Origin Stories
Origin Stories is The Leakey Foundation’s award-winning podcast about how we became human.
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Current Episode
Motherhood
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.
This episode was generously sponsored by Bill Richards and Dana Lajoie.
All Episodes
Boomplaas Cave – Bonus Interview
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.
Field School Diaries
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 in personal audio diaries, offering a candid look at the joys, thrills, and challenges of archaeological fieldwork.
Episode 65: The Hobbit
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.
A Giganto Mystery
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. This episode explores how the massive primates lived, why they disappeared, and what they can tell us about extinctions happening now.
The New Metabolism
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.
Top Human Origins Discoveries of 2022
In this episode, four Leakey Foundation scientists shared their favorite human evolution discoveries from the past year.
This episode was sponsored by Diana McSherry and Pat Poe.
First Steps at Laetoli
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.
This episode was sponsored by Jim Carty and Pat Randall.
Discovering Us
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.
Top Human Origins Discoveries of 2021
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.
Biruté Mary Galdikas – 50 Years with Orangutans
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.
Entre Chien et Loup: How Dogs Began
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.
Short and Sweat
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.
Monkeys Get Creative
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.
The Obstetrical Dilemma
The widely-held idea known as 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. 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.
Sleep and the Moon
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.
How to Study an Endangered Species
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 co-director of the Kibale Chimpanzee Project, a long-term field study in Uganda. She’s in charge of long-term data at the site. In this episode, learn how long-term studies help scientists understand and protect chimpanzees.The Teeth Remember
In this episode of Origin Stories, learn how Leakey Foundation grantee Dr. Tanya Smith and her colleagues use fossil teeth to tell a detailed and intimate story about the lives of two Neanderthal children and the changing world they lived in.
Episode 50: Understanding Neanderthals
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.
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Exercise
If exercise is healthy, why do so many people avoid doing it? On this episode, Leakey Foundation grantee Dr. Dan Lieberman, author of the new book Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding explains the powerful instincts that cause us to avoid exercise even though we know it’s good for us.
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Ancestor (rerelease)
In 2017, Leakey Foundation grantee Dr. Isaiah Nengo announced the discovery of a 13 million-year-old fossil ape found in Kenya. This remarkable fossil, nicknamed 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.
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Skin
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.
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María Martinón-Torres
In this bonus Spanish-language episode, producer Lucía Benavides interviews Leakey Foundation grantee Dr. María Martinón-Torres about her life and career.
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Detective of the Dead
Atapuerca is a place that tells the story 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.
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Custodian of the Ancestors
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.
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We Eat Bugs
This episode features Leakey Foundation grantee Julie Lesnik and her research that explores the past, present, and future of insects as food.
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The Cave Punan
Deep in the remote forests of Borneo lives a group of hunter-gatherers who speak a unique language that has never been shared with outsiders. Until now.
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Tribes Old and New
What happens when bows and arrows and face-to-face conversations are replaced by high powered weapons and cell phones practically overnight?
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The Denisovans
A tiny bone fragment found in a Siberian cave reveals a secret history of humankind.
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Piltdown Man
In this episode, we explore the story of Piltdown Man – one of the most notorious hoaxes in history. The Piltdown hoax suspects have included Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the philosopher Teilhard de Chardin. Now, more than 100 years later, scientists have narrowed the suspects down to a single culprit.
Louis Leakey
Paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey shares the story of his life and work in a never-before-released interview recorded in 1969.
Tepilit Ole Saitoti
Tepilit Ole Saitoti was a Maasai warrior, author, and natural resources expert. In this lecture, Saitoti tells his life story and discusses Maasai culture.
Margaret Mead
In this never-before-released archival lecture from 1974, anthropologist Margaret Mead discusses the lives of women from prehistoric through modern times.
Carl Sagan
Carl Sagan explores the evolution of human intelligence in this never-before-released lecture from The Leakey Foundation Archive.
Season Three Trailer
A preview of upcoming Origin Stories episodes.
Rewriting Our Story
A new fossil discovery in Morocco rewrites the story of the origins of our species.
Out of Eden the Long Way
Paul Salopek is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist on an epic journey, tracing the path of ancient human migration on foot.
Stones and How to Use Them
Ancient stone tools aren’t such a mystery once you learn how to use them.
Follow the Leader?
How do animals make group decisions about where to go and what to do?
Born and Evolved to Run
Daniel Lieberman explores how and why the human body evolved the ability to run long distances.
Speaking of Sex
What does the human voice tell us about sexual selection? A live episode featuring David Puts.
The Grandmother Hypothesis
Grandmothers are amazing in lots of ways. It turns out they also might be the reason behind many of the things that make humans different from the other apes.
Evolutionary Arms Race
A closer look at the evolutionary arms race between us and the pathogens that make us sick. What does each side bring to the fight?
Face Mites
What the bugs that live on your face can tell you about human migration.
Did Cooking Make Us Human?
Is there one thing responsible for humans becoming human? Some think that cooked food could explain why our species developed so differently from others.
The Currant Bush of Life
How do scientists figure out which fossil creatures were relatives and which were ancestors?
Discovery at Ledi-Geraru
Have you ever wondered what it’s like to make a major fossil discovery? Chalachew Seyoum tells the story of the discovery of the oldest known fossil in the genus Homo.
Jane Goodall
When Louis Leakey sent Jane Goodall to start the first study of wild chimpanzees, she was 26 years old and had no experience and no college degree. Hear the story of how she got there.
On Two Feet
How and why did we evolve the ability to walk on two feet? It’s one of the big questions about human evolution and Carol Ward has an idea that will surprise you.
Mary Leakey
Mary Leakey tells the story of Olduvai Gorge, where she found fossils that completely changed our understanding of human origins.
Raymond Dart
This episode tells the story of the 1924 discovery of the Taung Child through a never-before-released lecture by Prof. Raymond Dart.
Dian Fossey
In this never-before-released archival lecture from 1973, Dian Fossey tells the story of the early years of her groundbreaking mountain gorilla research.
The Four Year War
Leakey Foundation grantee Joseph Feldblum solves the mystery of the only known chimpanzee civil war… thus far.
Tales From the Field
Three scientists tell true tales from the field.
What They Left Behind
An award-winning story about ancient art and the people who made it.
Rising Star
A Facebook message, a dangerous cave full of mysterious ancient bones, and a discovery that added a new member to our family tree.
Ancestor
Paleontologist Isaiah Nengo has a hunch that leads to the find of a lifetime.
Altruism
Why do people risk their own lives to save a stranger?
The Power Paradox (LIVE)
What happens in our bodies and brains when we have social power – and when we don’t?
Empathy
Are we the only animals that feel empathy and console others? Primatologist Frans de Waal says no.
Neanderthals
New research shows there’s more to Neanderthals than people once thought.
Why Do We Laugh?
Laughter is a universal human behavior. Have you ever wondered why we laugh, or what it means when we do? This live episode explores the origins of laughter.
The Origins of Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis is the world’s leading cause of death by infectious disease. Have you ever wondered where it came from?
Being Human
How babies and young children learn about the world. A live episode featuring Alison Gopnik.
Being Human – Robert Sapolsky
Robert Sapolsky takes a fascinating and funny look at human behavior and the ways we are the same as and different from other animals.
Being a Nice Animal
Dorothy Cheney and Robert Seyfarth explore the roles that social bonds and personality play in an animal’s ability to survive and thrive.
How to Document a Society
This episode tells the story of what it’s like to collect data at Jane Goodall’s research site, and what has happened to the 55 years of daily field notes from Gombe.
Why Do We Get Hiccups?
Hiccups are annoying and troublesome, but have you ever considered why we get them? In this episode, we explore the surprisingly deep evolutionary history of the human hiccup.
Intro to Origin Stories
Introducing The Leakey Foundation’s new podcast about human evolution and the stories behind the search for our origins.
