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- [00:00]
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Ever wondered why the Romans were defeated in the Teutoburg Forest? What secrets lie buried in prehistoric Ireland? Or what made Alexander truly great? With a subscription to History Hit, you can explore our ancient past alongside the world's leading historians and archaeologists. You'll also unlock hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a brand new release every single week covering everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com subscribe.
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Acast Powers the World's Best Podcasts Here's a show that we recommend hello hello, it's Brooke Devard from Naked Beauty. Join me each week for unfiltered discussion about beauty trends, self care, journeys, wellness tips and the products we absolutely love and cannot get enough of. If you are a skincare obsessive and you spend 20 plus minutes on your skincare routine, this podcast is for you. Or if you're a newbie at the beginning of your skincare journey, you'll love this podcast as well. Because we go so much deeper than beauty. I talk to incredible and inspiring people from across industries about their relationship with beauty. You'll also hear from skincare experts. We break down lots of myths in the beauty industry. If this sounds like your thing, search for Naked Beauty on your podcast app and listen along. I hope you'll join us.
- [01:25]
A
Most people don't realize how much of their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the Internet, then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent. That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers. It's why you get endless robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere. That's where Aura comes in. Aura actively removes your data from broker sites and keeps it off. They also instantly alert you if your information shows up in a breach or on the dark web. But Aura goes beyond data protection. With one app you get a vpn, antivirus, password manager, spam, call protection, Dark web monitoring, and even up to $5 million in identity theft insurance. All backed by 24. 7 US based fraud support. Other companies might sell just credit monitoring or just a vpn. Aura gives you all of it together at the same price competitors charge for just one service. You can start your free trial today at aura.com safety. Protect yourself now at aura.com safety did you know that in 1485 the Tudor dynasty began right in the heart of Leicester? If you love the drama of the wars of the Roses, join me, Matt Lewis for a new walking audio tour From History Hit, we'll trace the final days of the Plantagenet era, following Richard iii. And from his last restless night in the city to the very spot where the Tudor age began. All you need is your smartphone and the voice map app. It uses your location to trigger the story automatically, so you can keep your phone in your pocket and your eyes on the history. Download VoiceMap from your app store or go to VoiceMap me historyhit. That's VoiceMap me history hit. We are used to sharing our planet with millions of other species. But only one human species has survived. Homo sapiens. Modern humans. Us. Now, this wasn't always the case early in our story. Tens of thousands of years ago, we lived alongside several other species of humans. Relatives who shared our world, who evolved alongside us, sometimes competing, sometimes coexisting, and ultimately suffering extinction. Like the Neanderthals in Europe and the Denisovans in Asia, human evolution is less like a family tree and more like a tangled web. With new discoveries revealing more about this every year. Welcome to the Ancients. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and this is the story of the early humans who once shared our world. Our guest is the paleoanthropologist, presenter, comedian and author Ella Al Shamahi. Ella's new tour, Becoming Human, continues in the UK on 28 May. Ella, it is great to have you back on the show.
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B
Well, thanks so much for having me. I had so much fun last year.
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A
It was a lot of fun. And today we're kind of doing a. A tour of our extinct human relatives. Archaic humans, those extinct people.
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B
But yeah, yeah, the archaics.
- [05:14]
A
But explaining that if we went back a hundred thousand years, it wasn't just us, it wasn't just Homo sapiens, there was a whole range of different humans that lived on the Earth.
- [05:24]
B
I cannot get my head round how the public have not fully been introduced to this concept until very, very recently. I kind of had a real fun with this, should we say, for the series, Human. And in my tour actually, as well, because I explain it to people as this is pretty much the only time in human history where one species of human has walked this earth. We're alone today, but we never used to be alone. And I think it's so difficult for us to understand because we are the main species. In our minds, at least on this planet, we are the only human. Nobody comes close in terms of this, that and the other, or so we think. And actually what's happening right now is incredibly unusual. We previously were a regional species and there were lots of other human species who were kind of also regional species, and there were lots of us. And I often say it was a lot like Lord of the Rings. And there's a big question as to how many species there were. And a lot of us think that the number that we have right now is the tip of the iceberg. You know, I'm sorry. I think you can easily argue that this is the golden age of paleoanthropology and that that number will keep growing. I mean, we keep finding species like it's. I don't even. I can't comprehend how, how big the family tree has got since I became a paleoanthropologist. You know, so like when I was like 18 and now I'm, you know, 42, like, the. The extent to which the family tree has expanded is shocking. Absolutely shocking. Like, they found one hobbit species. We thought that was quite impressive. Now they think they found two hobbit species. Yeah, the family tree just keeps expanding.
- [07:06]
A
I mean, two words just to kick it off. Indonesian islands. How exciting, right? In the future, as you say, tip of the iceberg, how many more species we'll find, Even just from that one area?
- [07:14]
B
Yeah. Okay, so basically, 20 odd years ago, they discovered a new species of human. They called it Homo floresiensis because it was found on the island of Flores. It was absolutely shocking. I remember, you know, I'm so young at the time and just being like, what? They've done what? And it was basically, I mean, to the point where when they found this skull, they assumed it was a child because it was so small. And then they realized anatomically, no, that's an adult. And it was so controversial that there were like shouting matches in anthropology conferences because there was people kind of understandably, being like, one fossil does not a species mate. You can't find one fossil that's unusual. And, you know, it could be microcephaly, it could be dwarfism, it could be this, it could be that. You can't just be claiming this crazy thing which is. And for those of you who are kind of not familiar or as familiar with the field, this is a species with a brain the size of the brain of chimpanzees, a brain the size of like an orange or grapefruit. It's not really supposed to be a human brain that is capable of making stone tools, potentially manipulating fire. It doesn't make sense. It's not the way we thought humans were defined. And yet here we are with a species that, by the way, Is probably comes up to my hip. So it's probably the size of a four year old or as one of my friends said recently, the size of a penguin, which is perfect. On an island called Flores, with giant Komodo dragons, giant rats, giant carnivorous flesh eating marabou storks that are taller than me and these miniature elephant like creatures. They're relatives of elephants. They're called Stegodons. And on this island they were so small that they were the size of cows. And there's a reason why we say it was like Lord of the Rings. Like, you know what I mean? This is a fantastical world. It's kind of bonkers. And yeah, when the team first found this skull, they like people couldn't believe. Took a really long time to convince some people. It was basically when they started finding more of these fossils, you know, hundreds of thousands of years apart. They were like, okay, that's not microcephaly, that's not dwarfism, that's a species. But then they went and found on an island in the Philippines what looks like a second hobbit species. And at this point you're like, this is why a lot of us are just like, this is the tip of the iceberg.
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A
And this is the thing. I wanted to start with that because it's a tip of the iceberg. Imagine how many Indonesian islands there are. I always think of Sulawesi, you know, what a, what a jewel in the crown for archaeology and paleoarchaeology that they could well be coming out of there in the coming years. And you know what other species they may well find that live down there.
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B
It's Sulawesi. I mean, right now there's the oldest figurative art that we know of in the world is from Sulawesi. It's absolutely incredible. Some people think it's actually not art that we made. Some people actually think it's Denisovans made that art. There's a wild boar there as well. It's like a. That's the first figurative warty pigs. You know, it's wild, it's. Yeah, it's an absolutely incredible thing. I think it's so hard for us to get our heads around. But I think for me, the thing that I'm really keen for people to kind of understand is that this was a world of many and now we're the only ones left. And in that world of many, they were the specialists, they were the experienced ones. They were the ones that were really well adapted. We weren't, we were the new kid on the block. And it wasn't like we were the new kid on the block and we were exceptional. And like, you know, we turned up and it was written in the stars. You know, it was obvious that we were gonna inherit the earth, so to speak. There was none of that. We, we were pretty average to start off with.
- [10:52]
A
But the classic image you get, isn't it? And I think you can actually even see it on the Ancients logo. If you look closely enough is the image. First off you have a chimp, then you have someone slightly bigger and then bigger and then almost hunched over and then. And it's like kind of one species after another and you slowly get less ape like and more like a modern human. And this idea that one species came after the other and then they just got more and more advanced as time goes on. We got to throw that in the bin, don't we?
- [11:19]
B
Yeah. So that is called the March of Progress or a lot of people just know it as the descent of man image. I always argue that I have two problems with that particular image. The first is that there are no women on it. And it's not that I love men. It's not that often, to my detriment, let me tell you. But it's not that. It's that of all the things in the world, that is the one thing that men were not doing on their own. Procreating. You're just like, come on guys. And then the second issue that I have with that particular image is that it gives the impression that evolution is linear, that species A goes to species B, species A disappears, goes extinct. And it's just not the case. In fact, human evolution now we understand, is like some kind of a crazy, crazy ass bush tree. Like it's just this thing that nobody really understands. And we're actually having massive debates about is that even a species? Well, we don't know. Maybe it's a hybrid, maybe it's this, maybe it's that, you know. And nobody can even agree on what a species is.
- [12:17]
A
Is that a can of worms that we can tackle? What is a species?
- [12:20]
B
Yeah, and I think it's worth doing that because I think it confuses a lot of people. And if it makes you feel any better, all the lovely listeners out there and viewers join the club. None of us know what a species is, but I think there's a reason for that. So basically we were taught at school the biological species concept. That whole idea that, you know, a mule, basically, so a horse and a donkey get together, the offspring, they have offspring, but the offspring is infertile that is a biological species concept. That is one of over 20 species concepts. So once you get to university and you're studying taxonomy and speciation, you realize that actually biologists can't agree on what a species is. And that's why there are so many different species concepts. And the truth is species don't really exist. It is just a, you know, we are trying to put borders and definitions and parameters on nature. Nature knows no parameters and borders. Right. And so it's a useful tool, but we should understand it for what it is. Which is pretty loose because we have
- [13:27]
A
covered in our last chat clear evidence Neanderthals and humans had sex. But I think as we'll, we'll explore other figures like the Denisovans today, there's also evidence of interbreeding. Neanderthal, Denisovans, Denisovans, Homo sapiens as well. And so that is where it does start getting really blurs the lines, doesn't it?
- [13:45]
B
Yeah, it really, really does. And it's interesting because I think a lot of people now know about the Neanderthal interbreeding with us, because a lot of people have done their DNA and they know that they've got, you know, a little bit of Neanderthal DNA in them. But I think there's this really interesting narrative that's come up. God, I even heard Neil Degrasse Tyson the other day saying, oh, well, you know, Africans are God. I'm paraphrasing him. But it was something like, oh, Africans are the purer Homo sapiens because those outside of Africa have interbred with these other species of human. And the funny thing is that's actually incorrect because not only do we know that there is a little bit of Neanderthal DNA in sub Saharan Africans just because of back migration. And what I mean by that is that yes, the interbreeding happened outside of Africa in all likelihood, but some people kind of went back into Africa. But and this is a really important thing, a lot of us were looking at this going, there's a lot of human species and we keep finding new human species. And there is this thing where we seem to constantly just be having sex with each other. So. And a lot of us were like, we think there was probably interbreeding within sub Saharan Africa with an ancient species. And shockingly, a team actually uncovered that some modern day West Africans have a signature of what we call a ghost lineage. So a ghost lineage is when you're analyzing DNA and you can see a very clear intrusion or what we call introgression of Foreign DNA into the genome that does not belong to sapiens, it belongs to somebody else. But they don't have the source material. With Neanderthals, they have the source material. Right. With Neanderthals, we've got Neanderthals genome. With Denisovans, we've got a Denisovan genome. We've got a few of them. Right. But we just don't have whoever this ghost lineage is. So I think it's Yoruba and a few others from West Africa. There is a signature of an ancient species who. And we're like, what, don't know who they are? Yeah. So some of the guys behind Naledi, the discovery of Homo naledi, some of those guys are like, oh, maybe it's Naledi because Naledi is in South Africa. But it could be heidelbergensis. We know there was heidelbergensis still in Africa at that time. Or it could be another species we don't even know about. But yeah. So even even if you are from sub Saharan Africa, you will possibly have some alien DNA in you like the rest of us.
- [16:06]
A
Well, I think this is a fun time then to start a meet the team or meet the tour, meet the family or a quick tour of humanity.
- [16:14]
B
Who's your favorite then? Go on.
- [16:16]
A
My favorite is the one we're starting with because it feels like the granddaddy, you know, the most successful species of all time. Homo erectus.
- [16:24]
B
Homo erectus.
- [16:25]
A
And it is what a record. Almost 2 million years it was on this earth.
- [16:30]
B
It is really, really impressive. And I think it's such a diverse species. It's both geographically diverse because they existed all over the old world. By the time we turned up, Certainly by around 300,000 years ago, we think they were really only in the Far East. And they were so different, as you would expect, I guess, that some people actually think they're two species. So some people think it's Homo erectus and it's Homo eregaster. Who are the African version of them? I think these days most of us are like just. It's probably just all Homo erectus. It isn't the first species of Homo, but I think the species that came before erectus, you could argue some of them were still in the trees.
- [17:11]
A
It was good old habilis.
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B
Yeah, like habilis. There's a big discussion about was habilis only on two legs or were they sometimes in the trees? You get to erectus. Erectus was a biped and was really only a biped, obviously making stone tools, but so was habilis to Be fair. And some of the species before then, the first species that we know of to leave Africa, although people need to stop discovering stuff because there's been a few suggestions of stuff. Let's just not focus on that at all in the last few weeks, should we say? But yeah, still early days on that stuff. So, yeah, the first species of hominin that we think of, that we think has left Africa is incredibly successful. And so I think that's also, you know, that Descent of Man image that you mentioned, the March of Progress. You've got to imagine that that basically means that the species, like three species ago on that line is still around at the same time as us, which is part of the reason why that image just doesn't work anymore. Yeah, but it is such.
- [18:09]
A
Is it controversial to say that I prefer Homo erectus to Neanderthals?
- [18:14]
B
I mean, I'm surprised by that. I think. What. How come?
- [18:17]
A
It's just more than what's wrong with you as an outsider in. First of all, I always like bucking the trend. But we did an interview a couple of years ago with John McNabb from Southampton University and what I remember, hopefully they got the video footage showing it.
- [18:31]
B
He sold you on it, didn't he?
- [18:32]
A
But he took out the hand axe and he said the fact that you find this tool, whether it's in Southeast Asia or Africa or whatever, Homo erectus had the cognitive ability that they knew how to create this pretty difficult object, unlike the older anonym equity tools from previous humans. And they could then pass it down through generations.
- [18:56]
B
Yeah.
- [18:57]
A
And then he was saying, he's like, this was the mobile phone of like the time, but. But like that technological leap that he associated and having that hand axe tool and. And just the whole time period and the geographic extent of them, I feel like home erectus deserves its due. It's time in the sun as well,
- [19:17]
B
you know, and it doesn't. I think the thing with hermerectus, bless it also, I think for a lot of the public, obviously they just remember the friends joke, which I get, and it is really funny. And obviously from the Latin, erectus just means erect. And it is kind of. I get the funniness of it. I think that is part of the reason why they haven't quite had their due. But I think the problem with erectus is probably that they're so old that we don't have as much kind of granular detail on them like we have with the Neanderthals or some of the later species. And so we kind of have a lot of certain like interesting anatomical quirks and we kind of know that they were probably manipulating fire, but we just don't have the stories. And part of the reason you don't have the stories is just cause you kind of. You need better resolution to have stories. Like with Neanderthals, we've got just insane resolution at this point just because you know what it's like. The fossil record kind of gets worse and worse and worse the deeper in time you get. ACAST powers the World's Best Podcasts Here's a show that we recommend. What if you laughed all through your commute? Or if you heard the funniest story while at the gym? Well, now you can I'm Jameela Jamil and guests on my new podcast Wrong Turns share their most mortifying and hilarious disaster stories. I'm talking people like Mae Martin, Bob the Drag Queen, Katherine Ryan, Jake Johnson, Margaret Cho, Simon Pegg, Penn Badgley, and so many more. So listen wherever you get your podcast. Ron Turns Where Dignity Goes to Die ACAST helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com Most people don't realize how much of their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the Internet, then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent. That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers. It's why you get endless robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere. That's where Aura comes in. Aura actively removes your data from broker sites and keeps it off. They also instantly alert you if your information shows up in a breach or on the dark Web. But Aura goes beyond data protection. With one app, you get a vpn, antivirus, password manager, spam call protection, Dark web monitoring, and even up to $5 million in identity theft insurance, all backed by 24. 7 US based fraud support. Other companies might sell just credit monitoring or even just a vpn. Aura gives you all of it together at the same price. Competitors charge for just one service. Start your free trial today@aura.com safety protect yourself now@aura.com safety
- [22:27]
A
land a Viking longship on island shores, scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt and avoid the poisoner's cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into Feudal Japan in our special series Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and Skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week. I'm Kai Wright.
- [23:11]
B
I'm Carter Sherman. Welcome to Stateside with Kai and Carter. We're a new show from the Guardian.
- [23:15]
A
We're talking to big thinkers and the best journalists just trying to understand the world through smart conversation and honest reporting.
- [23:22]
B
We don't have billionaires telling us what to say.
- [23:23]
A
Stateside with Kyan Carter will come out three times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, starting May 13.
- [23:29]
B
Subscribe on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [23:51]
A
Well, let's move on to the next one I've got, which is. It seems to be the bit more disputed one, but Homo heidelbergensis, I used to think.
- [23:57]
B
Homo heide, I used to think, there we go. If that makes anyone feel any better, even I can't say it. Homo heidelbergensis, I used to just feel very comfortable with. Basically, I was like, great, Homo heidelbergensis is the common ancestor of us and the Neanderthals. Everybody go home. We were just kind of conveniently ignoring that. It was quite an inconsistent species, you know what I mean? It just seemed like a dumping ground for a lot of other species or for a lot of fossils that didn't necessarily make sense. It felt more like a time period, if I'm to be honest, than an actual cohesive species.
- [24:33]
A
What time period, roughly, was it associated with?
- [24:35]
B
So, I mean, to be fair, they call it the muddle in the middle, which kind of Middle Paleolithic. Just, just. I mean, obviously there are other species in that period as well, but it's just. It's kind of. I mean, technically, even more recently than 300,000 years, they were around, but obviously for a few hundred thousand years. Well, how many hundred? I guess it depends where you judge it from. But, like, 400,000 years? Yes. I think 500,000 years is like. It's. Yeah, it's that muddle in the middle where everybody just goes, we don't know what to do with this. And then increasingly, I often refer to Chris Stringer. Professor Kris Stringer desperately tried to use him on all of our projects as our main consultant. And it was interesting, actually, because we shot. We started shooting human. And I was using the term heidelbergensis, knowing that he wasn't 100% okay with it. And it went to him and he was like, guys, you just gotta dump it now. Yeah, he goes, he Go. He goes, you gotta be careful. Because. He goes, it's just the way you're using it. He goes, just be careful. Because it's not. Because I wasn't just referring to it as like Homo heidebergensis species. I was referring to it in the ancestral. Our common ancestor, our likely common ancestor with Neanderthals. And being that he was one of the people that was kind of putting that forward, that theory, the fact that he was kind of going like, rethink it. We actually went back and re edited a scene so that I was no longer saying that. Cause we just thought we'd like this show to be scientifically kind of relevant for at least two years. So. Yeah. So heidelbergensis is something. Whether it's one species or several, it will probably end up being one or two species.
- [26:16]
A
And the common ancestor between Neanderthals, Denisovans and us, we still don't really know.
- [26:22]
B
No. No clue.
- [26:23]
A
No idea.
- [26:23]
B
No clue at all. Yeah, no clue. At this point.
- [26:26]
A
Should we talk about Denisovans? Yeah, yeah, come on. Because they deserve time in the spotlight as well, don't they? So set the scene. Denisovans. Whereabouts we thinking in the world.
- [26:34]
B
Okay, so have you guys done it? You must have done an episode on Denisovans, kind of. Okay.
- [26:41]
A
And it involves Tibet and the handprints up in the Tibetan peninsula, the Tibetan Plateau, which I'm sure will.
- [26:48]
B
So, yeah. So I think the thing. The reason why a lot of us feel incredibly excited about Denisovans is not just that we now call them Dragon man as well, which. Just. Come on, man. But it's that it was the Holy Grail of paleoanthropology. You know, I remember articles being written actually calling it the Holy Grail of paleoanthropology. And that's because, similar to the Hobbit, it was completely unexpected. So you've got to imagine 20 years ago, even 15 years ago, we thought we kind of knew the landscape. And then we realized we really didn't know much.
- [27:20]
A
And so the landscape was generally like Homo sapiens in Africa, Neanderthals in Europe, Homo erectus in.
- [27:26]
B
I mean, we were still kind of debating if Homo erectism. Right. The dates. Because I will say the dates in the Far east are very controversial. So I would say 20 years ago, people were open to it, but we weren't as confident as we are today. So then what happened was the incredible team at the Max Planck Institute. That's where Svante Paboura, who won the Nobel Prize for sequencing the Neanderthal Genome along with other things, I guess his team were basically trying to extract Neanderthal DNA off like, anything they could find. Basically at this point. A tiny little finger bone. It was absolutely tiny. Was found in a cave in Siberia in Russia called Denisova Cave. They crushed it up. They were like, great, let's get some Neanderthal DNA out of it. And they actually extracted some Neanderthal DNA only upon examination. It wasn't a Neanderthal, but it was human, but it wasn't Homo sapiens. And it was just explosive because they had realized they had accidentally stumbled upon a whole new human species. And it was bonkers because they had. They got to the point very, very quickly where they had the whole genome of the seque of the species sequenced to really high resolution and yet had no idea what the species looked like. So. And that I cannot express this enough has never happened before and is not generally the way one does this kind of thing. Usually you find a fossil and then you spend forever trying to extract its DNA. Right. That's what they're doing with a hobbit, for example, and that's what they're doing with Homo ledi. They're desperately trying to extract DNA because it would kind of be handy to know exactly where these. These fellas fell. Fellows and ladettes, I should say. And as they were. Yeah, as they were looking at this DNA, they were like, okay, so we've. We've effectively in our position where we have this species DNA sequenced, we now know as a result all these things. For example, they. They realize that they were really closely related to the Neanderthals to the point where some paleoanthropologists would actually argue that they're Asian Neanderthals. They realized that they were incredibly closely related to us. They realized that Tibetans have mutations that are very unique that mean that the mechanism by which they are able to live at high altitude is different to the mechanism that other people living today are able to live at high altitude. It's a completely different mechanism. And that mechanism is from Denisovans.
- [29:47]
A
I love that fact.
- [29:48]
B
It's so interesting. It's actually the best case that we have of really positive introgression into our genome. That's very easy to explain. And then another team actually went and found these. Well, they were actually sequencing these tiny little shards of bone from that same cave, Denisova Cave. And they were what you call undiagnostic bone. And for the archaeologists listening, you kind of know what undiagnostic bone is. It's where on an archaeological site or in an archaeological site in an assemblage, sometimes you find these little bits of shards of bone and you're like, well, that could be human, that could be cave bear, that could be a bird. We've got no idea. You bag them because you always have hope as an archaeologist that somebody will invent this incredible technology that will tell you what it is. But mostly those just stay in bags in museums or like at these sites and, you know, they're just labelled. But they started going through them. It was actually, I think, a PhD student and she went through it and she realized she was using this incredible technology called Zoom Ms. And she realized that actually it was human. And then they sent it for DNA testing. Turned out it was a girl who they nicknamed Denny, and she was half Neanderthal, half Denisovan. So they were at the point where they had a hybrid. They'd found a hybrid. Like nobody had found a hybrid of anything before of any human species. They found a hybrid and they still had no idea what the species looked like. And that's why people were saying, it's the Holy Grail of paleoanthropology. We need to know what this species looks like. And there was lots of whispers, like loads of people were like, we think a lot of the Eastern material, a lot of the material in the Far east is Denisovan and it's mislabeled.
- [31:20]
A
Is this where we get the name, the legendary name Dragon Man?
- [31:24]
B
Well, you would think, because there's a lot of human material in that area does get called Dragon this and Dragon that. And just as a side, like this is completely sideshoot here, but it's just a fascinating detail. It was sometimes ground up. Some of those teeth that are ancient human teeth were sometimes ground up for Chinese medicine and they were referred to as dragon teeth and what have you. So it's just. Just a fascinating kind of little detail. But anyway, the story goes that in China during World War II, when it was Japanese occupied, that a gentleman had found this skull. And it was quite a big skull, the Harbin Skull, we call it the Harbin Skull. And he got concerned because the place was Japanese occupied, so he hid it at the bottom of the well. And then on his deathbed, he told his kids about it. So 20, 21, just before then they, I think they gave it to some scientists and the scientists analyzed it and they were like, that is a big skull. Like it's a big skull. Like, it looks bigger than a Neanderthal, certainly looks bigger than us. And they basically were like, that's a new species. And they called it Dragon Man. Basically, they called it Dragon Man. Now there's two details about this that I think are really funny. One is that wonderful story about the bottom of a well.
- [32:41]
A
Yeah, it's great.
- [32:42]
B
Yeah, it's been called into question. No, some people are like, we think it was a bit more suspect than that. And that was like a cover up story. The other thing is, it's worth saying that they had found a bit of Tibetan jawbone that they realized was Denisovan a few years earlier. And they did the DNA and they were like, so they've got a bit. But it wasn't, you know, a full skull.
- [33:03]
A
Full piece.
- [33:03]
B
Yeah. So people are looking at this full kind of Dragon Man, Homo longhi thing going, oh, come on. What if that's the face of the Denisovans? And then just this summer they did the DNA analysis and it came back as indeed the face of the Denisovans. But how long has it just taken me to tell that story? That is the mystery of the Denisovans.
- [33:21]
A
But it's great. No, like that you did the story, the justice though, because it's the same time that people.
- [33:27]
B
I'm tired. I need a break. Do you know what I mean?
- [33:29]
A
Like, okay, stop now.
- [33:30]
B
Right, but that's how amazing it is. Like, that's the kind of like hundreds of incredible academics putting work in to unwrap a mystery that is like, you know, almost two decades old.
- [33:44]
A
I mean, that story. And then you see the replicas of that skull today. I mean, actually we have done an episode with Chris on it.
- [33:50]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [33:50]
A
And first of all, the replica skull, which is green, which I love is hilarious.
- [33:53]
B
Yeah, that's because it's his. What was that in a 3D? Yeah, I think what you call it, a 3D printer.
- [33:59]
A
Yeah, but, but it, but it's incredible. And it gives you the size of the cranium.
- [34:03]
B
Yeah.
- [34:04]
A
The fact that it's that new story, the link to Tibet today and explaining why they can live at such high altitudes with this species as well. And yes, you normally you think, you know, big skulls or you think of like the Neanderthals, but actually then you've got the Denisovan cousins as well with even bigger ones. So it's just, it's, it's fascinating and it's developing all the time.
- [34:22]
B
Yeah, 100%.
- [34:24]
A
We did cover the Neanderthals quite a lot in our last episode, but of course they are in the picture.
- [34:29]
B
Yeah.
- [34:30]
A
Some 100,000 years ago as well. And at that time, although they still. They've been around for a long time by them, but they're still doing incredibly well.
- [34:37]
B
They are. They are. They're incredibly successful species. They were hanging on in Europe and in Central Asia in climates where we weren't surviving. You know, we'd have to let get out of there or we were becoming locally extinct. We're never 100% sure if we migrated out of there because it got too difficult. We just disappeared. But, yeah, we couldn't make it there. But it's kind of funny in the context of all these other species, in some ways, the Neanderthals are the most demure. Do you know what I mean? Partly, I think, because so many paleoanthropologists, Europe is our backyard. So we have ended up digging here and people know the landscape and, you know, there's obviously the history of paleoanthropology started, I guess, a bit more in Europe. I mean, it was also happening in Africa, obviously, as well. But it helps explain, you know, there's some fascinating stuff going on in the Far east that we're only just starting to understand. And part of that is what you would call bias. Like, it's not in an intentional way. I just mean, like, that's where the researchers are, you know, and also, quite
- [35:37]
A
frankly, the interest is there for a popular audience. If you say Neanderthal on the podcast today, there is a lot of interest in the Western world straight away because of that record.
- [35:46]
B
Absolutely. But what's really interesting right now is in the Far east, people are also really interested in human origins.
- [35:51]
A
Good, good.
- [35:52]
B
But also partly that's because there's this narrative that maybe humanity started from here.
- [35:57]
A
Right?
- [35:57]
B
Yeah, but that's what we always do. Like, we always. I know this to be very common, like wherever you find something like that, therefore, humanity must have started here.
- [36:08]
A
Well, shall we now go back to Africa and a country that even has a place called the Cradle of Humankind. But I don't think this was found at that location. But it was nearby, wasn't it? The species you mentioned earlier, fascinating one, Homo naledi.
- [36:21]
B
Yes.
- [36:22]
A
You mention how when the hobbit was discovered, a lot of disbelief when that was found. Same thing with Homo naledi.
- [36:30]
B
Yeah. So Homo naledi was found by two, like, amateur cavers. They were amateur cavers at the time. They've become a lot more professional since then. And they basically stumbled upon, because it is in a place where there are so many human fossils, it's actually, I Believe it's actually part of. It was already part of the UNESCO
- [36:46]
A
World Heritage site, the Cradle of Humankind.
- [36:48]
B
Yeah, they found another one of the humankind basically and they found like a bunch of fossils. They took it to Professor Lee Berger, who's based out there and was based at Wits University and they basically, I think they teamed up with National Geographic as well and they basically started this massive excavation project that also had this quite kind of full on media component. And they did a number of things. One is that they did something quite revolutionary actually. They opened up the fossils to everyone. I think it's fair to say the biggest criticism of our field is that we hold onto fossils like they're a treasure that nobody else is allowed to touch within the field. It's a real problem. I think there are serious ethical issues with it because it basically means that some of the most famous, most important fossils in our history, which I would think should be owned by all of us, or at least we should all have scientific access to of some kind, are behind lock and key and nobody can get to, other than the researcher that's found them and one or two people that they allow in. What the team behind Leddy's discovery did is they basically completely opened it up. They were like, it's open, you want to come research, we're going to make it straightforward for you. And part of the reason though why they did that is yes, they're kind of revolutionary in their thinking, but also it's because they had so many fossils. They had so many fossils that I think they wanted help understanding what on earth they were looking at. You've got to understand they were found in this cave. And this cave system is quite difficult to get to. This particular bit of the cave is quite difficult to get to and there's not much else in there. So if it was a, if it was, for example, because let's say a flood or a bear or some kind of carnivore was taking Homo naledi in this human species in you would expect them to also be taking other food or if it was a flood, you would expect other bones, other animals to also. It's pretty much just Homo naledi. It's very difficult to give an interpretation to that other than burial, that they were intentionally like put there basically by their peers. But this Hermeneledi is a tiny species, not as small as the hobbit, but small and they've got small brains. And traditionally we have been told and we understand that burial, you know, I mean, we see animals Mourn for other animals. We've all seen videos of elephants and, you know, really kind of incredible behaviors. But burial isn't just a. An emotional behavior. It's a behavior at a different level. Like, you know, when you. You think about what burial is. Yes. They might not believe in an afterlife. I'm not saying that. But burial is not something that is associated with a small brain. And you've got them doing burial. And a lot of us now just think that's very. It was really controversial when it first came out, but I think we're at the point where it's like, oh, my God, it's. It does look like burial.
- [39:58]
A
I remember that. I remember that there were lots of people. There was a lot of pushback at the start saying, we just need more proof. We need to analyze the. But that's the beauty of as time goes on and having that scientific technology. It's us. Yeah, it looks pretty, pretty clear now. And we think 100,000 years old or less.
- [40:14]
B
Yeah, I mean, so. So basically a hundred thousand. I mean, it depends how you look at it, but certainly around 300,000. They were still around. They were probably still around 100,000 as well. I remember the last estimate.
- [40:27]
A
Same time as modern humans in Africa.
- [40:28]
B
Yeah. A nice little bit of overlap. I can't remember when exactly they ended. I should probably check that. But yeah, but certainly 300,000 years when we were there, they were. They were around. Yeah. Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. If you've ever dreamed of quitting your job to take your side hustle full time. Listen up. This is Nikayla Matthews Akome, host of side Hustle Pro, a podcast that helps you build and grow from passion project to profitable business. Every week you'll hear from guests just like you who wanted to start a business on the side. If you can't run a side hustle, you can't run a business. They share real tips. And so I started connecting with all these people on LinkedIn and I saw Target supplier diversity. He was having office hours. Real advice. Procrastination is the easiest form of resistance. And the actual strategies they use to turn their side hustle into their main hustle. Getting back in touch with your tangible cash and sitting down and learning to give your money a job like it changes something. Check outside Hustle Pro every week on your favorite podcast app and YouTube. Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere.
- [41:51]
A
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- [43:17]
B
So it's kind of useful to think about this for a second. Yeah. So you've got us, obviously. You've got the Neanderthals, you've got the Denisovans, you've got Homo erectus, you've got Homo heidelbergensis. Even though we're not 100% sure if it's a true species. But there's something going on there. You've got Homo naledi. Did I already say the hobbit?
- [43:35]
A
No, we mentioned it earlier. Homo floresiensis.
- [43:37]
B
Yeah, floresiensis. You've got the second what we think Hobbit like species. Homo luzonensis. Yeah. So you're looking at eight human species that were contemporaneous with us, the magnificent eight. But here's the really, really interesting thing. If that ghost lineage that is in those West Africans is not lenedi and it's not heidelbergensis, that means that there were nine species, at least contemporaneous, at
- [44:08]
A
least, at least at the time. And once again, so that ghost species is the one that could be our ancestor again.
- [44:15]
B
So in West Africans, some populations of West Africans, there is a signature of an ancient species that introgressed. That kind of its DNA kind of came into ours, our Homo sapien DNA. It's alien DNA, but we call it a ghost lineage because we don't have the source. So if like with the Neanderthal DNA in us, we know it's 2%, but we would never call that ghost lineage because we know the source of it. Whereas we call it a ghost because we're like, woo. We have no idea who you are, like why you show yourself. If you take nothing away from today, viewers and listeners, can I just suggest it's the term ghost lineages.
- [44:58]
A
I mean, that is very, very cool. We've covered everything from ghost lineages to dragon man. Yeah. And more.
- [45:03]
B
High five.
- [45:04]
A
Well done. Yes. I've got a heart. If there was at least eight or nine lineages, well, species 100,000 years ago. We talked in the last episode about, you know, larger genetic variation, bigger groups, Homo sapiens, how they can beat the Neanderthals ultimately and they go extinct. But with all the others, is it just quite a big element of luck? Were we lucky that we ended up being the people on top at the end?
- [45:29]
B
I think there was a little bit of luck, but I don't think it was just luck. I just don't. I don't see how it could have just been luck. I think I've said this to you before, but I think if you put like 100 paleoanthropologists in a room, we would all disagree on exactly what it is. But I think it's fair to say all of those other species were incredibly successful, had been around a lot longer than us, and now they're obviously not here. I think for each of those species there were a number of factors involved and the factors could be slightly different. So for example, it is hard to argue that the hobbit, Homo floresiensis, was not affected by volcanic eruptions. Like, it does look like there was basically like continuous volcanic activity that seemed quite intense. But I think a lot of paleoanthropologists consider us to be the final nail in the coffin to a lot of species. And I think what's happening there is that we have, in my opinion, we have a brain that is primed to be incredibly cooperative. We are hyper, hyper social. And by that I mean we bond a lot as a species. I know people really struggle with that because they see us as this like warmongering species. And I'm not saying we're not, trust me. I'm just saying, and this is dark, but war technically is cooperation. It's just cooperation with your species against another species. And by nature, we are incredibly, incredibly, incredibly social. You might not realize it, but music, dancing, ritual, they're all behaviors which are a lot of us would argue are very inbuilt into us that are, they're primarily for bonding purposes. They really help bonding. There's some fascinating experiments on this, there's like, oh God, there's a silent disco experiment. There's like all kinds of experiments where they show that people really bond. Like people even report higher pain thresholds after dancing with complete strangers in a synchronized manner. I think this stuff is deeply embedded within us. Like even ritual. Ritual is, you know, we could, I don't know, do everything from our sofa, but we insist on doing it in a group and like doing this ceremony and blah blah, blah, blah, blah and all the rest of it. And I think when you've got a species that's that hyper social, that cooperative and that has a brain that's plastic, that likes to copy each other, that is a recipe for invention. And then if you have a lot of that species, you've got gold dust. And what that effectively means is that all those other species, yes, they have technology, they're smart, they have technology, they're inventing technology, but they are not able to invent technology in the way that we're able to invent technology. And importantly, they are kind of restricted by their physical anatomy. So for example, the hobbit is really well adapted to that island. The island starts changing too much. They don't necessarily, they kind of got to wait for their biology to pick up the right mutations to evolve. We invent the technology and we just seem to do it time and time again. We see something and we're like, we'll just invent the tiny. You know, we couldn't, we, we got to a point and we didn't start off like this, but it gets to a point when cumulative culture just kind of accelerates. We got to a point where we would just look at a landscape that a lot of other species might see as a barrier, like for example, an open ocean or a rainforest. And we would look at it and go, right, let's invent some technology for this. Let's invent a raft, let's, you know, invent the right kind of weapons to deal with a rainforest. I don't think those other species quite had that.
- [49:06]
A
What a way to finish that. It's a story and a half about us ending up the last species. And to think, as you said right at the beginning, this is in the minority compared to the most of time with the story of humans, that actually we're in a time when we are just the humans left. Or are we?
- [49:24]
B
Can I just interject with one thing there? So if, let's say we've been around for 300,000 years, the Neanderthals went extinct, we think about 40,000 years ago. There's a suggestion that the Denisovans were still kicking around maybe 25 years ago.
- [49:38]
A
Okay.
- [49:39]
B
Do you know what I mean? We've only been alone for 25,000, and knowing our luck, they'll find a species that was knocking around like 15,000 years ago, but that we know. 25,000 years. That is a tiny, tiny, tiny bloody window of us being the only species around.
- [49:55]
A
Ella, this has been absolutely fantastic. And with the speed of all these new discoveries, new research, new science, within two years, we'll have so much more to talk about.
- [50:05]
B
I'll be back in two days, actually. My old. God.
- [50:07]
A
But it is just such an exciting field and it has been such a pleasure to have you on the show.
- [50:12]
B
Thank you so much for having me. Honestly, it's so much fun just to be able to talk about all this stuff. And also, I have to say, with an audience as well, who I don't have to, you know. Do you know what I mean? Like, I can just actually talk about this stuff without having to. Yes, thank you. I'm allowed to nerd out as much.
- [50:27]
A
It's the space for nerding out. That's what we want. Thank you.
- [50:30]
B
Thank you.
- [50:34]
A
Well, the. There you go. There was the paleoanthropologist Ella Alshamahi, introducing you to several key early humans that coexisted alongside us on planet Earth tens, if not hundreds of thousands of years ago. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Ancients. I hope you enjoyed it. Now, if you have been enjoying the show, please make sure to follow us on Spotify wherever you get your podcasts. That really helps us. You'll be doing us a big favourite. If you'd be kind enough to leave us a rating as well. Well, we'd really appreciate that. Don't forget, you can also sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week. Sign up@historyhit.com subscribe. That's all from me. I'll see you in the next episode.
- [51:29]
B
Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. What if you laughed all through your commute? Or if you heard the funniest story while at the gym? Well, now you can. I'm Jameela Jamil, and guests on my new podcast, Wrong Turns share their most mortifying and hilarious disaster stories. I'm talking people like Mae Martin, Bob the Drag Queen, Katherine Ryan, Jake Johnson, Margaret Cho, Simon Pegg, Penn Badgley, and so many more. So listen, wherever you get your podcast Ron Turns Where Dignity Goes to Die ACAST helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere.
- [52:13]
A
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