As a start and a heads up, we're busy, we're making a, together with a Leakey Foundation,

we're making a podcast about life on excavations and if it's okay with everyone, I'm just going to leave our voice recorder on.

It doesn't mean that you have to be shy or not say anything. It's just to capture the really cool and interesting stories that everyone brings to the dig. So I'm just going to pop this over here. And hopefully we'll get some of the sound.

Welcome to Origin Stories podcast.

This is Bukara.

This is Christine, and I am Monique.

I'm Ray Payne, a producer here at the show.

This month, we're doing something a little different. We're going to turn the microphone over to the Buonplas Field School.

Buonplas Cave is located in South Africa, about a five and a half hour drive from Cape Town.

Last year, there were 30 students who passed through the field school, and many of them generously

agreed to record their lives over a six-week period. This way we could share the

experience of how many young archaeologists are trained at field schools. They're

led by Leakey Foundation grantee and Baldwin fellow Justin Pargetar.

Morning everyone. It's quarter past seven. fellow, Justin Parjutor.

Morning everyone, it's Quirpo 7. This is Justin Parjiter here.

I am a paleoanthropologist

with an interest in human origins in

Southern Africa and understanding our species evolution with an interest in human origins in southern Africa

and understanding our species evolution in context of rapid climate change.

I'm standing at the base of the hill that leads up to Bournemplas Cave,

which is one of Africa's flagship Paleolithic sites.

The sound that you hear in the background here, this sort of high-pitched bird calls, are the sounds of swifts

...