Episode 05: Discovery at Ledi-Geraru
Origin Stories
Meredith Johnson
4.8 ā¢ 554 Ratings
šļø 26 August 2015
ā±ļø 15 minutes
šļø Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
Have you ever wondered what it's like to make a major fossil discovery?Ā Arizona State University graduate student Chalachew Seyoum and professor Kaye Reed tell us their exciting story.
Seyoum was workingĀ as part of a team co-directed by Reed. WhileĀ searching for hominid fossils at a site called Ledi-Geraru in the Afar region of Ethiopia, he found a fossil jaw sticking out of the 2.8 million year old sediment. That jaw turned out to beĀ the earliest known fossil from our genusĀ Homo.Ā It was around 400,000 years older than anyĀ HomoĀ fossil found before. The discovery was published in the journalĀ ScienceĀ in March of 2015.Ā Dr. Susan Anton from New York University tells us why this find and the time period it's from are important inĀ helping us connect the dots in our picture of early human evolution.
Links:
Early Homo at 2.8 MA from Ledi-Geraru, Afar, Ethiopia : Science
'First Human' discovered in Ethiopia : BBC News
Jawbone fossil fills a gap in earlyĀ humanĀ evolutionĀ :Ā New York Times
Credits:
This show is a project of The Leakey Foundation. The Leakey Foundation funds human origins research and shares that information with the public. You can learn more and help support science at leakeyfoundation.org.
This episode was produced by Schuyler Swenson. Our editor is Audrey Quinn. Music and scoring by Henry Nagle.
Origin Stories is made possible by a grant from Wells Fargo Bank. Transcripts are provided by Adept Word Management.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Origin Stories, the Leaky Foundation podcast. |
| 0:09.4 | I'm Meredith Johnson. |
| 0:11.2 | On this episode, we'll hear the story of a remarkable discovery, a discovery that's changed our understanding of early human evolution. |
| 0:18.9 | Producer Skyler Swenson brings us the story. |
| 0:24.2 | We human beings are very curious to know about where we came from, |
| 0:29.9 | how we evolved, who we are. |
| 0:32.3 | Everybody should care, you know, to know where we came from. |
| 0:35.6 | That's what I say. |
| 0:39.3 | This is Chalachu Seyum. He was born and raised in Ethiopia. |
| 0:41.3 | For scholars of human evolution, the countries are gold mine, |
| 0:45.3 | an unlikely gold mine. |
| 0:47.3 | Oh, it's really a desert, you know, small trees, no sheds. |
| 0:53.3 | It's full of sediment, you know, no man land. |
| 0:58.0 | It's not very attracting for people, for ordinary people, |
| 1:03.0 | but for people like me, I enjoy going there. |
| 1:06.0 | Sayum's a graduate student in paleoanthropology at Arizona State University. |
| 1:11.6 | I love to see that kind of landscape because that's where we found most of these amazing discoveries all over the world. |
| 1:19.6 | In January 2013, he joined a team of scientists in Liaddeutha in the Afar region of Ethiopia. |
| 1:26.6 | At a site known as Ledi Gararu, |
| 1:28.3 | they were searching for signs of early hominids, |
| 1:30.3 | our early human ancestors. |
| 1:32.3 | We knew it was going to be hard work, |
... |
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