Origin Stories

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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!