What is it like to study an endangered species like chimpanzees, knowing they may go extinct within your lifetime? Leakey Foundation grantee Dr. Zarin Machanda is a co-director of the Kibale Chimpanzee Project, a long-term field study in Uganda. She's in charge of long-term data at the site. These life histories are a powerful way for scientists to understand chimpanzees, and ourselves.

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 scientists like Leakey Foundation grantee Dr. Tanya Smith. She and her colleagues used fossil teeth to tell a detailed and intimate story about the lives of two Neanderthal children and the changing world they lived in.

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.

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. 

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 ...

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 unique culture.

What happens when bows and arrows and face-to-face conversations are replaced by high powered weapons and cell phones practically overnight? Dr. Polly Weissner 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.

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.

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

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.

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

Tepilit Ole Saitoti was a Maasai warrior, author, and natural resources expert. In this lecture from The Leakey Foundation archive, Saitoti tells his life story, discusses Maasai culture, and explores the challenges faced by the Maasai people.

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 fossil evidence of humanity’s African origins. This episode tells the story of the 1924 discovery of the Taung Child through a never-before-released lecture by Dr. Raymond Dart.

In this never-before-released archival lecture from 1974, anthropologist Margaret Mead discusses the lives of women from prehistoric through modern times.

In this never-before-released archival lecture from 1973, the legendary primatologist Dian Fossey tells the story of the early years of her groundbreaking mountain gorilla research.

Carl Sagan explores the evolution of human intelligence from the big bang, fifteen billion years ago, through today in this never-before-released archival lecture.

A scientist solves the mystery of the only known chimpanzee civil war...thus far.

Origin Stories returns November 15th with more stories about how we became human.

Why did early humans make art? What does it mean? Renowned prehistorian Jean Clottes has been working to answer those questions for more than 50 years. This episode was the winner of the Prix Marulić International Audio Festival in the documentary category.

Kelly Stewart, Dorothy Cheney, and Robert Seyfarth share stories of gun smuggling, close encounters with hippos, and fan mail from one of the world's most infamous mass murderers.