Top Human Origins Discoveries of 2022
Origin Stories
Meredith Johnson
4.8 • 554 Ratings
🗓️ 31 January 2023
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
2022 was another exciting year in human origins research! New fossil discoveries and ancient DNA research expanded our understanding of the past. We learned something surprising about the evolution of human speech, and new methodologies and showed promising potential to improve the future of medicine. In this episode, four Leakey Foundation scientists shared their favorite human evolution discoveries from the past year.
Our guests
- Carol Ward, University of Missouri
- Sofia Samper Carro, Australian National University
- Kevin Hatala, Chatham University
- Megan Henriquez, City University of New York
Links to learn more
- Evolutionary loss of complexity in human vocal anatomy as an adaptation for speech
- When less is more in the evolution of language
- The face of the first European found in Atapuerca
- Europe's oldest fossil named after Pink Floyd
- Meet the first Neanderthal family
- Genetic insights into the social organization of Neanderthals
- Population genetics study of Strongyloides fuelleborni
The Leakey Foundation
Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing human origins research and outreach.
Want to support the show? Your donation will be matched by Leakey Foundation President Jeanne Newman who is matching up to $5,000 in gifts from Origin Stories listeners. Every dollar helps! leakeyfoundation.org/originstories23
Sponsors and credits
This episode was generously sponsored by Diana McSherry and Pat Poe. Origin Stories is also sponsored by Jeanne Newman, the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, Camilla and George Smith, and the Joan and Arnold Travis Education Fund. Thanks as well to the Benevity Community Impact Fund for their support of the show.
Origin Stories is produced by Ray Pang. Our editor is Audrey Quinn. Theme music by Henry Nagle. Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions and Lee Roservere.
Join us for these events
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February 16, 11 am Pacific - Lunch Break Science with Tom Plummer - click to watch
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Origin Stories, the Leaky Foundation podcast. |
| 0:06.0 | I'm Meredith Johnson. |
| 0:08.0 | I'm really happy to be back with you to start the new year with a look at some of the most exciting human evolution discoveries of 2022. |
| 0:16.0 | I'm here with Origin Stories producer Ray Pang. |
| 0:19.0 | Hey, Meredith. |
| 0:20.0 | Hey, Ray. It's so great to be on the show again. |
| 0:22.8 | It's so good to have you here. |
| 0:24.7 | We interviewed four Leaky Foundation grantees who told us about the recent research that they |
| 0:30.2 | found most fascinating. |
| 0:32.3 | So, what's our first discovery? |
| 0:35.1 | The first discovery I want to share comes from Carol Ward, who longtime listeners might remember |
| 0:40.5 | was our first guest on our very first episode of Origin Stories. |
| 0:45.3 | Carol's paleoanthropologist who teaches anatomy at the University of Missouri. |
| 0:53.4 | She's a Leaky Foundation science advisor, and she's also the winner of this year's Gordon |
| 0:57.9 | P. Getty Award for multidisciplinary research. |
| 1:01.9 | And she told me about a study on ape and human vocal anatomy that was published in the journal |
| 1:06.7 | Science. |
| 1:07.7 | I was really excited about this paper because it deals with one of the big questions in |
| 1:13.7 | human evolution, which is the evolution of human speech, which goes along with language, of course. |
| 1:18.8 | And it's been something that's been really intractable for a long time because most of the |
| 1:24.1 | anatomy involved in speech, speech production and and language in general, is soft tissue, |
| 1:29.8 | which is invisible to us in the fossil record. |
... |
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