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Origin Stories

Episode 50: Understanding Neanderthals

Origin Stories

Meredith Johnson

Natural Sciences, Science, Life Sciences

4.8 • 554 Ratings

🗓️ 1 February 2021

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Early prehistorians had little more than stones and bones to work with as they tried to piece together the story of the Neanderthals, but today's researchers work in ways that early prehistorians could never have imagined.

Archaeologist and author 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.

Links

The Leakey Foundation

Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach.

Support The Leakey Foundation

Support this show and the science we talk about. For the month of February, we are running a campaign in celebration of Charles Darwin's birthday. 100% of the money we raise will go towards funding research grants, and all donations up to a total of $2,500 will be matched by Leakey Foundation trustee Mike Smith and matched again by the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation. leakeyfoundation.org/donate 

A Most Interesting Problem

As part of our Darwin celebration, we're having a virtual event on Saturday, February 13. "A Most Interesting Problem" celebrates Charles Darwin's contributions to science and explores what Darwin got right and wrong about human evolution - 150 years after the publication of his book The Descent of Man. The speakers will be Jeremey DeSilva, Darwin historian Janet Browne, Brian Hare, Yohannes Haile-Selassie, Augustin Fuentes, Holly Dunsworth, and Ann Gibbons. Visit bit.ly/originsdarwin to get your free tickets.

Lunch Break Science

Lunch Break Science is The Leakey Foundation's web series featuring short talks and interviews with Leakey Foundation grantees. Episodes stream live on the first and third Thursdays of every month. leakeyfoundation.org/live.

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. It's been a few years

0:14.6

since we've talked about Neanderthals on the show, and there have been so many fascinating

0:18.7

discoveries about them since then, I thought it was time

0:21.9

for another look. Neanderthals lived for hundreds of thousands of years across a wide swath

0:28.4

of the world, from what's now Israel to what's now England, and they adapted to live in all kinds of

0:34.5

environments and through multiple dramatic periods of intense climate

0:38.4

change. Early prehistoricians had little more than stones and bones to work with as they

0:43.7

tried to piece together the story of the Neanderthals. But today's researchers work in ways those

0:49.3

early prehistoricians could never have imagined. Increasingly advanced technology and methods like ancient DNA research,

0:56.9

proteomics, and 3D imaging are giving us a whole new window into the world of the Neanderthals.

1:03.1

Much of that research over the past 50 years has been supported by funding from the Leakey Foundation.

1:09.5

Our guest today is archaeologist and author Rebecca Raggs.

1:15.2

Her new book, Kindred, Neanderthal Life, Love, Death, and Art,

1:20.4

synthesizes more than a century of research on Neanderthals, from the first Neanderthal

1:24.9

fossil discovered to the most up-to-date and cutting-edge research,

1:29.4

revealing a vivid portrait of one of our most intriguing and misunderstood relatives.

1:35.0

We connected over Zoom to chat about her book.

1:38.8

Rebecca, thank you so much for joining us.

1:41.3

Thank you very much for having me here.

1:43.8

So in your book, you use an astounding

1:46.6

amount of research on Neanderthals in a way that brings them to life for the reader. You've clearly

1:51.9

spent a lot of time thinking about Neanderthals. Yeah, maybe I'm a bit obsessed. It's a great

...

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