Origin Stories x The Science Podcast
Origin Stories
Meredith Johnson
4.8 • 554 Ratings
🗓️ 5 September 2025
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode features two stories from the Science Podcast. First, Science writer Ann Gibbons tells the story of three ancient hominin species that lived side-by-side in South Africa's Cradle of Humankind. Then, anthropologist Melanie Beasley discusses her new study on why chemical signals in Neanderthal teeth and bones make them look like hypercarnivores. Her research suggests they were just eating a lot of maggots!
Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to funding human origins research and sharing discoveries.
The Science podcast is a weekly show from the journal Science and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Search for Science Magazine in any podcasting app to subscribe. Learn more at https://www.science.org/podcasts
Origin Stories is audience-supported. Additional support comes from Jeanne Newman, the Anne and Gordon Getty Foundation, and the Joan and Arnold Travis Education Fund.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Origin Stories, the Leaky Foundation podcast. I'm Meredith Johnson. |
| 0:09.0 | Today we have a very special episode with two curated stories from our friends at the Science |
| 0:14.8 | podcast. The Science podcast is a weekly show from the journal Science and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. |
| 0:23.6 | Each week on the Science podcast, host Sarah Crespi explores the latest discoveries with researchers and newswriters from around the world. |
| 0:32.6 | You'll learn about everything from how scientists are battling stink bugs using samurai wasps to peacock tail feathers |
| 0:39.4 | ability to emit laser light and how ant eaters have evolved at least 12 times. Sarah and the team at |
| 0:46.9 | science sent us two stories just for you. The first story is from producer Kevin McLean, who you |
| 0:53.5 | might remember from his origin stories episode |
| 0:55.6 | about Capuchin monkeys that use stone tools. In this first segment from the science podcast, |
| 1:01.5 | Kevin interviewed Anne Gibbons, a writer at Science Magazine who specializes in stories about |
| 1:07.5 | human evolution. Anne recently wrote a feature about discoveries in South Africa's |
| 1:12.6 | cradle of humankind, where researchers found remains of Homo erectus and two other species |
| 1:18.4 | of ancient hominins, suggesting all three coexisted at the same time, in the same place. |
| 1:24.8 | Hi, Anne, welcome back to the Science Podcast. Thanks for having me. |
| 1:28.3 | We are so glad to have you back. |
| 1:30.3 | You know, I know we have a bunch of different ancestral characters all living together, and I want to get into them. |
| 1:36.3 | But first, when did you first get wind of this story? |
| 1:40.3 | And when did you start tracking it? |
| 1:42.3 | We have known for quite some time that different hominents probably overlapped in Africa early on, |
| 1:49.2 | more than two million years ago. |
| 1:50.9 | We know this from different fossil sites in East Africa and South Africa. |
| 1:54.9 | But nailing it down has been really hard because when you find fossils in a layer of sediment, |
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