Origin Stories

The Not So Naked Ape: The Origins of Clothing

Humans are the only animals that get dressed every day. Clothing is one of our most important inventions, yet we rarely even think about it as a technology. Nina Jablonsk

Biruté Mary Galdikas - A Life Among Orangutans

Biruté Mary Galdikas passed away on March 24, 2026, at the age of 79. She spent more than 50 years studying orangutans in Borneo and fighting to protect them. Before she

Top Human Origins Discoveries of 2025

2025 was another exciting year in human origins research! In this episode, four scientists and Leakey Foundation grantees (and one podcast host) share their picks for the

Origin Stories x The Science Podcast

This episode features two stories from the Science Podcast. First, Science writer Ann Gibbons tells the story of three ancient hominin species that lived side-by-side in

Can a Human Outrun a Horse?

This is a story about sweat, survival, speed, and the peculiar ways running may have shaped us as humans. Armed with a hydration vest, a dream, and paleoanthropologist Da

The Origin Story of Origin Stories - 10th Anniversary

After 10 years of exploring the stories behind breakthrough science, it's time to tell our own origin story! In this special anniversary episode, we're flipping the scrip

The Shanidar Cave Neanderthals

Shanidar Cave is a unique archaeological site in Kurdistan where scientists found the remains of 10 Neanderthal men, women, and children. Some of these individuals had su

Top Human Origins Discoveries of 2024

2024 was another amazing year in human origins research. In this episode, three Leakey Foundation grantees (and one podcast host) share their picks for the most exciting

Lucy

In this episode, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the discovery of Lucy, one of the most iconic and important scientific discoveries ever made. Paleoanthropologist Do

Ape Medicine

Are humans the only animals that practice medicine? In this episode, two scientists share surprising observations of orangutans and chimpanzees treating wounds–their own

The First Story

Over 50,000 years ago on what is now the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, someone climbed a towering rock formation and painted a mysterious image on a cave ceiling. The pa

Understanding Neanderthals

Early prehistorians had little more than stones and bones to work with as they tried to piece together the story of the Neanderthals, but today's researchers work in ways

The Story of Human Hair

Why do humans have most of our hair on our heads, not our bodies? Why do we have so many varieties of hair color, thickness, and curliness? Dr. Tina Lasisi is a biologica

The Musical Ape

Music is universal in all human cultures, but why? What gives us the ability to hear sound as music? Are we the only musical species–or was Darwin right when he said ever

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

A Brief History of Bling

Travel through 50,000 years of human history following clues hidden inside beads made from ostrich eggshells. In this episode, researchers Jennifer Miller and Yiming Wang

Top Human Origins Discoveries of 2023

2023 was another exciting year in human origins research! Fossil discoveries and long-term primate studies expanded our understanding of what makes us human. In this epis

Siblings

Sibling relationships can include everything from love and support–to tension, competition, and conflict. They might also play a fundamental role in the evolution of our

Fatherhood

Humans invest enormous amounts of time and energy into bringing up our babies. This unique investment is a fundamental part of what it means to be human. In this episode,

Motherhood

Humans invest enormous amounts of time and energy into bringing up our babies. This unique investment is a fundamental part of what it means to be human. In this episode,