Origin Storie‪s‬ The Leakey Foundation

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.

If exercise is healthy, why do so many people avoid doing it? Scientist and author Dan Lieberman joins us to explain the powerful instincts that cause us to avoid exercise even though we know it’s good for us. Learn how an evolutionary understanding of physical activity can help you keep your New Year's resolutions about fitness and exercise.

In 2017, Dr. Isaiah Nengo announced the discovery of a 13 million-year-old fossil ape found in Kenya. This remarkable fossil, nicknamed Alesi, was 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 early evolution of apes and shows what the common ancestor of humans and all the other living apes might have looked like.

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.

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.

Atapuerca is a place that holds the mystery of human evolution in Europe from 1.2 million years ago through recent times. It has 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.