Fossil Hunting in Conflict Zones

Going Wild with Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant

WNET

Science, Pets & Animals, Nature, Kids & Family, Natural Sciences

4.9 • 636 Ratings

🗓️ 6 May 2025

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sign up for Nature's newsletter: https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/newsletter/ Ella Al-Shamahi grew up a creationist, but her perspective shifted when she studied evolution at university. Today, she’s a paleoanthropologist who hunts fossils in unstable territories to uncover the overlooked stories of human evolution. Ella is a fierce advocate for conducting research in places where people don’t usually do science, and she believes these under-researched places are the frontier of scientific discovery. Through her archeological pursuits, Ella is not only working to eliminate the blind spot of Western science, but she’s also shedding light on the least understood people and places on Earth. She envisions a world where “conflict zones” aren’t just seen as war-torn landscapes, but as places where life continues and discoveries are possible. Thanks for listening to Going Wild. You can learn more about season four HERE and catch up on seasons one through three HERE. If you want to support us, you can follow Going Wild on your favorite podcast-listening app. And while you're there, please leave us a review. It really helps. Follow PBS Nature and Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant on Instagram, TikTok, X, and Facebook. You can find more information on all of our guests this season in each episode's show notes. And you can catch new episodes of Nature, Wednesdays at 8/7 Central on PBS, pbs.org/nature, and the PBS app. Going Wild is a podcast by PBS Nature. NATURE is an award-winning series created by The WNET Group and made possible by all of you. Views and opinions expressed during the podcast are those of the individuals expressing them and do not necessarily reflect those of THIRTEEN Productions LLC/The WNET Group.

Transcript

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0:00.0	If you're looking for scientific discoveries, you go to places where barely anyone's looking.
0:05.0	Somebody described it to me once as the most alien-looking place on Earth.
0:10.0	So it has these incredible canyons, and then it has these, like, beaches that have sand dunes on them.
0:17.0	So many of the plants there, the animals there are endemic, so they exist there and only there.
0:28.1	I'm Dr. Ray Wynne Grant, and this is a different kind of nature show, a podcast about the human drama of saving animals.
0:50.3	This season, we're talking to all kinds of nature advocates, from a paleoanthropologist who hunts fossils in conflict zones, to someone who helped save an endangered species while in prison. We're going to hear from real-life heroes with widely different expertise and life experiences
0:56.0	about what led them to be champions for the natural world.
1:00.0	What transformation did they go through to create change within themselves, their community, and the world?
1:06.0	Together, we'll find out how these ordinary people fell in love with nature and became their most extraordinary selves.
1:15.3	This is Going Wild.
1:21.7	In this episode, I'm talking to my longtime friend Ella al-Shemahi.
1:27.0	Ella is a paleoanthropologist and evolutionary biologist who specializes in studying Neanderthals.
1:33.3	She's also a television host for nature and historical documentaries.
1:37.3	As a paleoanthropologist, Ella explores caves in unstable and hostile territories in search of fossils to uncover the overlooked
1:46.6	stories of human evolution. Her work has taken her to places like Iraq, Somaliland, and her
1:52.7	ancestral home of Yemen. Hi, friend. Hello. How's it going? Oh my gosh. Listen, you're a hero of
2:00.2	mine for so many reasons.
2:01.6	What?
2:02.6	That's ridiculous.
2:04.6	She shuffles in her seat and is wondering if Rays's like sound of mind.
2:08.6	I don't know.
2:09.6	Oh my gosh, I love this.
	...

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