In this recording and in her book Darwin's Hunch: Science, Race, and the Search for Human Origins, Christa Kuljian examines the history of paleoanthropology in South Africa, interrogating the ways in which ideas about racial hierarchies influenced the founding and development of the field. Her research demonstrates how the social and political context in which paleoanthropology has been practiced in South Africa and elsewhere influenced the development of the science, and how present-day scientists are pushing back against their field's troubling legacy.

Christa Kuljian is a writer, author, and Research Associate at WiSER, the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Find this podcast and more in the Consortium's series on racial science at: www.chstm.org/video/101