The Ancient Roots of Exploration, with Paleoanthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi

Outside Podcast

Wilderness, Sports

4.3 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 12 November 2025

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Have you ever wondered why you feel a pull to go for that grueling trail run or long bike ride or demanding backcountry ski? We have an innate need for adventure, but why? According to paleoanthropologist and evolutionary biologist Ella Al-Shamahi, it’s in our DNA. Ella’s years of Paleolithic study focuses on the first humans and how they behaved—everything from community building to tool evolution to the world’s first sea crossing, which populated Australia. Her research has helped uncover a bonkers “Lord Of The Rings” era, when our foremothers and fathers existed alongside other human species that she calls things like “Hobbits” and “Dragon Men”…seriously. Ella believes that we have a genetic predisposition for adventure, which explains why homosapiens populated the earth and the Hobbits and Dragon Men did not. More importantly for our purposes, it helps explain why we still love to sleep in the dirt, climb mountains, and seek out the next big adventure.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode of The Outside Podcast is brought to you by Case Knives. Case can trace their history of hand crafting knives all the way back to 1889.
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0:59.1	This is the outside podcast with Paddyo.
1:06.6	The really funny thing was I wasn't worried about the Somali pirates.
1:12.0	Like, for some reason, guns don't really scare me.
1:14.1	What scares me are things like heights.
1:15.5	What?
1:16.4	I know. I picked the best job to have a fear of heights.
1:20.5	You should see me on a climbing wall.
1:22.1	It's like, la, la, la, la.
1:24.7	Pirates are chill, but like a 5-10 climb, that is spooky step. I don't even understand how your brain, heart, body, mind works. I don't get this, but okay. Okay, so you guys are all, like, loads of you guys in dirt bags and just like, just generally just like really kind of hardcore, et cetera. What you've got to understand with scientists is a lot of as adventure scientists, we're just like confused as to how we're here. We're just like, we're just nerds who are really, really into a question. And we're just like, no, we're going to find the answer to this. Even if we're literally dealing with a gun pointed out. Like, that's okay. We've got a question to answer. Excuse me, sirs and madams with the rifles. Could you put those down real quick?
2:02.8	Because I have some really interesting. Look, it's his jawbone. Just look at it. This jawbone's
2:09.5	fascinating. Have you seen this ape canine that it was used as a punching tool? I, can you, can you,
2:16.8	no, put that rifle down.
2:18.6	Look at this stone knife.
	...

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