Where, when, and how did Homo sapiens appear? What do we know about the complex set of ancestral hominins that preceded us? How recently did other hominin lineages live and what happened to them?

On this episode, we talk with Kate Wong, a senior editor at Scientific American, about her article, The Origin of Us. Our understanding of hominin evolution over the past several million years has been transformed by exciting new fossil finds and new DNA sequence data. We talk with Kate about the biggest news, the luxuriant evolutionary bush from which our ancestors emerged in Africa, and her favorite fossil species.

Find more articles from Kate here: Stories by Kate Wong

Cover Art by Brianna Longo

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bigbiology.substack.com/subscribe