Origin Stories
Episodes
Biruté Mary Galdikas - A Life Among Orangutans
31 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
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 prot...
Top Human Origins Discoveries of 2025
31 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
2025 was another exciting year in human origins research! In this episode, four scientists and Leakey Foundation grantees (and one podcast host) share...
Origin Stories x The Science Podcast
05 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This episode features two stories from the Science Podcast. First, Science writer Ann Gibbons tells the story of three ancient hominin species that li...
Can a Human Outrun a Horse?
06 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 pa...
The Origin Story of Origin Stories - 10th Anniversary
24 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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'r...
The Shanidar Cave Neanderthals
29 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Shanidar Cave is a unique archaeological site in Kurdistan where scientists found the remains of 10 Neanderthal men, women, and children. Some of thes...
Top Human Origins Discoveries of 2024
24 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
2024 was another amazing year in human origins research. In this episode, three Leakey Foundation grantees (and one podcast host) share their picks fo...
Lucy
27 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the discovery of Lucy, one of the most iconic and important scientific discoveries ever made. Pa...
Ape Medicine
08 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Are humans the only animals that practice medicine? In this episode, two scientists share surprising observations of orangutans and chimpanzees treati...
The First Story
30 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Understanding Neanderthals
06 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 rese...
The Story of Human Hair
30 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 L...
The Musical Ape
02 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 r...
Custodian of the Ancestors
27 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
A Brief History of Bling
31 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Travel through 50,000 years of human history following clues hidden inside beads made from ostrich eggshells. In this episode, researchers Jennifer Mi...
Top Human Origins Discoveries of 2023
27 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
2023 was another exciting year in human origins research! Fossil discoveries and long-term primate studies expanded our understanding of what makes us...
Siblings
31 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Sibling relationships can include everything from love and support–to tension, competition, and conflict. They might also play a fundamental role in...
Fatherhood
26 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 hu...
Motherhood
29 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 hum...
Boomplaas Cave - Bonus Interview
02 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How did climate change impact ancient human behavior? This is one of the questions Justin Pargeter and his team are investigating at a site called Boo...
Field School Diaries
06 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This special episode takes you inside the world of archaeology students at Boomplaas Cave, one of South Africa's flagship human evolution research sit...
The Hobbit
30 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, we explore the fascinating tale of the Hobbit, an unexpected fossil find that shook the world's understanding of human evolution. Joi...
A Giganto Mystery
28 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Kira Westaway is part of an international research team working to solve the mystery of Gigantopithecus, the largest ape that ever walked the eart...
The New Metabolism
01 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How do human bodies use energy? In this episode, Leakey Foundation grantee Dr. Herman Pontzer shares groundbreaking research that upends our understan...
Top Human Origins Discoveries of 2022
31 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
2022 was another exciting year in human origins research! New fossil discoveries and ancient DNA research expanded our understanding of the past. We l...
Origin Stories is back!
24 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We've been hard at work on a new season of stories about how we became human. Origin Stories returns on January 31 with monthly episodes!
First Steps at Laetoli
17 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, we explore five strange fossilized footprints found by Mary Leakey at the site of Laetoli in Tanzania. Decades after their original ...
Discovering Us
25 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, we talk with Evan Hadingham, senior science editor for the PBS program NOVA. His new book, Discovering Us: 50 Great Discoveries in Hu...
Top Human Origins Discoveries of 2021
21 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
2021 was a big year in science! Fossil discoveries introduced new relatives to our family tree, new findings added fascinating twists to the human sto...
Episode 58: Biruté Mary Galdikas - 50 Years with Orangutans
09 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As a young girl, Biruté Mary Galdikas dreamed of going to the forests of Southeast Asia to study the least-known of all the great apes, the elusive o...
Entre Chien et Loup: How Dogs Began
05 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Scientists agree that dogs evolved from wolves, but exactly how and when that happened is hotly contested. In this episode, Origin Stories contributor...
Bonus Episode: Short and Sweat
29 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Learn about the evolution of our extraordinary ability to cool ourselves down. Biological anthropologist Andrew Best discusses the past, present, and ...
Episode 55: Monkeys Get Creative
07 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Producer and scientist Kevin McLean travels to an island off the coast of Panama where researchers have found an isolated group of monkeys with a crea...
Episode 54: The Obstetrical Dilemma
04 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The widely-held idea known as the "obstetrical dilemma" is a hypothesis that explains why babies are so helpless, and why childbirth is so difficult f...
Sleep and the Moon
07 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Sleep is one of the defining traits of human life. It's also one of the most mysterious. Dr. Horacio de la Iglesia is a neurobiologist who's on a ques...
How to Study an Endangered Species
27 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What is it like to study an endangered species like chimpanzees, knowing they may go extinct within your lifetime? Leakey Foundation grantee Dr. Zarin...
Episode 51: The Teeth Remember
02 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Your life story is hidden in your teeth. The days, weeks, years, and stressful events of your life are recorded in tiny timelines that can be read by ...
Episode 50: Understanding Neanderthals
01 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 rese...
Episode 49: Exercise
31 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
If exercise is healthy, why do so many people avoid doing it? If we're born to be active, why is it so hard to keep your New Year's resolutions about ...
Episode 48: Ancestor (rerelease)
27 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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 fro...
Episode 47: Skin
03 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Variation in human skin color has fascinated and perplexed people for centuries. As the most visible aspect of human variation, skin color has been us...
Episode 46: Interview with María Martinón-Torres
30 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
September 30 is International Podcast Day and on this episode, we're handing things over to producer Lucía Benavides, who sat down with Leakey Founda...
Episode 45: Detective of the Dead
28 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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, ...
Episode 44: Custodian of the Ancestors
30 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
We Eat Bugs
29 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Have you ever considered how profoundly food has shaped who we are as a species? Julie Lesnik is a paleoanthropologist who studies the evolution of th...
Episode 42: The Cave Punan
08 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Episode 41: Tribes Old and New
29 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What happens when bows and arrows and face-to-face conversations are replaced by high powered weapons and cell phones practically overnight? Dr. Polly...
Episode 40: The Denisovans
28 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
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 aro...
Piltdown Man
31 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Episode 38: From the Archive - Louis Leakey
07 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
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 nev...
Episode 37: From the Archive - Mary Leakey
14 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
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 arch...
Episode 36: From the Archive - Tepilit Ole Saitoti
14 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Tepilit Ole Saitoti was a Maasai warrior, author, and natural resources expert. In this lecture from The Leakey Foundation archive, Saitoti tells his...
Episode 35: From the Archive - Raymond Dart
14 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Raymond Dart was getting dressed for a wedding when he was given two boxes of rocks and fossils. Inside the boxes, he found the first evidence of huma...
Episode 34: From the Archive - Margaret Mead
10 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In this never-before-released archival lecture from 1974, anthropologist Margaret Mead discusses the lives of women from prehistoric through modern ti...
Episode 33: From the Archive - Dian Fossey
13 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In this never-before-released archival lecture from 1973, the legendary primatologist Dian Fossey tells the story of the early years of her groundbrea...
Episode 32: From the Archive - Carl Sagan
29 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Carl Sagan explores the evolution of human intelligence from the big bang, fifteen billion years ago, through today in this never-before-released arch...
Episode 31: The Four Year War
15 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
A scientist solves the mystery of the only known chimpanzee civil war...thus far. In 1960, Louis Leakey sent Jane Goodall to start her study of chimp...
Origin Stories Season Three Preview
01 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Origin Stories returns November 15th with more stories about how we became human.
Episode 28: What They Left Behind [Rebroadcast]
06 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The stories and songs of prehistoric people are lost. Their art and artifacts are all that remain of their culture. The painted caves of Ice Age Europ...
Episode 30: Tales From the Field [LIVE]
31 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Three true tales about what it's like to do field research. Kelly Stewart, Dorothy Cheney, and Robert Seyfarth share stories of gun smuggling, pet lee...
Episode 29: Rewriting Our Story
07 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
For a long time, scientists have been searching for the first Homo sapiens in the Great Rift Valley of Ethiopia. The story we've been telling about th...
Episode 28: What They Left Behind
28 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The stories and songs of prehistoric people are lost. Their art and artifacts are all that remain of their culture. The painted caves of Ice Age Europ...
Episode 27: Out of Eden the Long Way
21 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
One of the big questions in the study of human evolution is the question of how our ancestors spread across the world. Our species evolved in Africa a...
Episode 26: Rising Star
14 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
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 w...
Episode 25: Stones and How to Use Them
07 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey described stone tools as "fossilized human behavior." These rocks, shaped by our human ancestors and found in arc...
Episode 24: Ancestor
31 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Season 2 Preview
11 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Our new season of Origin Stories is coming soon! This is a sneak preview of the first episode.
Altruism
07 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
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 puzzl...
Episode 21: Follow the Leader?
07 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
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 comp...
Episode 09: Did Cooking Make Us Human? (Re-release)
31 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Humans have evolved very differently from other primates. Is there one thing responsible for humans becoming human? Some evolutionary biologists think...
Episode 20: The Power Paradox - LIVE
08 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
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 do...
Episode 19: Being Human - Born and Evolved to Run
28 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Humans and our recent ancestors have been accomplished endurance runners for more than a million years. Our evolutionary history as runners partly acc...
Episode 18: Empathy
25 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
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 Fran...
Episode 04: How to Document a Society (Re-release)
13 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Every day for 55 years a dedicated group of researchers, students, and field assistants have spent their days crawling through thorns and vines as the...
Episode 17: Being Human - Speaking of Sex
15 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Humans are very verbal compared to other animals. We talk constantly, and our voices can signal many things beyond the meaning of our words. The human...
Episode 16: Neanderthals
01 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
People have been fascinated with Neanderthals since they were first discovered in the mid-1800s. For a long time, they have been seen as dumb, brutish...
Episode 15: The Grandmother Hypothesis
28 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
When Kristen Hawkes first started to research the foraging habits of the Hadza hunter-gatherers, she noticed that the older women in the society were ...
Episode 14: Being Human - Why Do We Laugh?
18 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Laughter is a universal human behavior. Have you ever wondered why we laugh or what it really means when we do? Greg Bryant of UCLA studies the evolut...
Episode 13: Evolutionary Arms Race
29 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode we take a closer look at the evolutionary arms race between humans and the microbes that make us sick. What does each side bring to th...
Episode 12: The Origins of Tuberculosis
25 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Tuberculosis is the world's leading cause of death by infectious disease, and it has been plaguing humanity for a very long time. In the first episode...
Episode 11: Face Mites
25 Feb 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The bad news is that everybody has face mites. The good news is that these tiny cousins of spiders and ticks seem to be harmless for the vast majori...
Episode 10: Being Human with Alison Gopnik
19 Jan 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Alison Gopnik is a professor of psychology and affiliate professor of philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley. Her research focuses on ...
Did Cooking Make Us Human?
29 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
We humans have evolved very differently from other primates. Is there one thing responsible for humans becoming human? Some evolutionary biologists th...
Episode 08: Being Human with Robert Sapolsky
05 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
This episode of Origin Stories was recorded live in San Francisco as part of the Bay Area Science Festival. It was the first of The Leakey Foundation ...
Episode 07: The Currant Bush of Life with Bernard Wood
24 Nov 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin used a sketch of a tree of life to help describe his theory of evolution. In this metaphor, the branches o...
Episode 06: Being a Nice Animal
27 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
For over 35 years Dorothy Cheney and Robert Seyfarth have been studying wild African primates in order to better understand the evolution of the human...
Episode 05: Discovery at Ledi-Geraru
26 Aug 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Have you ever wondered what it's like to make a major fossil discovery? Arizona State University graduate student Chalachew Seyoum and professor Kaye...
Episode 04: How to Document a Society
05 Aug 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Every day for 55 years a dedicated group of researchers, students, and Tanzanian field assistants have spent their days crawling through thorns and vi...
Episode 03: Jane Goodall
30 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Jane Goodall is a legend. She is a science hero, a trailblazing researcher who inspires people around the world. In this episode, Jane Goodall sha...
Episode 02: Why Do We Get Hiccups?
26 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Hiccups are an annoyance that we all deal with, but don't usually give much thought to. In this episode of Origin Stories, independent producer Ben Ni...
On Two Feet
28 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
One of the things that makes us different from other animals is the way we move around on two feet. Figuring out how and why our ancestors first stood...
Intro to Origin Stories
01 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Origin Stories is The Leakey Foundation's new podcast about what it means to be human, and the science behind what we know about ourselves. Our show w...