jeanne Newman, Camilla Smith, and donors like you! Get Social We'd love to connect with you on Twitter and Facebook. Please say hi and let us know what you think of the show! If you like the show, please leave us a review or rating on Apple Podcasts. It's the best way to help other people find the show and we really appreciate it.

Episode 40: The Denisovans

In this episode, we explore the story of Piltdown Man – one of the most notorious hoaxes in history.  When Piltdown Man was discovered in a gravel pit outside a small English village in 1912, it was celebrated as a "missing link." The find captured the public's imagination and became world-famous. The problem was that Piltdown Man was a complete fraud. The purported fossils were actually made up of modern human bones and an orangutan mandible. The Piltdown hoax suspects have included Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of Sherlock Holmes, and the philosopher Teilhard de Chardin. Now, more than 100 years later, scientists have narrowed the suspects down to a single culprit.  Thanks to producer Leo Hornak for reporting this story. Thanks also to Professor Chris Dean of University College, London, Dr. Isabelle De Groote of Liverpool University, Karolyn Shindler, Professor Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum, London, and Dr. David Joyce of Clark University, who runs the excellent Piltdown Plot website. Thanks as well to Dr. Miles Russell of Bournemouth University - author of  "Piltdown Man: The Secret Life of Charles Dawson." And finally thanks to Dr. Hugh Cecil for his advice and encouragement. Readings were by Luke Blackall, Angelo Hornak, and Jonathan Keates. The archival lecture audio used in this episode is from The Leakey Foundation Archive. You can listen to Dr. Weiner's complete lecture on our website.  The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. The Leakey Foundation funds cutting-edge research about human evolution and human behavior. Support this show and the science we talk about with a tax-deductible donation. Thanks to a generous supporter, your donation will automatically be doubled! Visit leakeyfoundation.org/donate to donate today!  Credits Producer: Leo Hornak Editor: Julia Barton Host and Series Producer: Meredith Johnson Senior Producer: Catherine Girardeau Sound Design: Katie McMurran Theme Music: Henry Nagle Additional Music: Lee Rosevere "Tech Toys"   Sponsors This season of Origin Stories is made possible by support from Dixon Long, Jeanne Newman, Camilla Smith, and donors like you! Get Social We'd love to connect with you on Twitter and Facebook. Please say hi and let us know what you think of the show! If you like the show, please leave us a review or rating on Apple Podcasts. It's the best way to help other people find the show and we really appreciate it.

Piltdown Man

In the final installment of our "From the Archive" series, Kenyan paleoanthropologist Louis S.B. Leakey shares the story of his life and work in a never-before-released interview recorded in 1969. The Leakey Foundation was formed 1968 in honor of Louis Leakey and we are proud to carry on his mission of increasing scientific knowledge, education, and public understanding of human origins, evolution, behavior, and survival. You can help carry on Louis Leakey's legacy by donating to The Leakey Foundation. Every donation will be doubled! leakeyfoundation.org/donate

Episode 38: From the Archive - Louis Leakey

Mary Leakey was called the "grand dame" of archaeology. She was a methodical and exacting scientist who made some of the world's most significant archaeological discoveries. In this lecture from The Leakey Foundation archive, Mary Leakey tells the story of Olduvai Gorge, the place where she found fossils that completely changed our understanding of human origins. Want to support Origin Stories? All donations are being matched 4:1. Give today at leakeyfoundation.org/originstorieschallenge

Episode 37: From the Archive - Mary Leakey

Tepilit Ole Saitoti was a Maasai warrior, author, and natural resources expert. In this lecture from The Leakey Foundation archive, Saitoti tells his life story, discusses Maasai culture, and explores the challenges faced by the Maasai people. Learn more and  see photos on our blog. Want to support Origin Stories? All donations are being matched 4:1. Give today at leakeyfoundation.org/originstorieschallenge

Episode 36: From the Archive - Tepilit Ole Saitoti

Raymond Dart was getting dressed for a wedding when he was given two boxes of rocks and fossils. Inside the boxes, he found the first evidence of humanity's African origins. This episode tells the story of the 1924 discovery of the Taung Child through a never-before-released lecture by Dr. Raymond Dart. Show Notes The Leakey Foundation is celebrating its 50th anniversary by sharing rare, previously unreleased lectures from the Foundation's archive. The fourth lecture in this "From the Archive" series is by Dr. Raymond Dart, a neuroanatomist, discoverer of the Taung Child, and the person who named the genus Australopithecus. Raymond Dart was born in Australia in 1893. He studied biology and became a medical doctor specializing in neuroanatomy. He moved to South Africa in 1922 to help establish the anatomy department at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. In 1924, as he was getting dressed for a wedding, he received two boxes full of rocks and fossils from a nearby mine. The fossils inside those boxes changed his life – and our understanding of human origins. Dr. Dart gave two Leakey Foundation lectures. In this episode, you'll hear clips from one of them, along with the entirety of his lecture entitled "Why Study Human Origins?" which was recorded in Washington, D.C., in 1975. The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach.  4X Donation Match Support this show and the science we talk about with a tax-deductible donation. Thanks to a generous supporter, your donation will automatically be quadrupled! Visit leakeyfoundation.org/originstorieschallenge to donate today! Sponsors This season of Origin Stories is made possible by support from Dixon Long, Jeanne Newman, Camilla Smith, and donors like you! Get Social We'd love to connect with you on Twitter and Facebook. Please say hi and let us know what you think of the show! If you like Origin Stories, please  leave us a review or tell a friend about the show. We really appreciate it! Credits Host and Series Producer: Meredith Johnson Sound Engineer/Mix: Katie McMurran Theme Music: Henry Nagle Additional Music: Lee Rosevere "Tech Toys"

Episode 35: From the Archive - Raymond Dart

In this never-before-released archival lecture from 1974, anthropologist Margaret Mead discusses the lives of women from prehistoric through modern times. Show Notes The Leakey Foundation is 50 years old this year, and we're celebrating this milestone by sharing rare, previously unreleased lectures from the Foundation's archive. These talks are like a time capsule that lets you hear from scientists in their own words and in their own voices - as they were making the discoveries that made them famous. The third lecture in this "From the Archive" series is by Margaret Mead, the world famous cultural anthropologist and author.  Margaret Mead was born in 1901 and she had a long and distinguished career as an anthropologist. She served as president of the American Anthropological Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Among other academic appointments, she was a curator of anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City where she worked from 1926 until her death in 1978. After her death, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Jimmy Carter in 1979. This award is the highest civilian honor given by the United States government The citation on her award said - "Margaret Mead was both a student of civilization and an exemplar of it. To a public of millions, she brought the central insight of cultural anthropology: that varying cultural patterns express an underlying human unity. She mastered her discipline, but she also transcended it. Intrepid, independent, plain-spoken, fearless, she remains a model for the young and a teacher from whom all may learn." Margaret Mead's Leakey Foundation lecture entitled "Women - Primitive and Modern" was recorded in Pasadena, California in 1974. The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. The Leakey Foundation funds cutting-edge research about human evolution and human behavior. 4X Donation Match Support this show and the science we talk about with a tax-deductible donation. Thanks to a generous supporter, your donation will automatically be quadrupled! Visit leakeyfoundation.org/originstorieschallenge to donate today! Sponsors This season of Origin Stories is made possible by support from Dixon Long, Jeanne Newman, and Camilla Smith. Get Social We'd love to connect with you on Twitter and Facebook. Please say hi and let us know what you think of the show! If you like  Origin Stories, please leave us a review or rating on Apple Podcasts. It's the best way to help other people find the show and we really appreciate it. Credits Host and Series Producer: Meredith Johnson Sound Engineer/Mix: Katie McMurran Theme Music: Henry Nagle Additional Music: Lee Rosevere "Tech Toys"

Episode 34: From the Archive - Margaret Mead

In this never-before-released archival lecture from 1973, the legendary primatologist Dian Fossey tells the story of the early years of her groundbreaking mountain gorilla research. Show Notes  The Leakey Foundation is 50 years old this year, and we're celebrating this milestone by sharing rare, previously unreleased lectures from the Foundation's archive. These talks are like a time capsule that lets you hear from scientists in their own words and in their own voices - as they were making the discoveries that made them famous. The second lecture in this "From the Archive" series is by Dian Fossey, the legendary primatologist who was sent by Louis Leakey to study the mountain gorillas of Rwanda. She gave this Leakey Foundation lecture in 1973, only six years after she started the Karisoke Research Center in the Virunga Mountains. In this talk, she describes what it was like to establish the Karisoke research center, and she shares what she'd learned so far about their lives and behavior. The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. The Leakey Foundation funds cutting-edge research about human evolution and human behavior. 4X Donation Match Support this show and the science we talk about with a tax-deductible donation. Thanks to a generous supporter, your donation will automatically be quadrupled! Visit leakeyfoundation.org/originstorieschallenge to donate today!  Sponsors This season of Origin Stories is made possible by support from Dixon Long, Jeanne Newman, and Camilla Smith. Get Social We'd love to connect with you on Twitter and Facebook. Please say hi and let us know what you think of the show! If you like Origin Stories, please leave us a review or rating on  Apple Podcasts. It's the best way to help other people find the show and we really appreciate it. Credits Host and Series Producer: Meredith Johnson Sound Engineer/Mix: Katie McMurran Theme Music: Henry Nagle Additional Music: Lee Rosevere "Tech Toys"

Episode 33: From the Archive - Dian Fossey

Carl Sagan explores the evolution of human intelligence from the big bang, fifteen billion years ago, through today in this never-before-released archival lecture. Show Notes The Leakey Foundation is 50 years old this year, and we're celebrating this milestone by sharing rare, previously unreleased lectures from the Foundation's archive. These talks are like a time machine that lets you hear from scientists in their own words and in their own voices - as they were making the discoveries that made them famous. The first lecture in this "From the Archive" series is by Carl Sagan, the renowned astrophysicist and science communicator. He gave this Leakey Foundation lecture in 1977, around the time of the launch of the Voyager 1 space probe and five months before the release of his Pulitzer Prize-winning book Dragons of Eden… A book about human intelligence and the evolution of the brain. In this talk, he explores the origins of life on earth and shares his thoughts on how we came to have brains that can attempt to comprehend the vastness of the universe. About Carl Sagan  Carl Sagan served as the David Duncan Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences and Director of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies at Cornell University. He played a leading role in the Mariner, Viking, Voyager, and Galileo spacecraft expeditions, for which he received the NASA Medals for Exceptional Scientific Achievement and Distinguished Public Service. Sagan published more than 600 scientific papers and articles and was author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books. His Emmy and Peabody award-winning television series, Cosmos, became the most widely watched series in the history of American public television. The accompanying book, also called Cosmos, is one of the bestselling science books ever published in the English language. Dr. Sagan received the Pulitzer Prize, the Oersted Medal, and many other awards, including twenty honorary degrees for his contributions to science, literature, education, and the preservation of the environment. The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. The Leakey Foundation funds cutting-edge research about human evolution and human behavior. 4X Donation Match Support this show and the science we talk about with a tax-deductible donation. Thanks to a generous supporter, your donation will automatically be quadrupled! Visit leakeyfoundation.org/originstorieschallenge to donate today!  Sponsors This season of Origin Stories is made possible by support from Dixon Long, Jeanne Newman, and Camilla Smith. Get Social We'd love to connect with you on Twitter and Facebook. Please say hi and let us know what you think of the show! If you like the show, please leave us a review or rating on  Apple Podcasts. It's the best way to help other people find the show and we really appreciate it. Credits Host and Series Producer: Meredith Johnson Sound Engineer/Mix: Katie McMurran Theme Music: Henry Nagle Additional Music: Lee Rosevere "Tech Toys" 

Episode 32: From the Archive - Carl Sagan

A scientist solves the mystery of the only known chimpanzee civil war...thus far.  In 1960, Louis Leakey sent Jane Goodall to start her study of chimpanzees at Gombe National Park, Tanzania. Her first decade of research led her to think that chimpanzees were like nicer versions of humans. But in the early 1970s, the Gombe chimp community split in two and deadly violence erupted. The cause has remained a mystery until now. A new study by Leakey Foundation grantee Joseph Feldblum reveals similarities between the ways chimpanzee and human societies break down. Thanks: Thanks to Joseph Feldblum for sharing his work. Visit his website to learn more about his research. Thanks to Jane Goodall for everything. Visit her website to learn more about her work and the Gombe chimpanzees. The archival audio used in this episode is from The Leakey Foundation Archive. The narration in the first part of our story was recorded in 1970 for a Leakey Foundation filmstrip. The lecture audio is from a 1978 Leakey Foundation lecture entitled "Cannibalism and Warfare in Chimpanzee Societies." The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. The Leakey Foundation funds cutting-edge research about human evolution and human behavior. Support this show and the science we talk about with a tax-deductible donation. Thanks to a generous supporter, your donation will automatically be quadrupled! Visit leakeyfoundation.org/originstorieschallenge to donate today!  Credits Editor: Julia Barton Host and Series Producer: Meredith Johnson Associate Producer: Shuka Kalantari Sound Design: Katie McMurran Theme Music: Henry Nagle Additional Music: Lee Rosevere "Tech Toys"   Sponsors This season of Origin Stories is made possible by support from Dixon Long, Jeanne Newman, and Camilla Smith. Get Social We'd love to connect with you on Twitter and Facebook. Please say hi and let us know what you think of the show! If you like the show, please leave us a review or rating on Apple Podcasts. It's the best way to help other people find the show and we really appreciate it.

Episode 31: The Four Year War

Origin Stories returns November 15th with more stories about how we became human.

Origin Stories Season Three Preview

The stories and songs of prehistoric people are lost. Their art and artifacts are all that remain of their culture. The painted caves of Ice Age Europe are the world's most famous examples of prehistoric art. What does this art reveal about the people who made it? Why did they paint those images on cave walls? What do the images mean? Jean Clottes is one of the world's preeminent prehistorians and a leading expert on prehistoric art. He has devoted his life to asking these big questions, and his insights have challenged popular assumptions about prehistoric art and how it evolved. In this episode, producer Neil Sandell visits Clottes at his home in the foothills of the Pyrénées in France, and they journey deep into a painted cave called Niaux to see the famous Salon Noir. This episode was awarded the grand prize in the Prix Marulić International Audio Festival in the documentary category. The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. The Leakey Foundation funds cutting-edge research about human evolution and human behavior. Support this show and the science we talk about with a tax-deductible donation. Thanks to a generous supporter, your donation will automatically be doubled! Links Check out the complete show notes and bonus material at leakeyfoundation.org   Credits Producer: Neil Sandell Editor: Julia Barton Host and Series Producer: Meredith Johnson Sound Design: Neil Sandell Theme Music: Henry Nagle Intern: Yuka Oiwa Additional Music: Kai Engel "Denouement" and "Difference" Parvus Decree "The Eternal Wheel" and "Gau" Alex Mason "Other" Scott Holmes "Still Missing"  Lee Rosevere "Tech Toys" Sponsors This season of Origin Stories is made possible by support from Dixon Long.  The Leakey Foundation thanks the following people for their generous support of this episode:  Jean and Ray Auel, Sharal Camisa, Dennis Fenwick and Martha Lewis, Victoria and Barry Fong, Jeanne Newman, Sharon Metzler-Dow, and Lisa and Bill Wirthlin. Additional Support We are also brought to you with support from Audible.com, the internet's leading provider of spoken-word entertainment. Our listeners get a 30-day free trial and free audiobook download at audibletrial.com/originstories Get Social We'd love to connect with you on Twitter and Facebook. Please say hi and let us know what you think of the show! If you like the show,  please leave us a review or rating on Apple Podcasts. It's the best way to help other people find the show and we really appreciate it. 

Episode 28: What They Left Behind [Rebroadcast]

Three true tales about what it's like to do field research. Kelly Stewart, Dorothy Cheney, and Robert Seyfarth share stories of gun smuggling, pet leeches, close encounters with hippos, and fan mail from one of the world's most infamous mass murderers. This bonus episode was recorded live at a Leakey Foundation Fellows event in 2016. The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. Support this show and the science we talk about with a tax-deductible donation. Thanks to a generous supporter, your donation will automatically be doubled! If you donate before midnight on December 31, 2017, your donation will be quadrupled! Links  Baboon Metaphysics  Being a Nice Animal    Survey   Tell us what you think of the show! We'd love to know! Click here to take our short survey. Thank you!   Leakey Foundation Fellows Program   Leakey Foundation Fellows are an exclusive group of science supporters. Benefits of becoming a Fellow include unique travel opportunities and an invitation to be our guest to the annual Leakey Foundation Fellows' dinner with some of the world's leading human origins researchers. Credits Host and Series Producer: Meredith Johnson Theme Music: Henry Nagle Additional Music: Podington Bear "Stars Are Out" Lee Rosevere "Tech Toys"   Sponsors This season of Origin Stories is made possible by support from Dixon Long.  Additional Support We are also brought to you with support from Audible.com, the internet's leading provider of spoken-word entertainment. Our listeners get a 30-day free trial and free audiobook download at audibletrial.com/originstories Get Social We'd love to connect with you on Twitter and Facebook. Please say hi and let us know what you think of the show! If you like the show,  please leave us a review or rating on Apple Podcasts. It's the best way to help other people find the show and we really appreciate it.     

Episode 30: Tales From the Field [LIVE]

For a long time, scientists have been searching for the first Homo sapiens in the Great Rift Valley of Ethiopia. The story we've been telling about the origin of our species has gone something like this: Around 200,000 years ago in East Africa, the first Homo sapiens emerged, splitting off from an ancestral species, possibly Homo erectus. We had big brains and a knack for tool making. We spread out across the world from there. We adapted, and we alone survived. Now a scientific discovery made by Leakey Foundation grantee Jean-Jacques Hublin and colleagues has challenged the story we tell about ourselves and pushed the date of the origin of our species back by 100,000 years. The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. The Leakey Foundation funds cutting-edge research about human evolution and human behavior. Support this show and the science we talk about with a tax-deductible donation. Thanks to a generous supporter, your donation will automatically be doubled! Links Check out the complete show notes and bonus material at leakeyfoundation.org    Survey   Tell us what you think of the show! We'd love to know! Click here to take our short survey. Thank you!   Credits Editor: Julia Barton Host and Series Producer: Meredith Johnson Associate Producer: Shuka Kalantari Sound Design: Katie McMurran Theme Music: Henry Nagle Additional Music: Lee Rosevere "Tech Toys"   Special thanks to Sarah Geledi and Sylvio Tupke Sponsors This season of Origin Stories is made possible by support from Dixon Long.    Additional Support We are also brought to you with support from Audible.com, the internet's leading provider of spoken-word entertainment. Our listeners get a 30-day free trial and free audiobook download at audibletrial.com/originstories Transcripts are provided by Adept Word Management. They are a small, family-run business based in Houston, Texas. They have been long-time supporters of this show and they were impacted by Hurricane Harvey. Please visit Adept Word Management for your transcription needs. Get Social We'd love to connect with you on Twitter and Facebook. Please say hi and let us know what you think of the show! If you like the show,  please leave us a review or rating on Apple Podcasts. It's the best way to help other people find the show and we really appreciate it. 

Episode 29: Rewriting Our Story

The stories and songs of prehistoric people are lost. Their art and artifacts are all that remain of their culture. The painted caves of Ice Age Europe are the world's most famous examples of prehistoric art. What does this art reveal about the people who made it? Why did they paint those images on cave walls? What do the images mean? Jean Clottes is one of the world's preeminent prehistorians and a leading expert on prehistoric art. He has devoted his life to asking these big questions, and his insights have challenged popular assumptions about prehistoric art and how it evolved. In this episode, producer Neil Sandell visits Clottes at his home in the foothills of the Pyrénées in France, and they journey deep into a painted cave called Niaux to see the famous Salon Noir.   The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. The Leakey Foundation funds cutting-edge research about human evolution and human behavior. Support this show and the science we talk about with a tax-deductible donation. Thanks to a generous supporter, your donation will automatically be doubled! Links Check out the complete show notes and bonus material at leakeyfoundation.org   Credits Producer: Neil Sandell Editor: Julia Barton Host and Series Producer: Meredith Johnson Sound Design: Neil Sandell Theme Music: Henry Nagle Intern: Yuka Oiwa Additional Music: Kai Engel "Denouement" and "Difference" Parvus Decree "The Eternal Wheel" and "Gau" Alex Mason "Other" Scott Holmes "Still Missing"  Lee Rosevere "Tech Toys" Sponsors This season of Origin Stories is made possible by support from Dixon Long.  The Leakey Foundation thanks the following people for their generous support of this episode:  Jean and Ray Auel, Sharal Camisa, Dennis Fenwick and Martha Lewis, Victoria and Barry Fong, Jeanne Newman, Sharon Metzler-Dow, and Lisa and Bill Wirthlin. Additional Support We are also brought to you with support from Audible.com, the internet's leading provider of spoken-word entertainment. Our listeners get a 30-day free trial and free audiobook download at audibletrial.com/originstories Transcripts are provided by Adept Word Management. They are a small, family-run business based in Houston, Texas. They have been long-time supporters of this show and they were impacted by Hurricane Harvey. Please visit Adept Word Management for your transcription needs. Get Social We'd love to connect with you on Twitter and Facebook. Please say hi and let us know what you think of the show! If you like the show,  please leave us a review or rating on Apple Podcasts. It's the best way to help other people find the show and we really appreciate it. 

Episode 28: What They Left Behind

One of the big questions in the study of human evolution is the question of how our ancestors spread across the world. Our species evolved in Africa and migrated around the world from there. Most people on earth today are mixed descendants of multiple migrations to different places. Somewhere in almost everyone's family history, whether it was last year or thousands of years ago, there was someone who left the place they were born and set out into the unknown, looking for a new life somewhere else. For most of humankind's time on this planet, we all did it the same way. We walked. Paul Salopek is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and  National Geographic Explorer who is on an epic ten-year journey around the world on foot, tracing the path of early human migration out of Africa. Along the way he is talking with people and sharing their stories through his writing, and through educational programs for students. His project is called the Out of Eden Walk. You can learn more at leakeyfoundation.org. The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. The Leakey Foundation funds cutting-edge research about how and when humans spread around the world. Support this show and the science we talk about with a tax-deductible donation. Thanks to a generous supporter, your donation will automatically be doubled! Links Check out the complete show notes and bonus material at leakeyfoundation.org  Out of Eden Walk Out of Eden Learn Articles by Paul Salopek:   The Glorious Boneyard: A Report From Our Starting Line  Gona: First Kitchen  Borders Matter  No Reply  The Natural History of Compassion  Articles about early human migration:   Were modern humans in Indonesia 73,000 years ago?  Clues to Africa's Mysterious Past Found in Ancient Skeletons   Credits Editor: Julia Barton Host and Series Producer: Meredith Johnson Associate Producer: Shuka Kalantari Sound Design: Katie McMurran Theme Music: Henry Nagle Intern: Yuka Oiwa Additional Music: Tech Toys by Lee Rosevere Sponsors This season of Origin Stories is made possible by support from Dixon Long.  We are also brought to you with support from Audible.com, the internet's leading provider of spoken-word entertainment. Our listeners get a 30-day free trial and free audiobook download at audibletrial.com/originstories Transcripts are provided by Adept Word Management. They are a small, family-run business based in Houston, Texas. They have been long-time supporters of this show and they were impacted by Hurricane Harvey. Please visit Adept Word Management for your transcription needs. Get Social We'd love to connect with you on Twitter and Facebook. Please say hi and let us know what you think of the show! If you like the show,  please leave us a review or rating on Apple Podcasts. It's the best way to help other people find the show and we really appreciate it. 

Episode 27: Out of Eden the Long Way

It's not every day you see a Facebook post that changes your life, but that's exactly what happened to Leakey Foundation grantee Alia Gurtov. Gurtov was checking her Facebook feed one morning and saw a post from paleoanthropologist Lee Berger. He was looking for archaeologists who were "...skinny and preferably small. They must not be claustrophobic, they must be fit, they should have some caving experience, climbing experience would be a bonus. They must be willing to work in cramped quarters, have a good attitude and be a team player." Gurtov had never seen a job description that fit her more perfectly. A few weeks later she was in South Africa, inside a cave chamber strewn with ancient bones. The fossils she helped recover have changed the story of human evolution and added a strange new relative to our family tree. Thanks to Leakey Foundation grantees Alia Gurtov and Will Harcourt-Smith for sharing their stories. You can learn more at leakeyfoundation.org. The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. The Leakey Foundation had 12 grantees who participated in the Homo naledi research. Support this show and the science we talk about with a tax-deductible donation. Thanks to a generous supporter, your donation will automatically be doubled! Links Check out the complete show notes and bonus material at leakeyfoundation.org     Homo naledi, a new species of the genus Homo from the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa   3D models of the Homo naledi fossils "This Face Changes the Human Story. But, How?" National Geographic. "The Dawn of Humanity." NOVA/National Geographic.   Credits Editor: Julia Barton Host and Series Producer: Meredith Johnson Associate Producer: Shuka Kalantari Sound Design: Katie McMurran Theme Music: Henry Nagle Intern: Yuka Oiwa Additional Music: Tech Toys by Lee Rosevere Sponsors This season of Origin Stories is made possible by support from Dixon Long.  We are also brought to you with support from Audible.com, the internet's leading provider of spoken-word entertainment. Our listeners get a 30-day free trial and free audiobook download at audibletrial.com/originstories Transcripts are provided by Adept Word Management. They are a small, family-run business based in Houston, Texas. They have been long-time supporters of this show and they were impacted by Hurricane Harvey. Please visit Adept Word Management for your transcription needs. Get Social We'd love to connect with you on Twitter and Facebook. Please say hi and let us know what you think of the show! If you like the show,  please leave us a review or rating on Apple Podcasts. It's the best way to help other people find the show and we really appreciate it. 

Episode 26: Rising Star

The paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey described stone tools as "fossilized human behavior." These rocks, shaped by our human ancestors and found in archaeological sites around the world, can give us clues about how ancient people lived. Archaeologist and Leakey Foundation grantee John Shea of Stony Brook University says you can learn even more by making and using stone tools yourself.     Thanks to John Shea of Stony Brook University for sharing his work. His new book is  Stone Tools in Human Evolution:  Behavioral Differences among Technological Primates.   Learn more about Dr. Shea's work on his website.    The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. Support this show and the science we talk about with a tax-deductible donation. Thanks to a generous supporter, your donation will automatically be doubled! Links Check out the complete show notes at leakeyfoundation.org    Videos  How to make a stone tool Making a Neanderthal flint tool Making Stone Tools - Nicholas Toth of the Stone Age Institute John Shea and Alan Alda on The Human Spark   Articles Modern People Making Stone Age Tools by Leakey Foundation grantee Shelby Putt  Chimpanzees and Monkeys Have Entered the Stone Age by Colin Barras Credits Produced by: Audrey Quinn Editor: Julia Barton Host and Series Producer: Meredith Johnson Sound Design: Katie McMurran Theme Music: Henry Nagle Intern: Yuka Oiwa Additional Music: Tech Toys by Lee Rosevere Sponsors This season of Origin Stories is made possible by support from Dixon Long. Additional support for this episode comes from Bill Richards. We are also brought to you with support from Audible.com, the internet's leading provider of spoken-word entertainment. Our listeners get a 30-day free trial and free audiobook download at audibletrial.com/originstories Transcripts are provided by Adept Word Management. They are a small, family-run business based in Houston, Texas. They have been long-time supporters of this show and they were impacted by Hurricane Harvey. Please visit Adept Word Management for your transcription needs. Get Social We'd love to connect with you on Twitter and Facebook. Please say hi and let us know what you think of the show! If you like the show,  please leave us a review or rating on Apple Podcasts. It's the best way to help other people find the show and we really appreciate it.          

Episode 25: Stones and How to Use Them

Just recently, the news media announced the discovery of a 13 million-year-old fossil ape called Alesi. This remarkable fossil was found in Kenya, and it's from a time period where there's a big blank spot in the fossil record of our family tree. Alesi tells us something new about the very early evolution of apes and even shows what the common ancestor of humans and all the other living apes might have looked like. In this episode, Isaiah Nengo tells the story behind the discovery. Special thanks to Isaiah Nengo of the Stony Brook University affiliated Turkana Basin Institute and De Anza College. And Ellen Miller of Wake Forest University. The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. Support this show and the science we talk about with a tax-deductible donation. Links Click here to see photos of the discovery, along with a 3D animation of the inside of the fossil.  New 13 million-year-old infant fossil ape skull sheds light on ape evolution Questions and answers about Alesi  Skull secrets of an ancient ape Research article in Nature:  New infant cranium from the African Miocene sheds light on ape evolution Credits Produced by: Meredith Johnson and Shuka Kalantari Editor: Julia Barton Sound Design: Katie McMurran Theme Music: Henry Nagle Intern: Yuka Oiwa Additional Music: Tech Toys by Lee Rosevere Sponsors This season of Origin Stories is made possible by support from Dixon Long. Transcripts are provided by Adept Word Management. They are a small, family-run business based in Houston, Texas. They have been long-time supporters of this show, and they were impacted by Hurricane Harvey. Please visit Adept Word Management for your transcription needs. Get Social We'd love to connect with you on Twitter and Facebook. Please say hi and let us know what you think of the show! If you like the show,  please leave us a review or rating on Apple Podcasts. It's the best way to help other people find the show and we really appreciate it.    

Episode 24: Ancestor

Our new season of Origin Stories is coming soon! This is a sneak preview of the first episode.

Season 2 Preview

Why do people risk their own lives to save a stranger? Why do we share food or give money to charity? The human capacity for altruism has been a puzzle for scientists since Darwin. In this episode of Origin Stories, primatologist Joan Silk explores the evolution of altruism and cooperation. In our Being Human Bonus segment, we share a story of human kindness from Erika Lantz and WBUR's Kind World. Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation. You can support this show and the science we talk about by making a tax-deductible donation. Your donation will be doubled thanks to an anonymous altruistic sponsor! Give today at www.leakeyfoundation.org/donate   Links Learn more about Joan Silk and her research at www.joansilk.com. Being Human www.beinghuman.org Kind World www.wbur.org/kindworld Adept Word Management www.adeptwordmanagement.com   Credits Produced by Meredith Johnson Edited by Julia Barton Theme music by Henry Nagle Production help from Susan Valot Additional music by Podington Bear, Lee Rosevere, and Alex Fitch

Altruism

Every animal that lives in groups has to make decisions as a group. Even a seemingly simple decision like "where should we go for dinner?" can be complicated to negotiate.    Is there a simple rule behind how humans and other animals make group decisions? Margaret Crofoot is a primatologist and Leakey Foundation grantee whose research on baboons suggests there is a rule, and it's not what you might think.   You can read more about Margaret Crofoot's research and see a video of her GPS data on our blog!   Links   Margaret Crofoot's Lab    Shared decision-making drives collective movement in wild baboons   Sponsors   Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation. You can support this podcast and the research we talk about by making a tax-deductible donation. All donations will be doubled!   This episode is part of the Being Human initiative. A joint project of the Baumann Foundation and The Leakey Foundation dedicated to understanding modern life from an evolutionary perspective.   Thanks to Adept Word Management for their transcription service. Visit Adept Word Management for your transcription needs.   You can download transcripts of our episodes at leakeyfoundation.org/originstories   Credits Produced by Meredith Johnson, edited by Julia Barton.   Theme music by Henry Nagle.   Additional music from: Tech Toys by Lee Rosevere Grand Caravan by Blue Dot Sessions Stars are Out by Podington Bear   Creative Commons music license CC-BY-NC 3.0

Episode 21: Follow the Leader?

Humans have evolved very differently from other primates. Is there one thing responsible for humans becoming human? Some evolutionary biologists think that the way we process our food, namely cooking it, could explain why our species developed so differently from others. Did cooking make us human? Dr. Richard Wrangham of Harvard University and Dr. Rachel Carmody of UCSF and Harvard discuss the impact that cooked food has had on human evolution. This episode of Origin Stories was produced by Briana Breen and edited by Audrey Quinn. Music by Henry Nagle. Thanks to Richard Wrangham and Rachel Carmody for sharing their work. Being Human This re-released episode includes a new Being Human bonus segment. Being Human was a joint initiative of The Baumann Foundation and The Leakey Foundation, dedicated to understanding modern life from an evolutionary perspective. Special thanks to Lily Mazzarella of Farmacopia for talking with us about her work for the Being Human segment. Episode Links Richard Wrangham's Harvard University Website  Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human  Smithsonian Magazine "Why Fire Made Us Human" Rachel Carmody's Nature article:  Diet rapidly and reproducibly alters the human gut microbiome The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation. The Leakey Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to human origins research and outreach. Learn more at leakeyfoundation.org.  

Episode 09: Did Cooking Make Us Human? (Re-release)

The Power Paradox What is power? Where does social power come from? What happens in our bodies and with our behavior when we have power and when we don't? What can we learn about lasting social power from small-scale hunter-gatherer societies? Dacher Keltner is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and the faculty director of the UC Berkeley Greater Good Science Center. A renowned expert in the biological and evolutionary origins of human emotion, Dr. Keltner studies the science of compassion, awe, love, and beauty, and how emotions shape our moral intuition. His research interests also span issues of power, status, inequality, and social class. He is the author of the best-selling book Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life and of The Compassionate Instinct. Dr. Keltner's most recent book is  The Power Paradox: How We Gain and Lose Influence. This episode is a live recording from The Leakey Foundation's Bay Area Science Festival event. Links The Greater Good Science Center The Leakey Foundation Adept Word Management

Episode 20: The Power Paradox - LIVE

Humans and our recent ancestors have been accomplished endurance runners for more than a million years. Our evolutionary history as runners partly accounts for why aerobic exercise is such a key component of human health. In this talk, recorded in July 2016, Daniel Lieberman explores how and why the human body evolved to run long distances. Daniel Lieberman is the Professor and Chair of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, and the Edwin M. Lerner II Professor of Biological Sciences at Harvard University. He is a member of the Scientific Executive Committee of The Leakey Foundation. His research is on how and why the human body is the way it is, with particular foci on the origins of bipedalism, how humans became endurance runners, and the evolution of the highly unusual human head. Lieberman has published 3 books and more than 100 articles. His latest books are  The Evolution of the Human Head, and  The Story of the Human Body. Links: Get tickets for "The Power Paradox" with Dacher Keltner. Donate to The Leakey Foundation. Your donation will be doubled! Transcripts are provided by Adept Word Management. Theme music by Henry Nagle. Closing credit song by Lee Rosevere.  

Episode 19: Being Human - Born and Evolved to Run

Empathy has long been considered a uniquely human trait, but it's an ability that has also been observed in apes and other animals. Primatologist Frans de Waal says that examples of empathy in non-human primates and other mammals suggest that empathy has a long evolutionary history in humans.    Frans de Waal is the C.H. Candler Professor of Psychology at Emory University where he directs the Living Links Center for the Advanced Study of Ape and Human Evolution. He's the author of several books including  The Age of Empathy, and most recently,  Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?    Credits: Nancy Rosenbaum produced our story. Our editor is Audrey Quinn. Theme music by Henry Nagle. Additional music by Podington Bear, Lee Rosevere, and Box Cat Records. Being Human Bonus produced by Meredith Johnson.    Being Human: This episode was produced as part of the Being Human initiative. A joint project of The Leakey Foundation and the Baumann Foundation.    The Being Human initiative is all about why we experience our lives the way we do, including our thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Keep listening after our story for the "Being Human Bonus Segment" where we talk about  how the science in this episode applies to real world situations. Our guest is Natalee Hanson, a special education teacher who works with students who have emotional and behavioral disabilities.    The Leakey Foundation: Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation. The Leakey Foundation advances human origins research and offers educational opportunities to cultivate a deeper, collective understanding of what it means to be human. We give research grants to scientists and share their groundbreaking discoveries through our podcast, website, and lecture programs. We also give scholarships to students from developing countries to attend field schools and earn advanced degrees.   You can help The Leakey Foundation fund important scientific research and outreach programs like this podcast by making a tax-deductible donation to The Leakey Foundation. Visit  leakeyfoundation.org/donate before August 31st and your donation will be doubled!    Adept Word Management: Origin Stories is sponsored by Adept Word Management. Intelligent transcripts. Visit them for all of your transcription needs at  adeptwordmanagement.com.    You can find transcripts of our past episodes at  leakeyfoundation.org.  

Episode 18: Empathy

Every day for 55 years a dedicated group of researchers, students, and field assistants have spent their days crawling through thorns and vines as they follow chimpanzees to observe their behavior. They write everything down in notes and on maps and checksheets.  This episode continues the story of Jane Goodall's pioneering Gombe chimpanzee research study. Thanks to Anne Pusey, director of the Jane Goodall Institute Research Center at Duke University, and to Emily Boehm, Joseph Feldblum and Kara Walker from Duke University. Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation. The Leakey Foundation is proud to support ongoing research at Gombe and around the world. Since 1968, we've awarded over 35 research grants to Jane Goodall and other scientists studying chimpanzees at Gombe. Learn more and help support science at leakeyfoundation.org! CREDITS: Produced by Meredith Johnson. Our editor is Audrey Quinn. Music in this episode is by Henry Nagle, Lee Rosevere, and Kevin MacLeod ("Backed Vibes" Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0). Transcripts are provided by Adept Word Management.

Episode 04: How to Document a Society (Re-release)

Humans are very verbal compared to other animals. We talk constantly, and our voices can signal many things beyond the meaning of our words. The human voice is also highly differentiated between the sexes.    In this live recording of our Being Human event in February 2016, Dr. David Puts explores how studying the human voice can be a good way to gain insight into human sexual selection.   Dr. Puts is an associate professor in the department of anthropology at Pennsylvania State University. His research focuses on the evolution and development of human sexuality and sex differences. He's especially interested in how sex hormones influence our psychology, behavior, and anatomy—and how these traits were shaped by sexual selection.   About Being Human Being Human mixes short talks from great minds with fun hands-on experiments, drinks, conversation, and storytelling. Each month we explore different aspects of our evolution, our behavior, and the human experience.   Join us on July 28th for "Born and Evolved to Run" and learn about the evolution of our remarkable ability for long-distance running. Our speaker will be Dr. Daniel Lieberman of Harvard University.   Tickets are $10 and are available at Ticketfly.com.   Being Human is a joint initiative of The Leakey Foundation and the Baumann Foundation.   Learn More Puts Lab at Pennsylvania State University   Sponsors The Being Human initiative of The Leakey Foundation and the Baumann Foundation. Dedicated to understanding modern life from an evolutionary perspective.   The Leakey Foundation   Adept Word Management  

Episode 17: Being Human - Speaking of Sex

People have been fascinated with Neanderthals since they were first discovered in the mid-1800s. For a long time, they have been seen as dumb, brutish cavemen. As more discoveries have been made in the past few decades, our picture of who Neanderthals were and how they lived has shifted dramatically. In this episode we talk with Shara Bailey, a Leakey Foundation grantee and professor at New York University, about our closest extinct relatives. Who were the Neanderthals? And why did they disappear? Links The Makers of the Protoaurignacian and implications for Neanderthal extinction  Humans mated with Neanderthals much earlier and more frequently than thought  Thank Neanderthals for your immune system Leakeyfoundation.org/donate Sponsored by Adept Word Management Credits Edited by Audrey Quinn Theme song by Henry Nagle Additional music by Lee Rosevere, Podington Bear, and Blue Dot Sessions  

Episode 16: Neanderthals

When Kristen Hawkes first started to research the foraging habits of the Hadza hunter-gatherers, she noticed that the older women in the society were spending their time collecting food and sharing it with their grandchildren. She started to wonder if this type of contribution from grandmothers might explain why humans have such long lives. Her grandmother hypothesis suggests that grandmothering may have led to many of the things that make humans different from other great apes. Thanks to Kristen Hawkes of the University of Utah for sharing her work with us. Dr. Hawkes is a member of The Leakey Foundation's Scientific Executive Committee. Links  Kristen Hawkes' Website  Grandmothers and the evolution of pair bonds Grandmothers and the evolution of human longevity: a review of findings and future directions Leakeyfoundation.org Credits This episode was produced by Schuyler Swenson. Our editor is Audrey Quinn. Scoring and mixing by Schuyler Swenson. Origin Stories theme music by Henry Nagle. Additional music by Lee Rosevere.  Sponsors This episode was produced with support from the Being Human initiative of The Baumann Foundation and The Leakey Foundation. Transcripts are provided by Adept Word Management.

Episode 15: The Grandmother Hypothesis

Laughter is a universal human behavior. Have you ever wondered why we laugh or what it really means when we do? Greg Bryant of UCLA studies the evolution of communication and vocal behavior, especially of spontaneous vocal expressions such as laughter. In this episode of Origin Stories he explores the origins and evolution of human laughter in a talk that was recorded live at our Being Human event series. Links: Being Human Join Team Leakey! Run a full or half-marathon and help raise money for science.   Greg Bryant http://gabryant.bol.ucla.edu http://www.gregbryant.org/Laughter_EHB2014.pdf  http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/04/05/1524993113.abstract?sid=b503eb7d-e2ea-4c0b-9dcd-479c234f5465

Episode 14: Being Human - Why Do We Laugh?

In this episode we take a closer
look at the evolutionary arms race between humans and the microbes
that make us sick. What does each side bring to the fight? Dr.
Pardis Sabeti of Harvard University is a computational biologist
who uses math and computers to look into the genomes of humans and
infectious microbes to see how both humans and microbes are
evolving. She was named one of TIME Magazine's People of the Year
in 2014 for her role in the fight against ebola.
Links
Pardis Sabeti's Lab
Thousand Days on
Bandcamp

Episode 13: Evolutionary Arms Race

Tuberculosis is the world's leading cause of death by infectious disease, and it has been plaguing humanity for a very long time. In the first episode of a two-part series on infectious disease and human evolution, Dr. Anne Stone of Arizona State University investigates a mysterious case of tuberculosis in ancient Peruvian mummies and finds surprising new evidence in the search for the origins of TB.
Thanks to Anne Stone for sharing her work. Her lab is on Twitter @StoneLab and online.
Here's a link to Stone's Nature paper.
Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation. Learn more about The Leakey Foundation and help support science at leakeyfoundation.org
This episode was released on World Tuberculosis Day, 2016. Learn more at stoptb.org

Episode 12: The Origins of Tuberculosis

The bad news is that everybody has face mites. The good news is that these tiny cousins of spiders and ticks seem to be harmless for the vast majority of us. 
In this episode, entomologist and evolutionary biologist Michelle Trautwein describes how she and her colleagues collected face mite DNA from a variety of volunteers for a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The results of the study were surprising and further confirmed our current understanding of human migration through time.
Listen as we explore the lives of these close personal friends of ours, and learn how they may help us answer new questions about our own evolution.
Learn more and see photos if you dare, on The Leakey Foundation blog.
Sponsors:
Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation. The Leakey Foundation advances human origins research and offers educational opportunities that cultivate a deeper, collective understanding of what it means to be human. 
For a limited time all donations to The Leakey Foundation will be matched by an anonymous donor. Give today at Leakeyfoundation.org/donate.
Transcripts are provided by Adept Word Management.
Links: 
Global divergence of the human follicle mite Demodex folliculorum: Persistent associations between host ancestry and mite lineages
Origin of Clothing Lice Indicates Early Clothing Use by Anatomically Modern Humans in Africa
 
 

Episode 11: Face Mites

Alison Gopnik is a professor of psychology and affiliate professor of philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley. Her research focuses on how babies and young children learn about the world. She’s the author of over 100 journal articles and several books including The Scientist in the Crib and The Philosophical Baby. 
This episode is part of the Being Human event series, presented by The Leakey Foundation with support from the Baumann Foundation.
Thanks to Alison Gopnik for sharing her work. You can learn more about her research at alisongopnik.com.
The Leakey Foundation is a nonprofit organization that funds human origins research and outreach. Visit leakeyfoundation.org to learn more.
The Being Human initiative is dedicated to understanding modern life from an evolutionary perspective. Learn more at leakeyfoundation.org/beinghuman.
Music in this episode is by Henry Nagle and Lee Rosevere.
Sound Engineering by Rob Byers.

Episode 10: Being Human with Alison Gopnik

We humans have evolved very differently from other primates. Is there one thing responsible for humans becoming human? Some evolutionary biologists think that the way we process our food, namely cooking it, could explain why our species developed so differently from others. Did cooking make us human? Dr. Richard Wrangham of Harvard University and Dr. Rachel Carmody of UCSF and Harvard discuss the impact that cooked food has had on human evolution. This episode of Origin Stories was produced by Briana Breen and edited by Audrey Quinn. Music by Henry Nagle. Thanks to Richard Wrangham and Rachel Carmody for sharing their work. Links Richard Wrangham's Harvard University Website  Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human  Smithsonian Magazine "Why Fire Made Us Human" Rachel Carmody's Nature article:  Diet rapidly and reproducibly alters the human gut microbiome  

Did Cooking Make Us Human?

This episode of Origin Stories was recorded live in San Francisco as part of the Bay Area Science Festival. It was the first of The Leakey Foundation and the Baumann Foundation’s new “Being Human” event series. Our speaker was Robert Sapolsky, a professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University and a MacArthur “Genius” Fellow. He gave a fascinating and funny talk about human behavior and the ways we are the same as, and different from, other animals.
You can hear more from Dr. Sapolsky on the Inquiring Minds podcast. Host Indre Viskontas interviewed Sapolsky about his work and his thoughts on our prospects as a species. You can find Inquiring Minds on iTunes and at motherjones.com/inquiringminds
This episode is part of the Being Human initiative of The Leakey Foundation and the Baumann Foundation. leakeyfoundation.org/beinghuman

Episode 08: Being Human with Robert Sapolsky

In On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin used a sketch of a tree of life to help describe his theory of evolution. In this metaphor, the branches of the tree represent the relationships between all living and extinct creatures. Humans, like all living creatures, are on the surface of the tree, and all extinct creatures are within the tree. 
In this episode we talk with Dr. Bernard Wood who studies our part of the tree of life. Wood tells us how scientists figure out which fossil creatures are our ancestors and which were just our close relatives.  
Links:
Human Evolution: A Very Short Introduction
Bernard Wood
Sideways Look - Bernard Wood's blog for the Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology.
The Leakey Foundation
Sponsor:
Adept Word Management
 

Episode 07: The Currant Bush of Life with Bernard Wood

For over 35 years Dorothy Cheney and Robert Seyfarth have been studying wild African primates in order to better understand the evolution of the human mind. In this episode they tell us about their long-term study of free-ranging baboons in the Okavango Delta in Botswana. Kinship and rank are tremendously important to these baboons. However, in this sophisticated society there seems to be a certain attentiveness, perhaps an obsession with other individuals’ relationships. Is this similar to how humans create social bonds and alliances, and does personality play a part in the ability of these baboons to survive? Listen and learn how these field researchers have approached these and other questions about how natural selection shapes the primate mind.
Links
Robert Seyfarth and Dorothy Cheney's website
Baboon Metaphysics
Being Human
Million Dollar Challenge
Adept Word Management

Episode 06: Being a Nice Animal

Have you ever wondered what it's like to make a major fossil discovery? Arizona State University graduate student Chalachew Seyoum and professor Kaye Reed tell us their exciting story. 
Seyoum was working as part of a team co-directed by Reed. While searching for hominid fossils at a site called Ledi-Geraru in the Afar region of Ethiopia, he found a fossil jaw sticking out of the 2.8 million year old sediment. That jaw turned out to be the earliest known fossil from our genus Homo. It was around 400,000 years older than any Homo fossil found before. The discovery was published in the journal Science in March of 2015. Dr. Susan Anton from New York University tells us why this find and the time period it's from are important in helping us connect the dots in our picture of early human evolution.
Links:
Early Homo at 2.8 MA from Ledi-Geraru, Afar, Ethiopia : Science
'First Human' discovered in Ethiopia : BBC News
Jawbone fossil fills a gap in early human evolution : New York Times
Credits:
This show is a project of The Leakey Foundation. The Leakey Foundation funds human origins research and shares that information with the public. You can learn more and help support science at leakeyfoundation.org.
This episode was produced by Schuyler Swenson. Our editor is Audrey Quinn. Music and scoring by Henry Nagle.
Origin Stories is made possible by a grant from Wells Fargo Bank. Transcripts are provided by Adept Word Management.

Episode 05: Discovery at Ledi-Geraru

Every day for 55 years a dedicated group of researchers, students, and Tanzanian field assistants have spent their days crawling through thorns and vines as they follow chimpanzees to observe their behavior. They write everything down in notes and on maps and checksheets. It adds up to an impressive amount of data. 
This episode tells the story of the evolution of data collection at Gombe, what it's like to collect it, and what we can learn from it.
Thanks to Anne Pusey, director of the Jane Goodall Institute Research Center at Duke University, and to Emily Boehm, Joseph Feldblum and Kara Walker from Duke University.
Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation. The Leakey Foundation is proud to support ongoing research at Gombe and around the world. Since 1968, we've awarded over 35 research grants to Jane Goodall and other scientists studying chimpanzees at Gombe. Learn more and help support science at leakeyfoundation.org!
Music in this episode is by Henry Nagle and Kevin MacLeod ("Backed Vibes" Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0).
Our editor is Audrey Quinn.
Support comes from Wells Fargo Bank. Transcripts provided by Adept Word Management.
If you like our show, please give us a review on iTunes! It really helps spread the word about our show, and we appreciate it very much!
 

Episode 04: How to Document a Society

Dr. Jane Goodall is a legend. She is a science hero, a trailblazing researcher who inspires people around the world. In this episode, Jane Goodall shares part of the story of how she went from working as a secretary to becoming the world's leading expert on chimpanzee behavior.
In 2004, author and Leakey family biographer Virginia Morrell interviewed Jane Goodall for the Louis Leakey Centennial Oral History Project. This never before heard recording covers the time in Goodall's life from 1957 when she arrived in Nairobi, Kenya, to November 1960 when she made her first groundbreaking discovery, one that changed the way we see chimpanzees as well as the way we define ourselves as humans.
Links

The Jane Goodall Institute
The Leakey Foundation
ROHO. The Regional Oral History Office of the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley
Virginia Morrell

Credits
This episode was produced by Meredith Johnson and edited by Audrey Quinn, production help from Schuyler Swenson. Scoring and composition by Henry Nagle. Additional Music from the Blue Dot Sessions and Lee Rosevere.
Thanks for listening! If you like our show, please subscribe and give us a rating on iTunes. We're new and reviews really help. We appreciate it a lot!
You can support long term studies of primates in the wild by supporting The Leakey Foundation.
Sponsors
This show is made possible with support from Wells Fargo Bank.
We're also sponsored by Adept Word Management, who provides transcripts of our interviews and episodes.

Episode 03: Jane Goodall

Hiccups are an annoyance that we all deal with, but don't usually give much thought to. In this episode of Origin Stories, independent producer Ben Nimkin brings us the remarkable story of Charles Osborne, a man who holds the Guiness World Record for the longest attack of the hiccups. He had them for 68 years!
We'll hear from the doctor who treated him, and researchers who are exploring the biology and the surprisingly deep evolutionary history of the hiccup.
Origin Stories is a production of The Leakey Foundation. A nonprofit organization with a mission to increase scientific knowledge, education, and public understanding of human origins, evolution, behavior, and survival. Since 1968, The Leakey Foundation has been awarding grants to scientists investigating the big questions about what makes us human.
We're sponsored with a grant from Wells Fargo Bank. Adept Word Management provides transcripts. 

Episode 02: Why Do We Get Hiccups?

One of the things that makes us different from other animals is the way we move around on two feet. Figuring out how and why our ancestors first stood up is one of the big questions in the study of human evolution. Carol Ward is an anatomy professor at the University of Missouri, and she's a paleoanthropologist who studies locomotion in our earliest primate ancestors. She tells the story of one bone and how it answered a question about how one of our most famous early ancestors moved. This is the first episode of Origin Stories, The Leakey Foundation's monthly podcast about anthropology, human origins, evolution, and human and primate behavior. We'll explore what it means to be human and the science behind what we know about ourselves. This show is a project of The Leakey Foundation.

On Two Feet

Origin Stories is The Leakey Foundation's new podcast about what it means to be human, and the science behind what we know about ourselves. Our show will explore the biology and the millions of years of evolution that shape the way we look and act today.