On Humans
Ilari Mäkelä
Recent Episodes
We are a movable species. In less than 50 thousand years, Homo sapiens has penetrated practically all corners of humanity. And the story started long before trains and airplanes.
This is an episode about thoese epic migrations, with a focus on the two furthest edges of the human migratory map: the Americas in the West and the Polynesian islands in the east. In the end, we discuss emerging evidence that those branches met each other -- work coming directly out of the work of my guest, Andrés Moreno-Estrada.
Enjoy!
DECODING OUR STORY
This is episode 3 in the "Decoding Our Story" mini-series, recorded live at the Salk Institute's CARTA symposium on ancient DNA. The other episodes are:
"The Neanderthal Mirror: Latest Findings About the Lines Between Us" ~ David Gokhman
"Beyond Race: A New Outlook on the Shape of Humanity" ~ Diyendo Massilani
FACT CHECKING
No errors have been found as of now. If you find an error in this or other episodes, get in touch via the form below.
LINKS
Articles and essays: OnHumans.Substack.com
Support: Patreon.com/OnHumans
Contact Form: https://forms.gle/h5wcmefuwvD6asos8
KEYWORDS
Human population history | Human origins | Anthropogeny | Anthropology | Ancient Migration | Out of Africa | Homo sapiens | Ancient DNA | Comparative genetics | Austronesian expansion | Taiwan | Admixture | Archaeogenetics | Archaeology | Polynesia | Easter Islands | Rapa Nui | Hawai'i | Aotearoa New Zealand | Tonga Fiji | Native American origins | Latino genetics | Latinx genetics | Hispanic genetics | Indegenous genetics |
European thinkers once divided humanity into distinct "races". The idea stuck, even if the science moved on. The shape of humanity, it turned out, is far messier than the old race theorists ever imagined.
This much is well known.
Still , genetics does study different human "populations". Biological differences between these populations are reported every day. So have we simply changed words? Has anything really changed?
Yes, everything has changed.
To explain why, I'm glad to have Diyendo Massilani on the show.
Trained in France and Gabon, Massilani runs a lab at the Yale School of Medicine, where he studies ancient DNA and human adaptations. This fall, his lab has produced one of the most interesting analysis of human biodiversity that I have ever seen. I'm proud to feature it on the podcast before publication.
Our conversation begins from the counter-intuitive implications of the Out of Africa theory, and its significance for ideas about race. We then discuss Massilani's own analysis about how the level of genetic differences between modern-day humans.
As always, we finish with my guest's reflections on humanity.
DECODING OUR STORY
This is episode 2 in the "Decoding Our Story" mini-series, recorded live at the Salk Institute's CARTA symposium on ancient DNA. The other episodes are:
"The Neanderthal Mirror: Latest Findings About the Lines Between Us" ~ David Gokhman (published)
"Restless Humanity: The Epic Migrations Into America, Polynesia, and... Beyond?" ~ Andrés Moreno-Estrada (5th of Dec)
FACT CHECKING
No errors have been found as of now. If you find an error in this or other episodes, get in touch via the form below.
LINKS
Articles and essays: OnHumans.Substack.com
Support: Patreon.com/OnHumans
Contact Form: https://forms.gle/h5wcmefuwvD6asos8
KEYWORDS
Human evolution | Human origins | Anthropogeny | Anthropology | Paleoanthropology | Genetics | Homo sapiens | Ancient DNA | Comparative genetics | Human biodiversity | Admixture | Archaeogenetics | Archaeology | Mbuti | Papuans | Neanderthals
Genetics is rewriting the human story. This week, On Humans takes you behind the scenes of this rapidly evolving frontier via three live-recordings, captured at the Salk Institute's CARTA symposium on ancient DNA.
The first episode explores the differences between us and the Neanderthals.
For centuries, we tried to understand Neanderthals through stones and bones alone. Now genetics is offering a new tool, allowing researchers to see how ancient bodies and brains developed. In this opening episode, David Gokhman explains what these new tools are revealing about us, Neanderthals, and the lines between us.
UP NEXT
"Beyond Race: New Surprises About the Shape of Humanity" ~ Monday Dec 1st with Diyendo Massilani
"Restless Humanity: The Epic Migrations Into America, Polynesia, and... Beyond?" ~ Friday Dec 5th with Andrés Moreno-Estrada
FACT CHECKING
No errors have been found as of now. If you find an error in this or other episodes, get in touch via the form below.
LINKS
Articles and essays: OnHumans.Substack.com
Support: Patreon.com/OnHumans
Contact Form: https://forms.gle/h5wcmefuwvD6asos8
KEYWORDS
Human evolution | Human origins | Anthropogeny | Anthropology | Archaeogenetics | Archaeology | Paleoanthropology | Genus Homo | Neanderthals | Ancient DNA | Comparative genetics | Archaeogenetics | Language evolution | Origins of language | Symbolic culture | Extinction | Species concept
The science of human origins keeps producing new theories. But are we any closer to telling a true story of human origins? Or are we simply drowning in data?
Earlier this November, the chair of UCSD’s Department of Anthropology invited me to explore this question in a campus talk. My optimistic claim was that underneath many of the field’s important debates, a powerful story has been emerging. At its core, this is a story about calories, cooperation, and climate change. And at the centre of it are not men hunting or women gathering.
At the centre of it are children playing and learning.
Here is the recording from the talk .
Check out also my Substack essay inspired by this talk, with many of the pictures and graphs from the slides!
PS. I was in San Diego to attend a CARTA symposium on the role of genetics in the study of human origins. I managed to record three episodes behind the scenes.
Live recordings coming soon!
FACT CHECKING
No major errors have been found yet. As a small correction, the mention about macaques vs giraffe's should have been about neurons in the cortex, not total neurons in the brain. The main idea doesn't change.
If you find an error in this or other episodes, get in touch via the form below.
LINKS
Articles and essays: OnHumans.Substack.com
Support: Patreon.com/OnHumans
Contact Form: https://forms.gle/h5wcmefuwvD6asos8
KEYWORDS
Human evolution | Human origins | Anthropogeny | Anthropology | Paleoanthropology | Genus Homo | Australopithecins | Human brain | Comparative neuroanatomy | Human tool cultures | Alloparenting | Cooking hypothesis | Expensive tissue hypothesis | Life history | r vs K strategies |
You decided to start reading this. But could you have chosen otherwise?
In this short epilogue to this fall's brain science -series, Oxford biologist Tim Coulson gives his defense of free will.
(The episode is an unheard clip from the conversation with Tim Coulson, originally recorded as part of the Origins of Humankind -series in March 2025. )
LINKS
For highlights, longer quotes, and references, see my essay at OnHumans.Substack.com.
Tim Coulson's book is called The Universal History of Us (in the UK) and The Science of Why We Exist (in the US).
For more episodes on the human brain, check OnHumans.Substack.com/Brain
Want to support the show? Join the club at Patreon.com/OnHumans
MENTIONS
Names: Albert Einstein | Niels Bohr
Terms and concepts: free will | many worlds -interpretation vs the Copenhaguen interpretation of quantum mechanics | Brownian motion | Quantum biology | stochasticity vs determinism | neural integration vs complexity | chance & necessity | philosophy | physics | biology | neuroscience