Origin Stories

It's not every day you see a Facebook post that changes your life, but that's exactly what happened to Leakey Foundation grantee Alia Gurtov. Gurtov was checking her Facebook feed one morning and saw a post from paleoanthropologist Lee Berger. He was looking for archaeologists who were "...skinny and preferably small. They must not be claustrophobic, they must be fit, they should have some caving experience, climbing experience would be a bonus. They must be willing to work in cramped quarters, have a good attitude and be a team player." Gurtov had never seen a job description that fit her more perfectly. A few weeks later she was in South Africa, inside a cave chamber strewn with ancient bones. The fossils she helped recover have changed the story of human evolution and added a strange new relative to our family tree. Thanks to Leakey Foundation grantees Alia Gurtov and Will Harcourt-Smith for sharing their stories. You can learn more at leakeyfoundation.org. 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 had 12 grantees who participated in the Homo naledi research. 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 Check out the complete show notes and bonus material at leakeyfoundation.org   Homo naledi, a new species of the genus Homo from the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa 3D models of the Homo naledi fossils "This Face Changes the Human Story. But, How?" National Geographic. "The Dawn of Humanity." NOVA/National Geographic.  Credits Editor: Julia Barton Host and Series Producer: Meredith Johnson Associate Producer: Shuka Kalantari Sound Design: Katie McMurran Theme Music: Henry Nagle Intern: Yuka Oiwa Additional Music: Tech Toys by Lee Rosevere Sponsors This season of Origin Stories is made possible by support from Dixon Long.  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. 

The paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey described stone tools as “fossilized human behavior.” These rocks, shaped by our human ancestors and found in archaeological sites around the world, can give us clues about how ancient people lived. Archaeologist and Leakey Foundation grantee John Shea of Stony Brook University says you can learn even more by making and using stone tools yourself.   Thanks to John Shea of Stony Brook University for sharing his work. His new book is Stone Tools in Human Evolution: Behavioral Differences among Technological Primates.   Learn more about Dr. Shea's work on his website.   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! Links Check out the complete show notes at leakeyfoundation.org   Videos  How to make a stone tool Making a Neanderthal flint tool Making Stone Tools - Nicholas Toth of the Stone Age Institute John Shea and Alan Alda on The Human Spark   Articles Modern People Making Stone Age Tools by Leakey Foundation grantee Shelby Putt Chimpanzees and Monkeys Have Entered the Stone Age by Colin Barras Credits Produced by: Audrey Quinn Editor: Julia Barton Host and Series Producer: Meredith Johnson Sound Design: Katie McMurran Theme Music: Henry Nagle Intern: Yuka Oiwa Additional Music: Tech Toys by Lee Rosevere Sponsors This season of Origin Stories is made possible by support from Dixon Long. Additional support for this episode comes from Bill Richards. 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. 

Just recently, the news media announced the discovery of a 13 million-year-old fossil ape called Alesi. This remarkable fossil was found in Kenya, and it’s 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 very early evolution of apes and even shows what the common ancestor of humans and all the other living apes might have looked like. In this episode, Isaiah Nengo tells the story behind the discovery. Special thanks to Isaiah Nengo of the Stony Brook University affiliated Turkana Basin Institute and De Anza College. 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 Sponsors This season of Origin Stories is made possible by support from Dixon Long. 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.    

Our new season of Origin Stories is coming soon! This is a sneak preview of the first episode.

Why do people risk their own lives to save a stranger? Why do we share food or give money to charity? The human capacity for altruism has been a puzzle for scientists since Darwin. In this episode of Origin Stories, primatologist Joan Silk explores the evolution of altruism and cooperation. In our Being Human Bonus segment, we share a story of human kindness from Erika Lantz and WBUR’s Kind World. Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation. You can support this show and the science we talk about by making a tax-deductible donation. Your donation will be doubled thanks to an anonymous altruistic sponsor! Give today at www.leakeyfoundation.org/donate   Links Learn more about Joan Silk and her research at www.joansilk.com. Being Human www.beinghuman.org Kind World www.wbur.org/kindworld Adept Word Management www.adeptwordmanagement.com   Credits Produced by Meredith Johnson Edited by Julia Barton Theme music by Henry Nagle Production help from Susan Valot Additional music by Podington Bear, Lee Rosevere, and Alex Fitch

Every animal that lives in groups has to make decisions as a group. Even a seemingly simple decision like "where should we go for dinner?" can be complicated to negotiate.    Is there a simple rule behind how humans and other animals make group decisions? Margaret Crofoot is a primatologist and Leakey Foundation grantee whose research on baboons suggests there is a rule, and it's not what you might think.   You can read more about Margaret Crofoot's research and see a video of her GPS data on our blog!   Links   Margaret Crofoot's Lab   Shared decision-making drives collective movement in wild baboons   Sponsors   Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation. You can support this podcast and the research we talk about by making a tax-deductible donation. All donations will be doubled!   This episode is part of the Being Human initiative. A joint project of the Baumann Foundation and The Leakey Foundation dedicated to understanding modern life from an evolutionary perspective.   Thanks to Adept Word Management for their transcription service. Visit Adept Word Management for your transcription needs.   You can download transcripts of our episodes at leakeyfoundation.org/originstories   Credits Produced by Meredith Johnson, edited by Julia Barton.   Theme music by Henry Nagle.   Additional music from: Tech Toys by Lee Rosevere Grand Caravan by Blue Dot Sessions Stars are Out by Podington Bear   Creative Commons music license CC-BY-NC 3.0

Humans have evolved very differently from other primates. Is there one thing responsible for humans becoming human? Some evolutionary biologists think that the way we process our food, namely cooking it, could explain why our species developed so differently from others. Did cooking make us human? Dr. Richard Wrangham of Harvard University and Dr. Rachel Carmody of UCSF and Harvard discuss the impact that cooked food has had on human evolution. This episode of Origin Stories was produced by Briana Breen and edited by Audrey Quinn. Music by Henry Nagle. Thanks to Richard Wrangham and Rachel Carmody for sharing their work. Being Human This re-released episode includes a new Being Human bonus segment. Being Human was a joint initiative of The Baumann Foundation and The Leakey Foundation, dedicated to understanding modern life from an evolutionary perspective. Special thanks to Lily Mazzarella of Farmacopia for talking with us about her work for the Being Human segment. Episode Links Richard Wrangham's Harvard University Website Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human Smithsonian Magazine "Why Fire Made Us Human" Rachel Carmody's Nature article: Diet rapidly and reproducibly alters the human gut microbiome The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation. The Leakey Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to human origins research and outreach. Learn more at leakeyfoundation.org.  

The Power Paradox What is power? Where does social power come from? What happens in our bodies and with our behavior when we have power and when we don't? What can we learn about lasting social power from small-scale hunter-gatherer societies? Dacher Keltner is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and the faculty director of the UC Berkeley Greater Good Science Center. A renowned expert in the biological and evolutionary origins of human emotion, Dr. Keltner studies the science of compassion, awe, love, and beauty, and how emotions shape our moral intuition. His research interests also span issues of power, status, inequality, and social class. He is the author of the best-selling book Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life and of The Compassionate Instinct. Dr. Keltner's most recent book is The Power Paradox: How We Gain and Lose Influence. This episode is a live recording from The Leakey Foundation's Bay Area Science Festival event. Links The Greater Good Science Center The Leakey Foundation Adept Word Management

Humans and our recent ancestors have been accomplished endurance runners for more than a million years. Our evolutionary history as runners partly accounts for why aerobic exercise is such a key component of human health. In this talk, recorded in July 2016, Daniel Lieberman explores how and why the human body evolved to run long distances. Daniel Lieberman is the Professor and Chair of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, and the Edwin M. Lerner II Professor of Biological Sciences at Harvard University. He is a member of the Scientific Executive Committee of The Leakey Foundation. His research is on how and why the human body is the way it is, with particular foci on the origins of bipedalism, how humans became endurance runners, and the evolution of the highly unusual human head. Lieberman has published 3 books and more than 100 articles. His latest books are The Evolution of the Human Head, and The Story of the Human Body. Links: Get tickets for "The Power Paradox" with Dacher Keltner. Donate to The Leakey Foundation. Your donation will be doubled! Transcripts are provided by Adept Word Management. Theme music by Henry Nagle. Closing credit song by Lee Rosevere.  

Empathy has long been considered a uniquely human trait, but it's an ability that has also been observed in apes and other animals. Primatologist Frans de Waal says that examples of empathy in non-human primates and other mammals suggest that empathy has a long evolutionary history in humans.   Frans de Waal is the C.H. Candler Professor of Psychology at Emory University where he directs the Living Links Center for the Advanced Study of Ape and Human Evolution. He’s the author of several books including The Age of Empathy, and most recently, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?   Credits: Nancy Rosenbaum produced our story. Our editor is Audrey Quinn. Theme music by Henry Nagle. Additional music by Podington Bear, Lee Rosevere, and Box Cat Records. Being Human Bonus produced by Meredith Johnson.   Being Human: This episode was produced as part of the Being Human initiative. A joint project of The Leakey Foundation and the Baumann Foundation.    The Being Human initiative is all about why we experience our lives the way we do, including our thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Keep listening after our story for the “Being Human Bonus Segment” where we talk about  how the science in this episode applies to real world situations. Our guest is Natalee Hanson, a special education teacher who works with students who have emotional and behavioral disabilities.   The Leakey Foundation: Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation. The Leakey Foundation advances human origins research and offers educational opportunities to cultivate a deeper, collective understanding of what it means to be human. We give research grants to scientists and share their groundbreaking discoveries through our podcast, website, and lecture programs. We also give scholarships to students from developing countries to attend field schools and earn advanced degrees.   You can help The Leakey Foundation fund important scientific research and outreach programs like this podcast by making a tax-deductible donation to The Leakey Foundation. Visit leakeyfoundation.org/donate before August 31st and your donation will be doubled!    Adept Word Management: Origin Stories is sponsored by Adept Word Management. Intelligent transcripts. Visit them for all of your transcription needs at adeptwordmanagement.com.    You can find transcripts of our past episodes at leakeyfoundation.org.