Happy 2026! On Humans has typically marked the coming of January by revisiting the previous year’s most popular episode. This time, the New Year special packs the five-hour-long "Origins of Humankind" series into one fast-paced dive through deep time.
By mixing highlights from the original interviews with fresh narration, this episode offers a captivating journey through many of the great topics around human origins, such as:
- Who were the first primates
- The role of fruits, snakes, and predators
- The human solution to danger
- How to grow a human brain?
- What did our ancestors eat?
- Effects of our upright posture
- Origins of music & language
- How Homo sapiens took over the world
Enjoy!
LINKS
For the original five-hour experience, see: OnHumans.Substack.com/Origins
For a shorter series on ancient DNA: see OnHumans.Substack.com/DNA
Support: Patreon.com/OnHumans
The series was produced together with CARTA (UCSD & Salk Institute). For past recordings of CARTA symposia on human origins, see: Carta.Anthropogeny.org/Symposia
KEYWORDS
Human evolution | Human origins | Science | Biology | Paleoanthropology | Anthropology | Archaeology | Fossils | aDNA | History of life | Life history | Dinosaurs | Primates | Apes | Hominins | Homo sapiens | Evolution of language | Evolution of music | Brain evolution | Paleoneurology | Neanderthals | Denisovans | Neolithic Revolution | Spread of agriculture | Human destiny
