Origin Stories30 Elo 2024

The First Story

Over 50,000 years ago on what is now the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, someone climbed a towering rock formation and painted a mysterious image on a cave ceiling. The painting shows three half-human, half-animal figures and a large wild pig. The image, dated to 51,200 years old, is now the oldest known visual story in the world. In this episode, archaeologist Adam Brumm shares the story of this incredible discovery.

Help make more Origin Stories. We're $3,000 short of our quadruple-match fundraising goal and our deadline is August 31! Please donate today and your gift will be quadruple-matched! Click here to 4x your donation!

Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach.

Links to learn more:

Episode produced by Meredith Johnson and Ray Pang
Sound design by Ray Pang
Edited by Audrey Quinn

Theme music by Henry Nagle. Ending credit music by Lee Roservere. Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Hungry for more science?

Lunch Break Science is The Leakey Foundation's web series featuring short talks and interviews with Leakey Foundation grantees. Episodes stream on the third Thursday of every month.

Click here to watch!

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(92)

Biruté Mary Galdikas - A Life Among Orangutans

Biruté Mary Galdikas passed away on March 24, 2026, at the age of 79. She spent more than 50 years studying orangutans in Borneo and fighting to protect them. Before she began her work, orangutans wer...

31 Maalis 31min

Top Human Origins Discoveries of 2025

2025 was another exciting year in human origins research! In this episode, four scientists and Leakey Foundation grantees (and one podcast host) share their picks for the top discoveries of the year. ...

31 Joulu 202542min

Origin Stories x The Science Podcast

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 Human...

5 Syys 202538min

Can a Human Outrun a Horse?

This is a story about sweat, survival, speed, and the peculiar ways running may have shaped us as humans. Armed with a hydration vest, a dream, and paleoanthropologist Daniel Lieberman's endurance run...

6 Elo 202539min

The Origin Story of Origin Stories - 10th Anniversary

After 10 years of exploring the stories behind breakthrough science, it's time to tell our own origin story! In this special anniversary episode, we're flipping the script to share how Origin Stories ...

24 Kesä 202536min

The Shanidar Cave Neanderthals

Shanidar Cave is a unique archaeological site in Kurdistan where scientists found the remains of 10 Neanderthal men, women, and children. Some of these individuals had survived serious injuries, and o...

29 Huhti 202533min

Top Human Origins Discoveries of 2024

2024 was another amazing year in human origins research. In this episode, three Leakey Foundation grantees (and one podcast host) share their picks for the most exciting discoveries of the year. Suppo...

24 Joulu 202437min

Lucy

In this episode, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the discovery of Lucy, one of the most iconic and important scientific discoveries ever made. Paleoanthropologist Don Johanson tells the story of ...

27 Marras 202428min