Episode 48: Ancestor (rerelease)
Origin Stories
Meredith Johnson
4.8 • 554 Ratings
🗓️ 27 November 2020
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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. In this episode, Dr. Nengo tells the story behind the discovery.
This episode was originally released in 2017. We're revisiting it now because Isaiah Nengo will be featured on our new web series, Lunch Break Science, on December 3 at 11 am Pacific. He will share updates on his research and exclusive footage of his recent field work in the Turkana Basin.
Visit leakeyfoundation.org/live and sign up to receive event reminders.
Special thanks to Isaiah Nengo of Stony Brook University and the Turkana Basin Institute, and Ellen Miller of Wake Forest University.
The Leakey Foundation
Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. Support this show and the science we talk about with a tax-deductible donation.
Links
Click here to see photos of the discovery, along with a 3D animation of the inside of the fossil.
New 13 million-year-old infant fossil ape skull sheds light on ape evolution
Questions and answers about Alesi
Skull secrets of an ancient ape
Research article in Nature: New infant cranium from the African Miocene sheds light on ape evolution
Credits
Produced by: Meredith Johnson and Shuka Kalantari
Editor: Julia Barton
Sound Design: Katie McMurran
Theme Music: Henry Nagle
Intern: Yuka Oiwa
Additional Music: Tech Toys by Lee Rosevere
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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. Today, we're looking |
| 0:11.6 | back at one of my favorite fossil discoveries ever, and a profile of Dr. Isaiah Nango, the |
| 0:18.3 | scientist who led the team that found it. Since this episode first aired in 2017, Dr. Nango, the scientist who led the team that found it. Since this episode first aired in |
| 0:22.9 | 2017, Dr. Nango has continued to do research on the fossil you'll hear about today. He's gained |
| 0:29.2 | insights into our deep family history and expanded our understanding of childhood in the fossil record. |
| 0:36.0 | He's also been back to the Turkana Basin several times to find |
| 0:39.9 | more fossils related to today's story. Part of the reason I chose to revisit this story is that next |
| 0:47.1 | week, on December 3rd at 11 a.m. Pacific, Isaiah Nango will be a guest on the Leaky Foundation's new |
| 0:53.0 | web series, Lunch Break Science. |
| 0:55.8 | And on that show, he'll be sharing footage from his most recent field season in Kenya. |
| 1:00.9 | I'll share more details at the end of this episode. |
| 1:03.8 | But now, let's get into it and go way back in time to meet one of our most ancient ape ancestors. |
| 1:14.0 | Scientists are... to meet one of our most ancient ape ancestors. Scientists say they've discovered a 13 million-year-old fossilized ape's skull |
| 1:19.0 | that may answer questions about humankind's evolution. |
| 1:22.6 | But scientists who discovered this well-preserved infant ape school |
| 1:26.1 | say it's a new piece of our evolutionary puzzle. |
| 1:30.3 | This is how the media announced the discovery of a fossil called Alessi, found in Kenya. |
| 1:39.3 | The journal Nature published The Find, which is from a time period where there's a big blank spot in the fossil record of our family tree. |
| 1:47.6 | It tells us something new about the very early evolution of apes and even shows what the common ancestor of us and all the other living apes might have looked like. |
| 1:57.8 | Alessi is a big deal. |
| 2:12.6 | I remember I was sitting there and excavating, nobody was speaking in total silence, in total rupture, and you just, like, it's real. That's Isaiah Nango, a primate paleontologist, Leake Foundation grantee, |
| 2:18.8 | and the lead researcher on the Alessi Discovery. |
... |
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