Episode 44: Custodian of the Ancestors
Origin Stories
Meredith Johnson
4.8 • 554 Ratings
🗓️ 30 July 2020
⏱️ 34 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.
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
This season of Origin Stories is made possible by support from Diana McSherry, Jeanne Newman, Camilla Smith, and donors like you!
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is Origin Stories, the Leaky Foundation podcast. I'm Meredith Johnson. |
| 0:10.8 | And now is the famous boosting that in about two, three points, two million years ago. |
| 0:16.6 | What you're hearing is the sound of Leaky Foundation grantees, Z Zerai Lemzeged, introducing President Barack Obama to our most famous fossil relative, Lucy. |
| 0:27.6 | That connection that you can have with this earliest fossils is just mind-boggling, mind-blown. |
| 0:33.6 | So I will ask you to touch one of these bones. |
| 0:42.3 | What you're doing is touching a human being that existed 3.20 degrees ago. Any single person here... |
| 0:44.3 | Obama met Lucy and even touched one of her vertebra during his visit to Ethiopia in 2015. |
| 0:50.3 | I can come to this ancestry. |
| 0:52.3 | That's amazing. |
| 0:53.3 | Now, the... So, Lucy was on the chain to Homo sapiens. |
| 1:03.2 | She's one of the first erect hominids. |
| 1:08.0 | I remember watching this online at the time and wondering how they pulled this visit off. |
| 1:12.9 | The logistics involved, because as a former event planner and a fossil-loving nerd, I think about |
| 1:19.2 | that kind of thing. |
| 1:21.3 | How do you safely bring one of the world's greatest treasures, the irreplaceable 3.2 million-year-old |
| 1:27.2 | fossil skeleton of Lucy, from her secure |
| 1:29.5 | vault at the National Museum of Ethiopia through the busy streets of Addis Ababa to the |
| 1:33.8 | National Palace. What if something horrible happened? Luckily for all of us, the operation |
| 1:40.2 | went very smoothly, and President Obama was moved by the experience. |
| 1:45.0 | The next day, he shared his reflections on meeting Lucy in a speech to the delegates of the African Union. |
| 1:51.0 | Now yesterday I had the privilege to view Lucy. |
| 1:54.0 | You may know Lucy, she's our ancestor, more than 3 million years old. |
... |
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