Origin Stories

September 30 is International Podcast Day and on this episode, we’re handing things over to producer Lucía Benavides, who sat down with Leakey Foundation grantee María Martinón-Torres for an interview about her life and career.

This bonus episode is entirely in Spanish. We’ll be back with an English-language episode in October.

Special thanks to Dub and Ginny Crook for sponsoring this episode. 

Click here for a transcript of this episode.

Atapuerca is a place that holds the mystery 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. María Martinón-Torres is a Leakey Foundation grantee who is sometimes called a "detective of the dead" because she pieces together clues to learn about the lives and deaths of the people who once inhabited northern Spain.

Special thanks

Thanks to María Martinón-Torres for sharing her work. Thanks to Dub and Ginny Crook for sponsoring this episode.

Links to learn more

The Atapuerca website
María Martinón-Torres' website
Learn about Atapuerca on efossils.org
Unesco World Heritage information
Sima del Elefante - The First Hominin of Europe
Gran Dolina - Human Meat Just Another Meal for Early Europeans?
Sima de los Huesos

The Leakey Foundation

Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach.

Support The Leakey Foundation

We're looking for 20 new monthly "Bedrock Donors." Become a Bedrock Donor today and your monthly gift will be quadruple-matched!

Lunch Break Science

Lunch Break Science is The Leakey Foundation's online series featuring short talks and interviews with Leakey Foundation grantees. Episodes resume in October but you can watch all of the past episodes on demand at leakeyfoundation.org/live.

Credits

Host, Writer, Producer: Meredith Johnson
Producer: Lucia Benavides
Editor: Audrey Quinn
Special thanks to Shuka Kalantari
Theme Music: Henry Nagle

Additional Music:

Lee Rosevere "Tech Toys" and music from Blue Dot Sessions.

Sponsors

Origin Stories is made possible by support from Dub and Virginia Crook, Diana McSherry, Jeanne Newman, Camilla Smith, and donors like you!

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 or wherever you listen. It's the best way to help other people find the show and we really appreciate it.

Call us!

We've set up a voicemail line and we'd love to hear from you! Call us at ‪(707)788-8582‬ to let us know how you're doing and if there is anything you'd like to hear on this podcast. 

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. 

If you love fossils, you won't want to miss this episode!

Special thanks

Thanks to Yared Assefa, Dr. Berhane Asfaw, and Dr. Mulugeta Feseha, who hosted The Leakey Foundation at the National Museum of Ethiopia.

Links to learn more

President Obama's speech to the African Union
Lucy: A marvelous specimen
Top ten human evolution discoveries in Ethiopia
Rare 3.8 million-year-old fossil skull recasts origins of iconic Lucy 
Ethiopia is top choice for the cradle of Homo sapiens

The Leakey Foundation

Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach.

Funding provided by the Foundation has made many of the fossil hominin discoveries in Ethiopia possible. In addition, Our Baldwin Fellowship program has been building scientific capacity in Ethiopia and other countries since 1978. We also have a new program called the Francis H. Brown African Scholarship Fund that provides up to $25,000 for students or early career researchers in botany and geology from Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Kenya. Learn about all of our grant programs at leakeyfoundation.org/grants

Support The Leakey Foundation

We're looking for 20 new monthly "Bedrock Donors." Become a Bedrock Donor today and your monthly gift will be quadruple-matched!

Lunch Break Science

Lunch Break Science is The Leakey Foundation's new online series featuring short talks and interviews with Leakey Foundation grantees. Feed your brain with Lunch Break Science every Thursday at 11 am Pacific on Facebook YouTube, Twitter, and leakeyfoundation.org/live.

Credits

Host and Producer: Meredith Johnson
Editor: Audrey Quinn
Theme Music: Henry Nagle

Additional Music:

Lee Rosevere "Tech Toys" and music from Blue Dot Sessions.

Sponsors

This season of Origin Stories is made possible by support from Diana McSherry, Jeanne Newman, Camilla Smith, and donors like you!

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 or wherever you listen. It's the best way to help other people find the show and we really appreciate it.

Call us!

We've set up a voicemail line and we'd love to hear from you! Call us at ‪(707)788-8582‬ to let us know how you're doing and if there is anything you'd like to hear on this podcast. 

Have you ever considered how profoundly food has shaped who we are as a species? Julie Lesnik is a paleoanthropolgist who studies the evolution of the human diet. Her special focus is on insects as food in the past, present, and the future. 

Additional Information

Read more about Julie Lesnik's work and check out her book Edible Insects and Human Evolution.

Follow her on Twitter: @JulieLesnik

Want to try some edible insects?

Here are a few places we recommend:

Don Bugito
Entomo Farms

Looking for recipes? 

Julie Lesnik's "Insect Bake-Off" recipes
Chef-created recipes from the New York Times
Recipes from "The Bug Chef"

Call us!

We've set up a voicemail line and we'd love to hear from you! Call us at ‪(707)788-8582‬ to let us know how you're doing and if there is anything you'd like to hear on this podcast. 

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.  

Visit leakeyfoundation.org/donate to donate today! Every donation will be matched.

Credits

Host and Producer: Meredith Johnson

Editor: Audrey Quinn

Theme Music: Henry Nagle

Additional Music:

Lee Rosevere "Tech Toys" and music from Blue Dot Sessions.

Sponsors

This season of Origin Stories is made possible by support from Diana McSherry, Jeanne Newman, Camilla Smith, and donors like you!

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 or wherever you listen. It's the best way to help other people find the show and we really appreciate it.

Deep in the forests of Borneo, lives a society of hunter-gatherers who speak a language never before shared with outsiders. Until now.

The Cave Punan are the last surviving hunter-gatherers in Indonesia and they have reached out for help to save their forest home and their culture.

In 2018, Leakey Foundation grantee Steve Lansing was invited by the elected leader of the Punan in Borneo to meet the Cave Punan. He soon learned of the Cave Punan's unique song language and their urgent need to protect their forest from illegal palm oil plantations. They asked for his help to share their story and save their forest. 

Steve Lansing and his Indonesian colleagues are now working with local organizations on a plan to support the Cave Punan.

Origin Stories is the first media outlet to share their story and their songs. We hope you will share this podcast with your friends to help raise awareness of the Cave Punan and their plight.

Additional Information

Visit our blog to see photos and videos of the Cave Punan.

Read more about Steve Lansing's research on his website.

Steve Lansing would like to thank his colleagues at the Eijkman Institute of Molecular Biology in Indonesia.

Call us!

We've set up a voicemail line and we'd love to hear from you! Call us at ‪(707)788-8582‬ to let us know how you're doing and if there is anything you'd like to hear on this podcast. 

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. Help us raise money to pay teachers to create lesson plans and activities based on this podcast. 

Visit leakeyfoundation.org/donate to donate today! Every donation will be matched.

Credits

Host and Producer: Meredith Johnson

Editor: Audrey Quinn

Theme Music: Henry Nagle

Additional Music:

Lee Rosevere "Tech Toys", and music from Blue Dot Sessions.

Sponsors

This season of Origin Stories is made possible by support from Diana McSherry, Jeanne Newman, Camilla Smith, and donors like you!

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 or wherever you listen. It's the best way to help other people find the show and we really appreciate it.

What happens when bows and arrows and face-to-face conversations are replaced by high powered weapons and cell phones practically overnight? Dr. Polly Wiessner is an anthropologist who has studied the Enga of Papua New Guinea for 30 years and her current research is focused on how traditional societies cope with rapid cultural change.

This episode features a talk given by Dr. Wiessner at The Leakey Foundation's Survival Symposium in 2019. Videos of the seven talks given at the symposium will be on our YouTube channel next week. 

If you want to see more Leakey Foundation talks, check out our events calendar for an upcoming lecture near you! 

A mysterious new human relative was discovered ten years ago from a pinky bone found in a Siberian cave. They're called the Denisovans, and people around the world carry their DNA today. Until just a few months ago, the sum total of all the fossils the Denisovans left behind could fit in the palm of your hand. Now new research is unlocking more of their secrets.

Thanks

Thanks to Bence Viola and Viviane Slon for sharing their work. 

Dr. Viola also wants to give a shoutout to his colleagues, including Anatoly Derevyanko over more than 40 years has excavated countless sites in Siberia, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan. And Michael Sunkov who now heads the excavations at Denisova.

I also want to thank Sergey Zelensky who provided the sounds of Denisova cave and the recording of the conference.

Click here to learn more about Leakey Foundation grantee Frido Welker’s work on ancient proteins.

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.

For a limited time, all donations up to $5,000 will be matched 4:1 thanks to Gianni Amato and Gordon and Ann Getty. Once we pass $5,000, all donations will be doubled.

Visit leakeyfoundation.org/donate to donate today!

Credits

Host and Producer: Meredith Johnson

Editor: Julia Barton

Theme Music: Henry Nagle

Additional Music:

Lee Rosevere "Tech Toys", and music from Blue Dot Sessions.

Sponsors

This season of Origin Stories is made possible by support from Dixon Long, Diana McSherry, Jeanne Newman, Camilla Smith, and donors like you!

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.

In this episode, we explore the story of Piltdown Man – one of the most notorious hoaxes in history. 

When Piltdown Man was discovered in a gravel pit outside a small English village in 1912, it was celebrated as a "missing link." The find captured the public's imagination and became world-famous. The problem was that Piltdown Man was a complete fraud. The purported fossils were actually made up of modern human bones and an orangutan mandible.

The Piltdown hoax suspects have included Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of Sherlock Holmes, and the philosopher Teilhard de Chardin. Now, more than 100 years later, scientists have narrowed the suspects down to a single culprit. 

Thanks:

Thanks to producer Leo Hornak for reporting this story.

Thanks also to Professor Chris Dean of University College, London, Dr. Isabelle De Groote of Liverpool University, Karolyn Shindler, Professor Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum, London, and Dr. David Joyce of Clark University, who runs the excellent Piltdown Plot website.

Thanks as well to Dr. Miles Russell of Bournemouth University - author of  "Piltdown Man: The Secret Life of Charles Dawson."

And finally thanks as well to Dr. Hugh Cecil for his advice and encouragement.

Readings were by Luke Blackall, Angelo Hornak, and Jonathan Keates.

 The archival lecture audio used in this episode is from The Leakey Foundation Archive. You can listen to Dr. Weiner's complete lecture on our website. 

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!

Visit leakeyfoundation.org/donate to donate today!

Credits

Producer: Leo Hornak

Editor: Julia Barton

Host and Series Producer: Meredith Johnson

Senior Producer: Catherine Girardeau

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, Camilla Smith, and donors like you!

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.

In the final installment of our "From the Archive" series, Kenyan paleoanthropologist Louis S.B. Leakey shares the story of his life and work in a never-before-released interview recorded in 1969.

The Leakey Foundation was formed 1968 in honor of Louis Leakey and we are proud to carry on his mission of increasing scientific knowledge, education, and public understanding of human origins, evolution, behavior, and survival.

You can help carry on Louis Leakey's legacy by donating to The Leakey Foundation. Every donation will be doubled!

leakeyfoundation.org/donate

Mary Leakey was called the "grand dame" of archaeology. She was a methodical and exacting scientist who made some of the world's most significant archaeological discoveries. In this lecture from The Leakey Foundation archive, Mary Leakey tells the story of Olduvai Gorge, the place where she found fossils that completely changed our understanding of human origins.

Want to support Origin Stories? All donations are being matched 4:1. Give today at leakeyfoundation.org/originstorieschallenge