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

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

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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"

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"

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"

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"

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.

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

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

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:

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.

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

Credits

Host and Series Producer: Meredith Johnson

Theme Music: Henry Nagle

Additional Music:

Podington Bear "Stars Are Out"

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.

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

Credits

Editor: Julia Barton

Host and Series Producer: Meredith Johnson

Associate Producer: Shuka Kalantari

Sound Design: Katie McMurran

Theme Music: Henry Nagle

Additional Music:

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.