Custodian of the Ancestors
Origin Stories
Meredith Johnson
4.8 • 554 Ratings
🗓️ 27 February 2024
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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.
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Support the show! Your donation will be quadruple-matched! Leave a note and let us know if you'd like a shoutout on the next episode.
Click here to donate! ---> https://leakeyfoundation.donorsupport.co/page/originstories
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 East African students or early career researchers in botany and geology. Learn about all of our grant programs at leakeyfoundation.org/grants
Lunch Break Science
Lunch Break Science is The Leakey Foundation's online series featuring short talks and interviews with Leakey Foundation grantees. Feed your brain with Lunch Break Science every third Thursday at 11 am Pacific on Facebook, YouTube, 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
Origin Stories is made possible by support from Jeanne Newman, the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, the Joan and Arnold Travis Education Fund, and donors like you!
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Before we get started, I want to say thank you to everyone who's been generously supporting this show. |
| 0:06.3 | Thanks to Katie Davie, Mark Hove, Lindsay Merriman, Kendrick Miller, Jonas Fisher, Jessica Ithe, |
| 0:12.5 | and our other supporters who wanted to stay anonymous. |
| 0:16.3 | From all of us at Origin Stories and the Leaky Foundation, thank you. |
| 0:21.5 | We're so grateful for your support and we're excited for the future of the show. |
| 0:26.6 | Our quadruple match opportunity is extended until we meet our goal. |
| 0:32.1 | Donate now at LeakyFoundation.org slash origin stories or click the link in your show notes |
| 0:37.1 | and your gift will be quadruple matched. |
| 0:42.1 | 2024 is the anniversary of the discovery of Lucy. |
| 0:46.9 | Later this year, we're interviewing the scientists who discovered her. |
| 0:51.2 | Today, we're visiting Lucy herself at the National Museum of Ethiopia. |
| 0:59.1 | This is Origin Stories, the Leaky Foundation podcast. I'm Meredith Johnson. |
| 1:06.2 | And now is the famous Lucy. Yes. |
| 1:09.5 | They're digging about two, three points, two medium years ago. What you're hearing is the famous Lucy, getting about two three-point two medium years ago. |
| 1:12.1 | What you're hearing is the sound of Leakey Foundation grantees, Zerai Lemzeged, |
| 1:17.0 | introducing President Barack Obama to our most famous fossil relative, Lucy. |
| 1:23.0 | That connection that you can have with the earliest fossils is just mind-boggling, mind-vailing. |
| 1:29.0 | So I will ask you to touch one of the stones. |
| 1:33.3 | What you're doing is touching a human being that existed 3.20 degrees ago. |
| 1:39.2 | Obama met Lucy and even touched one of her vertebra during his visit to Ethiopia in 2015. |
| 1:47.0 | I remember watching this online at the time and wondering how they pulled this visit off. |
| 1:54.0 | The logistics involved, because as a former event planner and a fossil-loving nerd, I think about that kind of thing. How do you safely bring |
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