On Humans
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- 30 Oct 2026
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Where do we come from? How did we get here? And what kinds of creatures are we? On Humans offers conversations with leading scientists, historians, and philosophers, making new research about the human story more accessible to everyone — and more relevant to the big questions about who we are. In addition to regular episodes, the show now includes longer series on some of the greatest arcs in the journey of our species, covering everything from the evolution of apes to the making of the modern economy. https://onhumans.substack.com/about
Episodios 113
What About the Middle East? From Ottoman Might to Western Interventions ~ Şevket Pamuk
The very term “Middle East” evokes ideas of contested borders and chronic conflicts. How did this come to be?The modern Middle East was born in the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, with British and French …
Notas del episodio
The very term “Middle East” evokes ideas of contested borders and chronic conflicts. How did this come to be?
The modern Middle East was born in the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, with British and French interventions as its handmaidens. This process was famously explored by David Fromkin in a now-classic book, The Peace to End All Peace, but the explanation leaves the deeper question unaddressed:
When, and why, did Western states become more powerful than the once mighty Ottoman Empire? Was this a product of the Industrial Revolution, American colonies, or something else entirely?
Şevket Pamuk is the leading economic historian of the Ottoman Empire.
A professor at Boğaziçi University, Pamuk has spent several decades measuring various economic indicators from the Ottoman regions, comparing them to developments in Britain, France, and beyond. From wage slips to military logistics, his research offers many exciting clues on “great divergence” between the Ottoman Empire and Western Europe.
In this episode, we discuss the lessons that Pamuk’s research has given him, and how all of this helps us understand the Middle East today. What ensues is a sweeping conversation that ranges from the impacts of colonialism to the origins of capitalism and from the rise of modern taxation to the political effects of running an oil economy.
Enjoy!
You can access a transcript of this conversation at OnHumans.Substack.com.
Subscribe to On Humans to stay tuned for a more Iran-focused episode on the Middle East, to be released in late 2026.
If you enjoy this, you may also want to check out the show’s existing coverage on the economic origins of the modern world:
What About China? with Yasheng Huang
What About India? with Bishnupriya Gupta
The Birth of Modern Prosperity, with Oded Galor, Brad DeLong, Daron Acemoglu, and Branko Milanovic
The Great Divergence, with Kenneth Pomeranz, Joel Mokyr, Robert Allen, Debin Ma, Bishnupriya Gupta, and Stephen Broadberry.
FACT-CHECKING
This episode has been fact-checked, and no errors have been found. If you find one, please get in touch by commenting on the episode page at OnHumans.Substack.com.
LINKS
Full show notes with a transcript at OnHumans.Substack.com.
Support at Patreon.com/OnHumans
Music credit: Aleksey Chistilin (Lexin_Music) via Pixabay.
Get in touch: [email protected]
KEYWORDS
Names: Debin Ma | Patrick O’Brien | Joel Mokyr | Robert C. Allen | Kenneth Pomeranz | Brad DeLong | Peter the Great | Gutenberg
Technical terms: Great Divergence | GDP per capita | Urban wages | Fiscal centralisation | State capacity | Agrarian empires | Maritime empires | Mercantilism | Political economy | Commercialisation | Bourgeoisie | Institutional change | Atlantic slave trade | Capital-intensive production | Oil curse | | Hegemonic powers
Themes: Ottoman Empire | Ottoman Empire economic history | Ottoman decline | Economic history of the Middle East | Great Divergence | Ottoman Empire vs Western Europe | Origins of the Industrial Revolution | Rise of capitalism | European colonialism | history of taxation and military power | State capacity & economic development | Coal and the Industrial Revolution | Oil curse in the Middle East | Economic causes of European dominance | Arab nationalism
How Do Humans Fit into the Story of Life? ~ Jonathan Loh
“What a chimera then is man! What a novelty! What a monster, what a chaos, what a contradiction!” — Blaise Pascal.No moment in my teaching career has left a deeper impression on me than a biology class I gave …
Notas del episodio
“What a chimera then is man! What a novelty! What a monster, what a chaos, what a contradiction!” — Blaise Pascal.
No moment in my teaching career has left a deeper impression on me than a biology class I gave in 2018. The topic was evolution and the tree of life. The pupils were ten-year-olds.
“So teacher, are all the animals our cousins?” one student asked. I gave a few qualifications, but then conceded the youthful wisdom.
“Yes. And so are all trees and flowers.”
The bell rang but many students stayed in the classroom, wanting to hear more about the way we relate to monkeys, dogs, or the silver birches swaying in the schoolyard.
I’ve taught the same theme many times since, and while doing so, I have developed a very visceral sense that, as Mary Midgley said, “we humans are not just rather like animals; we are animals.”
At the same time, it is obvious that humans are a peculiar species, perhaps the most peculiar one alive. We speak in tongues, we travel to space, we wreck ecosystems.
So how do we fit into the story of life?
Jonathan Loh’s new book, Life Story, offered me a fresh way to think about this.
Loh is a biologist, author, and an honorary fellow at the University of Sussex. His book is thoroughly biological, but it also takes human peculiarity seriously. In fact, Loh suggests that humans are extraordinarily weird precisely because we are the first life form to have copied many of the foundational tricks that life itself once developed.
This theme takes us from the origins of life and the great transitions of biological evolution all the way to agriculture, cities, and the technological world we inhabit today. We end with reflections on climate change, AI, and Alan Turing’s prophetic-sounding claim that our machines are “only a foretaste of what is to come, and only the shadow of what is going to be.”
Enjoy!
FACT-CHECKING
No factual errors have been detected yet. If you find a factual error, please leave a comment in the extended show notes (link below).
LINKS
Full show notes with a transcript at OnHumans.Substack.com.
Support at Patreon.com/OnHumans
Music credit: Aleksey Chistilin (Lexin_Music) via Pixabay.
Get in touch: [email protected]
KEYWORDS
Names: Lynn Margulis | Adam Smith | John Maynard Smith | Eörs Szathmáry | Eva Jablonka
Technical terms: Proto-Indo-European | LUCA (Last Universal Common Ancestor) | hydrothermal vents | cyanobacteria | anoxygenic photosynthesis | oxygenic photosynthesis | Great Oxidation Event | banded iron formations | Snowball Earth | prokaryotes | eukaryotes | endosymbiosis | mitochondria | ATP | plastids | chloroplasts | Fertile Crescent | Uruk | Mesopotamia | The Major Transitions in Evolution | Kōjima macaques | Imo | Cambrian Explosion | Tiktaalik | Cretaceous mass extinction | Homo erectus | Homo sapiens | Australopithecus | Anthropic | Claude | IPCC | Holocene
Topics covered: human evolution | history of life | evolution of life | human origins | deep time | evolution explained | DNA | genetic code | evolution of language | animal cultures | evolution of intelligence | evolution of consciousness | photosynthesis | Great Oxidation Event | mitochondria | endosymbiosis | multicellular life | Cambrian Explosion | cultural evolution | social evolution | hunter-gatherers | origins of agriculture | domestication | origins of civilisation | origins of cities | origins of states | rise of complex societies | evolution of land animals | Tiktaalik | biodiversity | climate change | artificial intelligence | AI | future of humanity | technological evolution
Beyond Paleo: A Culinary History of Humanity ~ Daniel Lieberman
“What do you think of the paleo diet?” To my surprise, this has become the most common question I get after telling people that I cover human evolution. I’ve long struggled to answer. Yes, the idea makes a lot …
Notas del episodio
“What do you think of the paleo diet?”
To my surprise, this has become the most common question I get after telling people that I cover human evolution. I’ve long struggled to answer.
Yes, the idea makes a lot of sense: humans evolved as hunter-gatherers, so our bodies should do well when we eat like hunter-gatherers.
But what exactly do hunter-gatherers eat?
Harvard professor Daniel Lieberman wanted to find out. After reviewing the evidence we have on the diets of hunter-gatherers, he came to a surprising conclusion.
“Not a single one of them eats the paleo diet”, he says.
Some hunter-gatherers eat more meat than the paleo diet prescribes; most eat much less. Plenty of them eat legumes and cereals, both of which are banned by paleo cookbooks.
“There is no one paleo diet,” Lieberman concludes. “The unique thing about humans is that we evolved to eat almost everything.”
Instead of fixating on a single “true” diet, Lieberman’s new book, Fed Up, offers a tour of the dietary history of humanity, discussing what lessons we can learn along the way.
In this episode, we cover the sweeping story of food and cooking, from the first chefs who processed food with stone tools to the explosion of ultra-processed foods during Lieberman’s own lifetime. Along the way, Lieberman offers insightful comparisons between humans and chimpanzees and discusses the many ways in which farming has — and has not — affected the human condition. He also explains why humans have always been “a very fat ape”, and what his experience of racing against horses tells us about the quirks of human evolution.
Towards the end of the episode, we also evaluate the pros and the cons of the modern food system. We finish with Lieberman’s deeply compassionate advice to all who would like to find a healthier lifestyle amidst the many challenges of industrial modernity.
Enjoy!
FACT-CHECKING
No factual errors have been detected yet. If you find a factual error, please leave a comment in the extended show notes (link below)
LINKS
Full show notes with references: https://OnHumans.Substack.com/p/Beyond-Paleo-a-Culinary-History-of
Support: Patreon.com/OnHumans
KEYWORDS
Ethnic groups & technical terms
The Hadza | Inuit | Agta | Homo erectus | Australopithecines | Lucy | Olduvai Hominid OH 8 | Oldowan stone tools | the Nandi Hills
Topics covered
Human evolution | evolutionary anthropology | human origins | big history | palaeoanthropology | paleo diet | hunter-gatherer studies | meat eating | persistence hunting | endurance running | sweating | human body fat | origins of cooking | origins of food processing | agriculture | neolithic revolution | peasant diets | famines | infectious disease | Mediterranean diet | ultra-processed foods | fibre | saturated and unsaturated fats | obesity | insulin resistance | type 2 diabetes | GLUT4 transporters | exercise | weight maintenance |
Music credit: Aleksey Chistilin (Lexin_Music) via Pixabay.
When Did Globalisation Really Begin? ~ Valerie Hansen
We can decide to stay home, but even then, the wider world is always close to our skin. From global trade to ideas that travel across continents, the wider world is always woven into our modern life.Since when …
Notas del episodio
We can decide to stay home, but even then, the wider world is always close to our skin. From global trade to ideas that travel across continents, the wider world is always woven into our modern life.
Since when has this been the case?
There is a modern story about globalisation — a story about telecommunications and aeroplanes and such — but this is the climax of a long process, not its beginning. To find the deeper roots of globalisation, we should turn our gaze to the medieval world, and specifically to events around the year 1000.
Or so argues historian Valerie Hansen.
In this episode, we discuss the various curious developments around the year 1000 that began to connect the world into an interconnected web. From Viking explorers to the Silk Roads in Africa, Hansen offers many fascinating windows into the surprising connections that were already beginning to link the medieval world together. We also discuss the spread of inventions and world religions, as well as the deeper forces that Hansen thinks have long been driving world history.
Enjoy!
FACT-CHECKING
No errors have been detected in this conversation. If you notice one, please get in touch via Substack or the form below.
LINKS
Hansen's books: The Silk Road: A New History and The Year 1000.
Support: Patreon.com/OnHumans
Articles & newsletter: OnHumans.Substack.com
Get in touch: https://forms.gle/h5wcmefuwvD6asos8
KEYWORDS
Names: Erik the Red | Bjarni Herjólfsson | Jacques Cartier | Vladimir the Great | Mansa Musa | William Dalrymple | Kenneth Pomeranz | Andrés Moreno-Estrada | Michael Coe | Mary Miller | Ralph Austen | Richard Davis | Paul Freedman | Thor Heyerdahl
Historical places: L’Anse aux Meadows | Greenland | Newfoundland | Chichén Itzá | the Yucatán Peninsula | the Baltic Sea | the Song dynasty | the Liao dynasty | the Abbasid Caliphate | Baghdad | the Indian Ocean | the Swahili Coast | Mali | Kaifeng | Hagia Sophia
Topics covered: Global history | macrohistory | economic history | medieval history | early global trade | long-distance trade | Silk Roads | Indian Ocean trade | trans-Saharan trade | maritime trade networks | Viking / Norse exploration | Polynesian migrations | population genetics | pre-Columbian contact | Viking–Maya contact hypothesis | Polynesian–Native American contact hypothesis | Song dynasty | Liao dynasty | Abbasid Caliphate | medieval Africa | Swahili Coast trade | medieval slavery | trans-Saharan slave trade | slavery and serfdom | slavery in China | spread of world religions | Christianisation of Europe | spread of Islam | Buddhism in Asia | diffusion of technology | history of inventions | paper, printing, gunpowder and the compass | Indian numerals and zero | Maya mathematics | history of food
Music credit: Aleksey Chistilin (Lexin_Music) via Pixabay.
The Why of War and the How of Peace, Part II: Lessons from Prehistory ~ Douglas P. Fry
How old is war? Does it stretch deep into human origins, or did warfare become common only as growing populations settled down? In Part II of this conversation with Douglas P. Fry, we return to the long-running …
Notas del episodio
How old is war? Does it stretch deep into human origins, or did warfare become common only as growing populations settled down?
In Part II of this conversation with Douglas P. Fry, we return to the long-running debate about the origins of war.
Fry revisits his argument that aggression is ancient, but war is not. I put that claim to the test, raising some of the strongest objections from archaeology and the study of modern hunter-gatherers. We discuss Jebel Sahaba, nomadic and settled foragers, food storage, marine resources, population growth, and the archaeological sequences through which warfare seems to emerge in different parts of the world.
Is war an ancient adaptation—or a more recent cultural development? And is the answer relevant to our modern quest for a more peaceful world?
Enjoy!
FACT-CHECKING
No factual errors have been detected in this conversation, but there is a potentially unfair criticism of Wrangham and Glowacki's (2012) methodology. Contrary to the impression offered by the episode, the authors had explicitly excluded Malaysian hunter-gatherer groups on the grounds of substantial contact with surrounding farming and state societies. Furthermore, the authors had explicitly ignored hunter-gatherer groups who rode horses during the time of the reporting. The Sioux rode horses in the Great Plains but not in the Eastern Woodland regions discusses in the paper.
For the original exchange, see Wrangham & Glowacki's (2012) and Fry & Söderberg (2014).
For Sioux horse-riding, see Ewers (1955). If you notice an error, please get in touch via Substack or the form below.
LINKSFry's 2026 book: Advanced Introduction to Conflict Resolution
Support: Patreon.com/OnHumans
Articles & newsletter: OnHumans.Substack.com
Get in touch: https://forms.gle/h5wcmefuwvD6asos8
Music credit: Aleksey Chistilin (Lexin_Music) via Pixabay.
NAMES MENTIONED
Douglas P. Fry | Luke Glowacki | Richard Wrangham | Brian Ferguson | Christopher Boehm | Richard B. Lee | Donald E. Brown
ETHNIC GROUPS AND HISTORICAL REGIONS
Northwestern Alaska | Valley of Oaxaca | Jebel Sahaba | Monte Albán | Zapotec Empire | Calusa people | Batek people | Orang Asli | Juǀ’hoansi, !Kung | Mbuti
KEY WORDS
Origins of war | prehistory of war | history of warfare | causes of war | why humans go to war | anthropology of war | anthropology of peace | peace studies | conflict studies | war studies | peace and conflict studies | evolutionary anthropology | human evolution | human nature and war | hunter-gatherer warfare | hunter-gatherers | nomadic hunter-gatherers | mobile foragers | complex hunter-gatherers | prehistoric violence | interpersonal violence | coalitionary aggression | coalitionary killing | lethal aggression | human aggression | conflict resolution | restraint of aggression | archaeological evidence of war | archaeology of warfare | archaeological record | Pleistocene | Holocene | Neolithic warfare | origins of social complexity | sedentism | permanent settlements | food storage | population growth | population density | resource competition | resource intensification | marine resources | aquatic resources | Neolithic revolution | human universals | evolutionary psychology | chimpanzee warfare
The Why of War and the How of Peace, Part I: Lessons from the Modern World ~ Douglas P. Fry
History is full of wars. Why? Is war driven by fear? Greed? Revenge? Ambitious leaders? Is it rooted deep in human nature—or does it emerge only under particular social conditions? And what do we learn if we …
Notas del episodio
History is full of wars. Why? Is war driven by fear? Greed? Revenge? Ambitious leaders? Is it rooted deep in human nature—or does it emerge only under particular social conditions?
And what do we learn if we change the angle from wars to non-wars? What lessons emerge from a study of all the periods and regions where war did not take place?
My guest in this two-part mini-series is Douglas P. Fry, an anthropologist who has spent decades studying these questions. He is also a returning guest, and one of the first scholars ever to appear on this podcast.
In Part II of our conversation, we will return to the topic of our episode from years back: the origins of war in prehistory. In this first part, however, we take a very different approach. We discuss lessons from modernity, with our topics ranging from the quest for peace after WWII to the societies in the Brazilian Amazon and Indigenous North America.
What makes former enemies trust one another? What roles are played by equality, trade, or a new shared enemy? And how can cycles of fear, retaliation, and revenge be reversed without simply surrendering to aggression?
At a time when war once again dominates the news, these questions could hardly be more urgent. But they also point towards a part of the human story that is too easily forgotten: our capacity not only to make war, but to understand it—and to build peace that lasts.
Enjoy!
FACT-CHECKING
My wording on Ukraine giving up its nuclear arsenal in exchange for "security guarantees" is slightly stronger than the formal language of the Budapest Memorandum, which talked of “security assurances” rather than legally binding security guarantees.
If you notice a factual error in this conversation, please get in touch via Substack or the form below.
LINKS
Fry's 2026 book: Advanced Introduction to Conflict Resolution
Support: Patreon.com/OnHumans
Articles & newsletter: OnHumans.Substack.com
Get in touch: https://forms.gle/h5wcmefuwvD6asos8
Music credit: Aleksey Chistilin (Lexin_Music) via Pixabay.
NAMES MENTIONED
Douglas P. Fry | Geneviève Souillac | Jean Monnet | Konrad Adenauer | Mahatma Gandhi | Edward Westermarck | Charles E. Osgood | Brian Ferguson | Eleanor Roosevelt | Vladimir Putin
KEY WORDS
Douglas P. Fry | peace studies | conflict studies | war studies | peace and conflict studies | anthropology of war | anthropology of peace | war and peace | causes of war | origins of war | human nature and war | peacebuilding | conflict resolution | peace systems | lasting peace | international cooperation | nonviolence | revenge | reciprocity | negative reciprocity | deterrence | security dilemma | arms race | nuclear weapons | nuclear disarmament | Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons | TPNW | Budapest Memorandum | United Nations | UN peacekeeping | Blue Helmets | UN Security Council | international law | global governance | World War II | Second World War | post-war peace | European integration | Jean Monnet | European Coal and Steel Community | Switzerland | Nordic peace | Åland Islands dispute | League of Nations | Upper Xingu peace system | Indigenous peace systems | Haudenosaunee Confederacy | Iroquois Confederacy | Great League of Peace | GRIT strategy | Graduated Reciprocation in Tension Reduction | Charles E. Osgood | Edward Westermarck | Ukraine war | Russia–Ukraine war
The Big Picture: Measuring the Origins of the Modern World ~ Bishnupriya Gupta & Stephen Broadberry (Great Divergence #5)
Was India once an affluent empire, later impoverished by British colonisation? Or was India never rich to begin with? More generally, what does historical data on wages and other economic indicators tell us …
Notas del episodio
Was India once an affluent empire, later impoverished by British colonisation? Or was India never rich to begin with?
More generally, what does historical data on wages and other economic indicators tell us about the broader story of the making of the modern world – a world with great affluence, but where much of the riches are still concentrated in the Western world.
For over 20 years now, Stephen Broadberry and Bishnupriya Gupta have worked to measure the evolution of global living standards from the medieval period onwards.
In this episode, they begin by discussing a comparison between the historical economies of India and Britain. We then continue to a broader story of the living standards of the pre-industrial world. We also discuss different theories of the “Great Divergence” between the West and the rest of the world. We finish by turning our attention to the future, asking if the 21st century will be remembered as the Asian century.
This episode concludes the five-part series on the making of the modern world, produced by CAGE Research Centre and On Humans.
LINKS AND REFERENCES
Do you prefer reading to listening? You can find a summarised essay of this conversation, with a bibliography, at our series page: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/news/podcasts/
NAMES MENTIONED
Kenneth Pomeranz | Angus Maddison | Daron Acemoglu | James Robinson | Nico Voigtländer | Hans-Joachim Voth | Debin Ma | Robert Allen | Joel Mokyr
KEYWORDS
Economics | History | Global Economic History | Industrial Revolution | Indian history | Imperial history | East India Company | Emperor Akbar | Colonisation | Historical GDP estimates | Historical living standard estimates | Wage history | History of labour | Social history | Comparative development | State capacity | Malthusian trap | History of Technology
INFO
Guests: Bishnupriya Gupta (University of Warwick) and Stephen Broadberry (University of Oxford)
Contact: [email protected]
A View From the East: China, Japan, and the Other Paths to Prosperity ~ Debin Ma (Great Divergence #4)
The tech gap between China and the West is closing fast. But why did the land that invented paper and gunpowder ever fall behind? Debin Ma is the world’s leading economic historian of East Asia. In this fourth …
Notas del episodio
The tech gap between China and the West is closing fast. But why did the land that invented paper and gunpowder ever fall behind?
Debin Ma is the world’s leading economic historian of East Asia. In this fourth episode of our Great Divergence series, he approaches the making of the modern world from an eastern perspective. We discuss why China fell behind, why Japan modernised early, and why East Asia has experienced so many economic miracles. We also discuss China’s recent transformation – a transformation that Ma has witnessed firsthand.
LINKS AND REFERENCES
Do you prefer reading to listening? You can find a summarised essay of this conversation, with a bibliography, at our series page: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/news/podcasts/
GREAT DIVERGENCE: THE MAKING OF THE MODERN WORLD
This episode is part of a series produced by Warwick University’s CAGE Research Centre in collaboration with On Humans, searching for explanations to why Western Europe and North America emerged as the most affluent and technologically advanced regions of the modern world. Guided by six expert guests, including a winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize in economics, we approach this topic with balance and breadth, exploring everything from colonialism and fossil fuels to science and technology.
1 | Why the West? Colonies, fossil fuels, and lessons from China (Kenneth Pomeranz)
2 | Why did so many inventions come from Europe? (Joel Mokyr)
3 | Why did the Industrial Revolution happen in Britain? (Robert Allen)
4 | A view from the East: China, Japan, and the other paths to prosperity (Debin Ma)
5 | The big picture: Measuring the origins of the modern world (Bishnupriya Gupta and Stephen Broadberry)
NAMES MENTIONED
Joseph Needham | Kenneth Pomeranz | Joel Mokyr | Robert Allen | Francis Fukuyama | Jared Rubin | Yin Weiwen | Kaiser Kuo | Deng Xiaoping | Yasheng Huang
KEYWORDS
Economics | History | Global Economic History | Industrial Revolution | Chinese history | Japanese history | Developmental Economics | Needham Puzzle | Needham Question | Qianlong Emperor | Macartney embassy | Meiji Japan | Iwakura mission | Age heaping | Comparative development | State capacity | Modern fiscal state | History of taxation | Industrial Policy | History of Technology | Human capital
INFO
Guest: Debin Ma (Fudan University and All Souls College, University of Oxford)
Host: Ilari Mäkelä (On Humans)
Contact: [email protected]
Why Did the Industrial Revolution Happen in Britain? ~ Robert Allen (Great Divergence #3)
Why was industrial modernity born in Europe and not, say, China? This is one of the most consequential questions about the origins of the modern world. Yet asking “why Europe” can mislead. The Industrial …
Notas del episodio
Why was industrial modernity born in Europe and not, say, China? This is one of the most consequential questions about the origins of the modern world. Yet asking “why Europe” can mislead. The Industrial Revolution was not a European event. It was a British event.
So why was the steam engine invented in Britain, and not France or Italy?
Oxford professor Robert Allen has worked for decades trying to understand this question.
Allen believes that to understand the path to modernity, we must forget grand generalisations about the West. Instead, he asks us to zoom in on two very specific dynamics that shaped the British economy in the 1700s: cheap fuel and expensive workers. Together, they jolted Britain into a path where ever more work was streamlined with the help of machines and fossil fuels — a path that we are still walking on, with AI and robotics simply the latest sightings on this long march of modernity.
In this episode, we discuss the surprising revelations that led Allen to his theory. We discuss the reasons that British wages were high, and we discuss recent scholarship suggesting that this wasn’t the case–or at least, was not the cause for the Industrial Revolution. We also discuss the more humane side of wages, tracing the history of worker wellbeing from the Black Death to today.
As always in this series, we finish with our guests’ reflections on the future.
LINKS AND REFERENCES
Do you prefer reading to listening? You can find a summarised essay of this conversation, with a bibliography, at our series page: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/news/podcasts/
GREAT DIVERGENCE: THE MAKING OF THE MODERN WORLD
This episode is part of a series produced by Warwick University’s CAGE Research Centre in collaboration with On Humans, searching for explanations to why Western Europe and North America emerged as the most affluent and technologically advanced regions of the modern world. Guided by six expert guests, including a winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize in economics, we approach this topic with balance and breadth, exploring everything from colonialism and fossil fuels to science and technology.
1 | Why the West? Colonies, fossil fuels, and lessons from China (Kenneth Pomeranz)
2 | Why did so many inventions come from Europe? (with Joel Mokyr)
3 | Why did the Industrial Revolution happen in Britain? (Robert Allen)
4 | A view from the East: China, Japan, and the other paths to prosperity (Debin Ma)
5 | The big picture: Measuring the origins of the modern world (Bishnupriya Gupta and Stephen Broadberry)
NAMES MENTIONED
James E. Thorold Rogers | Kenneth Pomeranz | Joel Mokyr | Jane Humphries | Daniel Defoe | Bradford J. (Brad) DeLong | Branko Milanovic | Daron Acemoglu | Oded Galor
KEYWORDS
Economics | History | Global Economic History | Industrial Revolution | Age of Inventions | Steam engine| European Miracle | British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective | Wage history | History of labour | Social history | Comparative development | Meiji Japan | Spinning Jenny | Industrial Policy | History of Technology | History of Inventions
EPISODE INFO
Guest: Robert C. Allen (Nuffield College, University of Oxford and NYU Abu Dhabi)
Host: Ilari Mäkelä
Contact: [email protected]
Music by Aleksey Chistilin (Lexin_Music) via Pixabay
Why Did So Many Inventions Come from Europe? ~ Joel Mokyr (Great Divergence #2)
Several inventions mark the progress towards modernity - the Gutenberg printing press, the Galileo telescope, the Watt steam engine. But why was Europe the birthplace of so many of these? Joel Mokyr, winner of …
Notas del episodio
Several inventions mark the progress towards modernity - the Gutenberg printing press, the Galileo telescope, the Watt steam engine. But why was Europe the birthplace of so many of these?
Joel Mokyr, winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize in economics, thinks the cause was culture. For decades he has asked economists to take intellectual history more seriously. Economies are shaped by new inventions, Mokyr argues, and inventions can only be understood when we understand the culture that gives rise to them.
But how much did Europe's culture shape its economy? And how to square early modern Europe's progressive culture with it's colonial legacy? Mokyr answers these and other questions in this episodes, finishing with his reflections on the future of technological progress.
Enjoy!
LINKS AND REFERENCES
Do you prefer reading to listening? You can find a summarised essay of this conversation, with a bibliography, at our series page: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/news/podcasts/
GREAT DIVERGENCE: THE MAKING OF THE MODERN WORLD
This episode is part of a series produced by Warwick University’s CAGE Research Centre in collaboration with On Humans, searching for explanations to why Western Europe and North America emerged as the most affluent and technologically advanced regions of the modern world. Guided by six expert guests, including a winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize in economics, we approach this topic with balance and breadth, exploring everything from colonialism and fossil fuels to science and technology.
1 | Why the West? Colonies, fossil fuels, and lessons from China (Kenneth Pomeranz)
2 | Why did so many inventions come from Europe? (with Joel Mokyr)
3 | Why did the Industrial Revolution happen in Britain? (Robert Allen)
4 | A view from the East: China, Japan, and the other paths to prosperity (Debin Ma)
5 | The big picture: Measuring the origins of the modern world (Bishnupriya Gupta and Stephen Broadberry)
NAMES MENTIONED
Joel Mokyr | Robert Lucas | David Hume | Isaac Newton | Antoine Lavoisier | Joseph Black | James Watt | John Robison | Josiah Wedgwood | Sadi Carnot | Margaret Jacob | Evangelista Torricelli | Galileo Galilei | Blaise Pascal | Otto von Guericke | Aristotle | Denis Diderot | William Harvey | Song Yingxing | Marco Polo | Zheng He | Louis XIV | Avner Greif | Guido Tabellini | Kenneth Pomeranz | Adam Smith | Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot | Montesquieu | Voltaire | Confucius | al-Ghazali | Ptolemy | Euclid | David Ricardo | Karl Marx | Hippocrates | Galen | Xi Jinping | Joseph Needham | Nigel Farage | Joseph Stalin | Trofim Lysenko | Robert Allen
KEYWORDS
Economics | History | Global Economic History | Intellectual History | Age of Inventions | Rise of the West | European Miracle | Enlightened Economy | Culture of Growth | Gift of Athena |Industrial Revolution | History of technology | History of inventions
INFO
Guest: Joel Mokyr (Northwestern University)
Host: Ilari Mäkelä
Contact: [email protected]
Music by Aleksey Chistilin (Lexin_Music) via Pixabay
Why the West? Colonies, Fossil Fuels, and Lessons from China ~ Kenneth Pomeranz (Great Divergence #1)
Why did Western Europe become the richest region of the early modern world? Was the rise of the West powered by colonization, inventions, or something else entirely? And what happened to the medieval might of …
Notas del episodio
Why did Western Europe become the richest region of the early modern world? Was the rise of the West powered by colonization, inventions, or something else entirely? And what happened to the medieval might of China and India?
The term “great divergence” is increasingly used by historians who want to study this immense question, but who want to do it carefully, without falling into traditional East-West clichés.
This episode marks the beginning of a five-episode series exploring the state of this research, produced by the University of Warwick’s CAGE Research Centre in collaboration with the On Humans Podcast.
In this opening episode, we meet Kenneth Pomeranz, the historian of China who coined the term "great divergence" in a field-defining book of the same name. We begin by discussing Pomeranz’s groundbreaking approach and the surprising answers that he arrived at. In the second half of the episode, we zoom out and place the rise of the West into the broader story about the history of humanity – a story Pomeranz divides into four parts, with the fifth one beginning right now.
Enjoy!
LINKS AND REFERENCES
Do you prefer reading to listening? You can find summary essays, bibliographies, and much more at our series page: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/news/podcasts/
GREAT DIVERGENCE: THE MAKING OF THE MODERN WORLD
This episode is part of a series produced by Warwick University’s CAGE Research Centre in collaboration with On Humans, searching for explanations to why Western Europe and North America emerged as the most affluent and technologically advanced regions of the modern world. Guided by six expert guests, including a winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize in economics, we approach this topic with balance and breadth, exploring everything from colonialism and fossil fuels to science and technology.
1 | Why the West? Colonies, fossil fuels, and lessons from China (Kenneth Pomeranz)
2 | Why did so many inventions come from Europe? (with Joel Mokyr)
3 | Why did the Industrial Revolution happen in Britain? (Robert Allen)
4 | A view from the East: China, Japan, and the other paths to prosperity (Debin Ma)
5 | The big picture: Measuring the origins of the modern world (Bishnupriya Gupta and Stephen Broadberry)
NAMES MENTIONED
Joel Mokyr | Brad DeLong | Arthur Wigley | Jan De Vries | Robert Allen | Simon Schama | Isaac Newton | Vasco da Gama | Jonathan Spence| Anthony Wrigley | Thomas Malthus | Nate Hagens | Charles Lockyer | Marshall Hodgson | Aristotle | Plato | Jared Diamond | Adam Smith |
KEYWORDS
Economics | History | Global Economic History | Malthusian Economics | Fossil Fuel Economics | Economics of Colonialism | Rise of the West | European Miracle | California School of Economics | Atlantic Trade | Industrial Revolution | Second Industrial Revolution | Historic living standards
INFO
Guest: Kenneth Pomeranz (University of Chicago)
Host: Ilari Mäkelä
Contact: [email protected]
Music by Aleksey Chistilin (Lexin_Music) via Pixabay.
Encore: Walking Towards the Human Condition (with Jeremy De Silva)
Something big is coming soon. Stay tuned!Whilst waiting, you can enjoy one of my all-time favourites from the archives.A lot of the recent episodes have mentioned the impact of bipedalism in the human story …
Notas del episodio
Something big is coming soon. Stay tuned!
Whilst waiting, you can enjoy one of my all-time favourites from the archives.
A lot of the recent episodes have mentioned the impact of bipedalism in the human story, but the remarks have hardly done justice to the depth of the matter.
Jeremy DeSilva did it justice.
Enjoy!
ORIGINAL SHOW NOTES
Humans are odd in many ways. But perhaps the oddest of our features is our upright posture. We walk on two legs. And we are the only mammal to do so.
So why do we walk upright? And why does it matter?
Jeremy DeSilva is a fossil expert and a professor of paleoanthropology at Dartmouth College. He is also the author of a remarkable book, aptly titled First Steps: How Upright Walking Made Us Human
DeSilva’s treatment of the subject is sweeping: while tracing the journey of human posture, he draws remarkable links between bipedalism and many facets of the human condition, from difficult births to complex language and from lower back pains to the beauty of friendships.
In this episode, we talk about questions such as:
- What Darwin got right and wrong about the role of walking in human evolution
- When and why did we start walking upright?
- Why the common picture of human evolution is wrong - and what would be a better picture
- Why walking makes us fragile
- How our ancestors survived bone fractures - and why this is a big deal
- Why is human birth so difficult
- Why walking is so good for us: introducing the “myokines”
- What studying the human journey has taught DeSilva about our species
_________
Please consider becoming a supporter of On Humans. Even small monthly donations can make a huge impact on the long-term sustainability of the program.
Visit: Patreon.com/OnHumans
_________
Names mentioned
Charles Darwin / Ian Tattersall / Donald Johanson / Mary Leakey / Sherwood Washburn / Richard Wrangham (ep 21) / Kristen Hawkes (ep 6) / Holly Dunsworth / Daniel Lieberman
Mentioned hominin species
Sahelanthropus / Ardipithecus / Australopithecus (e.g. Lucy) / Homo habilis / Homo erectus / Homo sapiens
Music by Aleksey Chistilin (Lexin_Music) via Pixabay.
Where Did Humans Evolve? Gazing at the Changing Nature of the Garden of Eden ~ Denise Su
Imagine a group of ancient humans, crafting stone tools at the dawn of humankind. What did these creatures look like? To find out, we can stare at the skulls in museums or glance at reconstructions made by …
Notas del episodio
Imagine a group of ancient humans, crafting stone tools at the dawn of humankind. What did these creatures look like?
To find out, we can stare at the skulls in museums or glance at reconstructions made by paleo-artists. Not a bad start. But what if we move the lens and zoom into their surroundings? What was the scientific “Garden of Eden” like? Was it a lush forest, a dry savanna, or an icy cave? And what can the answer tell us about human nature more broadly?
Denise Su is a world-leading expert on these questions. A paleoecologist at Arizona State University’s Institute of Human Origins, she uses ever-more imaginative ways to get a glimpse into the nature and the weather that set the stage for the human story.
In this episode, we focus on two kinds of “changes” in the ecology of human evolution: both the actual climate change that drummed the beat of human origins, and the theoretical changes in the views of scientists thinking about these topics. Indeed, this episode digs deep into one of the hotly contested questions about the reasons why humans evolved: "the savanna hypothesis".
According to the savanna hypothesis, our naked, upright species evolved because African forests were shrinking and dry savannas emerged instead. Other apes stayed in the shrinking forests, but our brave ancestors took the shot, conquering the vast flatlands. As they did so, they started standing upright to better walk on the savanna and lost their fur, to sweat away the heat of the scorching sun.
I have told versions of this story on the show, and so have many senior guests. Yet even a brief Google search will give you plenty of critics telling that the savanna hypothesis is nothing but a convenient myth. Articles by Denise Su are often included in the evidence. So what’s going on? Listen to the episode to find out!
TIMELINE
- Last common ancestor with humans and chimpanzees: 6–7 million years ago
- Ardipithecus ramidus: 4.5–4.2 million years ago
- Australopithecus anamnesis: 4.2–3.8 million years ago
- Austrolopithecus afarensis (e.g. Lucy): 3.9–2.9 million years ago
- Australopithecus deyiremeda: 3.5–3.3 million years ago
- Earliest Homo: about 2.8 million years ago
- Homo erectus: 1.9 million–112,000 years ago
- Homo sapiens: 300,000 years ago till present
FACT-CHECKING
No factual errors have been detected so far. However, timing estimates and species names are still debated. Furthermore, the “hours” in the metaphorical clock can shift a fair amount based on the “midnight”: our last common ancestor with chimpanzees lived 6 to 7 million years ago, with some estimates pushing the date as far as 8 million. In the episode, our clock is tuned to 6 million years ago.
If you see an error, you can get in touch using the form below.
LINKS
Support: Patreon.com/OnHumans
Articles & newsletter: OnHumans/Substack.com
Get in touch: https://forms.gle/h5wcmefuwvD6asos8
Music by Aleksey Chistilin (Lexin_Music) via Pixabay.
KEY WORDS
anthropology | archaeology | paleontology | human origins | human behavioural ecology | savanna hypothesis | paleolithic | paleoecology | hominid fossils | carbon isotopes C3/C4 | human evolution | human biology | climate change | human futures
The Original Affluent Society? Lessons from 60-Years of "Man the Hunter" Research ~ Richard B. Lee
What was life like before farming? Was it nasty, brutish, and short? Or did our hunter-gatherer ancestors live lives that were relatively free, affluent, and ecologically stable?In the lack of a time machine …
Notas del episodio
What was life like before farming? Was it nasty, brutish, and short? Or did our hunter-gatherer ancestors live lives that were relatively free, affluent, and ecologically stable?
In the lack of a time machine, many anthropologists have sought answers from studying the few hunter-gatherer communities that still exist today. In 1966, several leading names in the field were invited to present their results at a symposium at the University of Chicago. This “Man the Hunter” conference became a landmark event, but what exactly were the results? And have they stood the test of time?
To mark the 60th anniversary of the "Man the Hunter" symposium, On Humans is glad to share the first-ever long-form podcast with the legendary anthropologist and co-organiser of the symposium, Richard B. Lee. We discuss the legacy of the conference, Lee’s own experiences living with hunter-gatherers in the Kalahari, and his reflections on what we do and do not know about the ancient lifeways of hunter-gatherers. As we do so, we also discuss various controversies and mysteries, from women's roles to Native American farmers, and from archaeological black holes toThe Dawn of Everything.
Enjoy!
FACT-CHECKING
No factual errors have been detected so far. If you see an error, you can get in touch using the form below.
LINKS
Support: Patreon.com/OnHumans
Get in touch: https://forms.gle/h5wcmefuwvD6asos8
Music by Aleksey Chistilin (Lexin_Music) via Pixabay.
MENTIONS
The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race (Jared Diamond) https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-worst-mistake-in-the-history-of-the-human-race-12157
The Original Affluent Society (Marshall Sahlins) https://www.uvm.edu/~jdericks/EE/Sahlins-Original_Affluent_Society.pdf
For my previous coverage on “woman the hunter” controversies, see “Is Man the Hunter Dead” and my interviews with Cara Ocobock and Katie Starkweather, all available here: https://onhumans.substack.com/p/is-man-the-hunter-dead
For Richard Lee's own comments on the controversy, see his interview with Vivek Venkataraman https://osf.io/x7ar3_v1/
Names: Richard B. Lee | James Suzman | Marshall Sahlins | David Graeber | David Wengrow | Jared Diamond | Sarah Blaffer Hrdy | Jerome Lewis | Colin Turnbull | James Woodburn | Eleanor Leacock | Louis Henry Morgan | Karl Marx | George Armelagos | Irvin DeVore | Sherwood Washburn | Jay Desmond Clark | Harriet Rosenberg | Lawrence K. Marshall | Elizabeth Marshall | John Marshall | Greta Thunberg | Vivek Venkataraman
Ethnic groups: San | Ju/’hoansi | !Kung | Khoisan | Khoikhoi | “Bushmen” | “Hottentots” | First Nations | Tlingit | Haida | Inuit | Australian Aboriginal peoples | Bayaka| Batek | Huron-Wendat | Iroquois | Six Nations | Plains Indians | Hopi | Navajo | Cherokee
KEY WORDS
anthropology | archaeology | ethnography | human origins | human behavioural ecology | hunter-gatherers | paleolithic | neolithic transition | original affluent society | Kalahari Desert | Botswana | Namibia | paleogenetics | gathering vs hunting | gender roles | women hunting | egalitarianism | origins of hierarchy | surplus | food storage | salmon economies | Northwest Coast hunter-gatherers | archaeology of early farmers | bioarchaeology | stature/height decline | teeth health | disease burden | zoonoses | cross-species infection | Neolithic fertility increase | population pressure and “intensification” | chiefdoms | states | empires | ecology vs culture debate | materialist vs idealist | concentration–dispersion | colonialism | exploitation | land rights | climate change | human futures
What Can Shamans Teach Us About Religion? | Many Minds with Manvir Singh
The world is full of religions, but none as timeless as shamanism. And whilst many modern religions have shed their shamanic skins, the shaman is rarely as far away as we have been told.Or so argues …
Notas del episodio
The world is full of religions, but none as timeless as shamanism. And whilst many modern religions have shed their shamanic skins, the shaman is rarely as far away as we have been told.
Or so argues anthropologist Manvir Singh in his book, Shamanism: The Timeless Religion.
Singh’s work is fascinating in its capacity to link the exocit with the familiar, showing how rainforest rituals are not so far removed from urban modernity as we might think.
Today, I will have the rare chance to enjoy Singh's insights together with you, as a listener. The hard work will be done by Kensy Cooperider, the host of the Many Minds Podcast.
Many Minds is one of my own go-to shows and has a lot to recommend for it. Just like On Humans, it breaks down complex scientific concepts about humanity into easy-to-follow yet in-depth conversations. Yet unlike On Humans, it has insanely well-referenced show notes! Just check this one out.
Kensy and I had a beachside chat this November and decided it would be good to introduce ourselves to each other's audiences. So here we go!
LINKS
Many Minds: https://disi.org/manyminds/
Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute: https://disi.org/
Episode page: https://disi.org/the-shaman-with-a-thousand-faces/
Manvir Singh: https://www.manvir.org/
KEYWORDS
Anthropology | Psychology | Religion | Cross-cultural study | Abrahamic religions | Neo-shamanism | Human universals |
The Origins of Humankind: Where Do We Really Come From?
Happy 2026! On Humans has typically marked the coming of January by revisiting the previous year’s most popular episode. This time, the New Year special packs the five-hour-long "Origins of Humankind" series …
Notas del episodio
Happy 2026! On Humans has typically marked the coming of January by revisiting the previous year’s most popular episode. This time, the New Year special packs the five-hour-long "Origins of Humankind" series into one fast-paced dive through deep time.
By mixing highlights from the original interviews with fresh narration, this episode offers a captivating journey through many of the great topics around human origins, such as:
- Who were the first primates
- The role of fruits, snakes, and predators
- The human solution to danger
- How to grow a human brain?
- What did our ancestors eat?
- Effects of our upright posture
- Origins of music & language
- How Homo sapiens took over the world
Enjoy!
LINKS
For the original five-hour experience, see: OnHumans.Substack.com/Origins
For a shorter series on ancient DNA: see OnHumans.Substack.com/DNA
Support: Patreon.com/OnHumans
The series was produced together with CARTA (UCSD & Salk Institute). For past recordings of CARTA symposia on human origins, see: Carta.Anthropogeny.org/Symposia
KEYWORDS
Human evolution | Human origins | Science | Biology | Paleoanthropology | Anthropology | Archaeology | Fossils | aDNA | History of life | Life history | Dinosaurs | Primates | Apes | Hominins | Homo sapiens | Evolution of language | Evolution of music | Brain evolution | Paleoneurology | Neanderthals | Denisovans | Neolithic Revolution | Spread of agriculture | Human destiny
Why Do We Laugh? Philosophers on Jokes, Humor, and the Human Condition ~ Mira Magdalena Sickinger
“The podcast is great, but one thing hasn’t been covered yet: humour. It’s an essential part of our human condition, and would certainly be worth an episode.”This listener feedback was easy to agree with. From …
Notas del episodio
“The podcast is great, but one thing hasn’t been covered yet: humour. It’s an essential part of our human condition, and would certainly be worth an episode.”
This listener feedback was easy to agree with.
From standup comedy to nervous laughter, our lives are filled with chuckles and giggles.
Why?
Why do adults laugh at witty jokes whilst children laugh at the simple pleasures of peek-a-boo? And why should any of us laugh in the first place?
My guest is Mira Magdalena Sickinger. a poet and a philosopher of humour from the University of Vienna.
We cover a lot in the discussion: from the social roles of humour, to the politics of joking, and the therapeutic effects of a humorous attitude. In the course of the conversation, we cover the views of many intellectual giants, from Sigmund Freud to Immanuel Kant — and while the conversation includes a handful of silly jokes (be warned), it ends with a deeper reflection on how humour can serve as a window into the human condition itself.
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
MENTIONS
Simon Critchley | Ted Cohen | Robin Dunbar | Ágnes Heller | John Morreal | Immanuel Kant | Thomas Wilk & Steven Gimbel | V S Ramachandran | Sigmund Freud | Janet Bing & Joanne Scheibman | Thomas Nagel | Aristotle | Thomas Aquinas | John Dewey | Robin Tyler
KEYWORDS
Philosophy | Psychology |Anthropology | Incongruence theory | Relief theory | Superiority theory | Play theory | Humor | Blended spaces | Stasi & communism jokes in East Germany | Feminist & queer humor | Jokes | Absurdity | Irony | Existentialism | Meaning of life |
Restless Humanity: The Epic Migrations Into the Americas, Polynesia, and... Beyond? ~ Andrés Moreno-Estrada
We are a movable species. In less than 50 thousand years, Homo sapiens has penetrated practically all corners of the earth. This is an episode about those epic migrations, with a focus on the two furthest edges …
Notas del episodio
We are a movable species. In less than 50 thousand years, Homo sapiens has penetrated practically all corners of the earth.
This is an episode about those 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 -- evidence 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 |
Beyond Race: A New Outlook on the Shape of Humanity ~ Diyendo Massilani
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 …
Notas del episodio
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
The Neanderthal Mirror: Latest Findings About the Lines Between Us ~ David Gokhman
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 …
Notas del episodio
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
Can We Tell a (True) Story of Human Origins? Live from UC San Diego
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 …
Notas del episodio
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 |
Epilogue: Is the Brain Free to Choose? ~ Tim Coulson
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 …
Notas del episodio
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
Can the Brain Understand Itself? The Glories and the Limits of Neuroscience ~ Matthew Cobb
Science has learned much about the brain. But how well do we understand this organ of the mind? Are we even close to cracking the neural code? Is a groundbreaking theory of consciousness just around the …
Notas del episodio
Science has learned much about the brain. But how well do we understand this organ of the mind? Are we even close to cracking the neural code? Is a groundbreaking theory of consciousness just around the corner?
In this final episode of the brain science -series, Matthew Cobb takes us on a tour of the story of neuroscience. We meet many colourful characters, but this is not just a history for history’s sake. More importantly, this is a reflection on the increasingly clear limits that brain science is coming up against — limits often left invisible behind the thirst for stories about new discoveries.
Enjoy!
FACT CHECKING
Contrary to the precise phrasing in the episode, a handful of new psychiatric drugs have entered the market recently. The general observation remains well-supported.
If you spot an error in this or other episodes, please reach out on Substack or via email.
LINKS
Matthew Cobb’s book is The Idea of the Brain: The Past and Future of Neuroscience
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: Matthew Cobb | Galen | Aristotle | Andreas Vesalius | William Harvey | William Shakespeare | Queen Victoria | Karl Marx | Pierre Paul Broca | René Descartes | Eve Marder | David Marr | Francis Crick | Geoffrey Hinton | John Hopfield | Warren McCulloch | Walter Pitts | John von Neumann | Alan Turing | Kenneth Craik | Sir John Eccles | Elon Musk | Nicolaus Copernicus | Galileo Galilei
Terms and concepts: recurrent laryngeal nerve | phrenology | localization of function | strokes/aphasia | Broca’s area | plasticity | hemispheric lateralization | corpus callosum | split-brain | consciousness | anesthesia (halothane, etc.) | drugs & neuromodulators | SSRIs | serotonin | dopamine | psychedelics | obster stomatogastric ganglion | three-body-problem | EEG “brainwaves” (gamma, theta, etc.) | David Marr’s levels | neural code | PDP / connectionism | backpropagation | LLMs (e.g. ChatGPT, DeepSeek) | biological plausibility vs engineering | von Neumann architecture | McCulloch–Pitts logical neurons | neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) | “Jennifer Aniston” cells | single-unit recording | connectomics | Human Brain Project | cochlear implants | BCI / robotic arm control | tetraplegia | problem of consciousness | enactive cognition
From Alcohol to Antidepressants: What Drugs Teach Us About Brain Chemistry ~ Judy Grisel
Dopamine. Serotonin. Endorphins. We have all heard these terms. And these are not just scientific curiosities. Few are those who have never wondered if their brain chemicals are "just off balance". So how …
Notas del episodio
Dopamine. Serotonin. Endorphins. We have all heard these terms. And these are not just scientific curiosities. Few are those who have never wondered if their brain chemicals are "just off balance".
So how accurate are the popular theories about these mythic molecules?
To guide us through the topic, I'm joined by Judy Grisel—an ex-addict and a world-leading neuroscientist of addiction.
We will discuss all the main elements of brain chemistry by using drugs and addictions as a window into the topic. Towards the end, we also search for ways to better help those who struggle with addiction.
As always, we finish with my guest's reflection on humanity.
DIG DEEPER
This episode is part 4 of this autumn's brain science series. See more
at OnHumans.Substack.com/brain
Judy Grisel’s book is Never Enough: The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction
Want to support the show? Join the club at Patreon.com/OnHumans.
FACT-CHECKING
No major mistakes have been found so far.
As a minor note, the SSRI study we mention in healthy volunteers primarily assessed cognitive processing (reinforcement learning/sensitivity) rather than self-reported “emotional flattening”; however, general blunting of emotional responses in healthy participants has been reported by earlier researchers.If you spot an error in this or other episodes, please reach out on Substack or via email.
KEYWORDS
Names mentioned: Kent Berridge | Mark Lewis | Barbara Sahakian | Trevor Robbins
Technical concepts: dopamine | wanting vs liking | serotonin (5/HT) | serotonin receptor 2A | selective serotonin uptake inhibitors SSRIs | GABA vs glutamate | endorphins | endocannabinoids | alcohol | cocaine | MDMA | psychedelics | behavioral addictions (e.g. porn) | runner's high | cannabis / THC | neurogenesis & pruning | brain plasticity | SSRIs | MDMA (SERT reversal) | emotional blunting | opponent-process theory (A→B) | addiction as disease vs learned state | meaning, motivation, recovery
Inside the Brain: A Journey Through the Halls and the Songs of Consciousness ~ Pria Anand
Our brains can feel remote and abstract. Hidden behind Latin names and textbook diagrams, they rarely feel as personal to us as our hearts and stomachs. In this episode, neurologist and author Pria Anand helps …
Notas del episodio
Our brains can feel remote and abstract. Hidden behind Latin names and textbook diagrams, they rarely feel as personal to us as our hearts and stomachs.
In this episode, neurologist and author Pria Anand helps us get a little more intimate with that grey, wrinkly seat of our consciousness.
Together we explore both the structural architecture and the musical synchronies of the brain. We travel across the left and the right brain, "listen" to the meaning of different brain waves, and discuss some of the most perplexing examples from the annals of neuroscience. What emerges is not just an intimate journey through the organ that makes us who we are, but also an exploration on the meaning of pain, identity, and storytelling.
As always, we finish with my guest's reflection on humanity.
DIG DEEPER
This episode is part 3 of this autumn's brain science series. See more
at OnHumans.Substack.com/Brain
📖 Dr Anand's new book is The Mind Electric: A Neurologist on the Strangeness and Wonder of Our Brains
Want to support the show? Join the club at Patreon.com/OnHumans
FACT CHECKING
No major mistakes have been found so far.
As a small correction, the patient with conflicting career goals did not, when asked, want to be an "architect", but a "draftsman". See "A Divided Mind" by Joseph LeDoux and colleagues (free PDF).
If you find a mistake in this or other episodes, you reach out directly to at Substack.com/OnHumans or via email.
KEYWORDS
Names mentioned: Michael Gazzaniga | Joseph LeDoux | Patient P.S. | Henry Molaison (H.M.) | William Halsted | Julius Caesar | Fyodor Dostoevsky | Dr. Strangelove | Matthew Cobb | Suzana Herculano-Houzel
Terms and concepts discussed: neurology | neuropsychology | brain damage | lesions | REM sleep (rapid eye movement) | paradoxical sleep | REM atonia | narcolepsy | sleep apnea | Parkinson’s disease | dementia | slow-wave sleep | EEG (electroencephalography) | brain oscillations | alpha waves | theta waves | seizure | epilepsy | focal seizure | generalized tonic-clonic seizure | aura | déjà vu | phantom smell (olfactory hallucination) | corpus callosum | callosotomy | anterior cerebral artery | cerebral aneurysm | hemispatial neglect | apraxia | alien hand (anarchic hand) | visual cortex | language dominance (left hemisphere) | thalamus | somatosensory cortex | limbic system | hippocampus | mesial temporal lobe | anterior temporal lobectomy | anterograde amnesia | retrograde amnesia | Korsakoff dementia (Wernicke–Korsakoff) | transient global amnesia | posterior cortical atrophy | aphasia | confabulation | nociception | lidocaine | dissociative anesthetic | epidural anesthesia | spinal anesthesia | paralytic (neuromuscular blocker) | neocortex | cortex | brainstem | cerebellum | cerebellar lesion | ataxic dysarthria | folia (cerebellar) | trunk (elephant, motor control) | Buddha’s “two arrows” parable
Not So Simple After All? Apes, Einstein, and the Many Mysteries of the Human Brain ~ Dean Falk
Here is a simple story about the origins of the human brain: All primate brains are dense with neurons—they are the supercomputers of the animal world. What's more, the human brain is just what you’d expect …
Notas del episodio
Here is a simple story about the origins of the human brain: All primate brains are dense with neurons—they are the supercomputers of the animal world. What's more, the human brain is just what you’d expect from a primate of our size: big, packed with neurons, but no more special than that. It's the chimps and gorillas who are special: without cooked food, their brains lacked the fuel to keep up with the growing body.
Or so argued Suzana Herculano-Houzel, my guest in last week's episode.
In today's episode, paleo-neurologist Dean Falk explains why she thinks this is only part of the story.
I'll let her tell you why.
Enjoy!
DIG DEEPER
This episode is part 2 of this autumn's brain science series. See more
at OnHumans.Substack.com/Brain
See also last spring's episode with Dean Falk on toolmaking and childhoods, as part of the Origins of Humankind -series.
SUPPORT THE SHOW
MENTIONS AND KEYWORDS
Scholars
Charles Darwin | Dietrich Stout | Robin Dunbar | Katarina Semenderfi | Weiwei Men | Joseph Ledoux | Jane Goodall
Technical terms
Endocasts | Sulci and gyri | Broca's area | Brodmann Area 10, also known as BA10 and the frontal pole | Acheulean hand axe technology
Keywords
Brain science | Neuroscience | Neurology | Paleoneurology | Evolutionary Anthropology | Comparative Anatomy | Cognitive Archaeology | Origins of Consciousness
Prologue: The (Very Simple) Story of the Human Brain ~ Suzana Herculano-Houzel
I'm excited to announce that On Humans is launching a new series this fall! This one will explore the wonders of the human brain. The new episodes will drop throughout September and early October. To set the …
Notas del episodio
I'm excited to announce that On Humans is launching a new series this fall! This one will explore the wonders of the human brain. The new episodes will drop throughout September and early October.
To set the stage, we will revisit a conversation with neuroscientist Suzana Herculano-Houzel, newly re-edited and remastered. It’s the simplest and most elegant story I’ve heard about how our brains came to be — and it sets the stage for the debates to follow.
Enjoy!
DIG DEEPER
Herculano-Houzel's book is called The Human Advantage.
Check out the series page at OnHumans.Substack.com/Brain
For more on human evolution, see the full series on the Origins of Humankind.
SUPPORT THE SHOW
You can pledge your support at Patreon.com/OnHumans
KEYWORDS
Human evolution | Brain evolution | Neuroscience | Biology | Anthropology | Cerebral Cortex | Neuron counting | Comparative neurology | Comparative biology | Comparative anatomy | Harry Jerrison | Paleoanthropology | Human origins |
The Great Question of History: India, Britain, and the Fates of Nations | Live at the British Academy
Why did the great powers of Asia stagnate whilst Europe was rising? This question—often called the Great Divergence—is one of the most defining questions of modern history.Few case studies illuminate this …
Notas del episodio
Why did the great powers of Asia stagnate whilst Europe was rising? This question—often called the Great Divergence—is one of the most defining questions of modern history.
Few case studies illuminate this question as well as the contrast between Britain and India. Did colonialism make Britain rich and India poor? Or was Britain’s rise already underway before conquest? And what does all this tell us about the everyday experiences of the people of on two sides of the divide?
This episode is a live recording from the British Academy, where I was invited to speak at the launch of Bishnupriya Gupta’s An Economic History of India. I was honoured to give this talk on this exceptionally rich topic, speaking after some of the leading experts of India's history.
How did I do?
Share your thoughts in the comments at OnHumans.Substack.com.
Enjoy!
DIG DEEPER
Read: See my article on the "Origins of Modern India". Complement with "Origins of Modern China" from last fall.
Listen: Check out the two-part "What About India?" series from this February. Complement with the episode with Professor Tirthankar Roy this July.
SUPPORT THE SHOW
You can pledge your support at Patreon.com/OnHumans
KEYWORDS
Big history | Economic History | Why the West | Gunpowder empires | Mughals | Colonialism | Imperialism | British East India Company | European colonialism | History of Colonialism | Geographical Determinism | Environmental Determinism | Political History | Fiscal History | Great Divergence | Western Dominance | Early Modern History | Kenneth Pomerantz | Steven Broadberry
Encore | Why Agriculture? Climate Change and the Origins of Farming ~ Andrea Matranga
Climate. Weathers. History.Here's an encore episode to wrap up the mini-series on these themes!This episode on the puzzling origins of farming is one of my all-time favourites on the show. I thought it was a …
Notas del episodio
Climate. Weathers. History.
Here's an encore episode to wrap up the mini-series on these themes!
This episode on the puzzling origins of farming is one of my all-time favourites on the show. I thought it was a good time to put it out again.
You can also read my essay on the topic here.
Enjoy!
~
ORIGINAL SHOW NOTES
Agriculture changed everything. Traditionally, this “Neolithic Revolution” was celebrated for opening the gates of civilisation. Recently, it has been compared to the original sin. But whatever our take on agriculture, we should be puzzled by one thing: Why did our ancestors start to farm in the first place?
It's not like early farmers had improved lives. Quite the opposite, they worked harder and suffered from worse health. So why did so early farmers stick to it? And why did farming spread so far and wide?
Andrea Matranga thinks he has the answer.
An economic historian at the University of Torino, Matranga links agriculture to climate change. This is not a new idea — not as such. After all, agriculture developed in lockstep with the end of Ice Ages. For years, this vague link has formed my own pet-theory on the matter.
But I never paused to reflect on the obvious problem with it. There was never an “Ice Age” in Sudan. Why didn’t humans just farm there?
Matranga has the answer to this and many other puzzles. And surprisingly, his answer is linked to the movements of Jupiter. I will let him tell you why.
We begin this episode covering some previous theories on the origins of agriculture. Next, we dissect Matranga's theory and the evidence for it. Towards the end, we talk about the spread of farming — peaceful and violent — and note a neglected downside to the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. As always, we finish with my guest’s reflection on humanity.
LINKS
You can find my summary of Matranga's theory with links to academic articles at OnHumans.Substack.com.
Do you like On Humans? Join the group of patrons at Patreon.com/OnHumans!
MENTIONS
Names
V. Gordon Childe | Jared Diamond | Mo Yan | Alain Testart | Robert J. Braidwood | Milutin Milanković | Feng He | James Scott | Richard B. Lee | Irven Devore
Terms
Neolithic | Holocene | Pleistocene | Consumption smoothing | Malthusian limit | Milankovitch cycles
Ethnic groups
Natuffians | Pacific Northwestern hunter-gatherers
Keywords
Anthropology | Archaeology | Big History | Economic History | Agricultural Revolution | Neolithic Revolution | Homo Sapiens | Sapiens | Climate change | Paleoclimatology | Seasonality | Origins of Agriculture | Neolithic Revolution | Climate Change | Hunter-Gatherers | Human Civilization | Population Growth | Sedentary Lifestyle | Subsistence Farming | Evolutionary Adaptation | State Violence | Agricultural Coercion | Ancient DNA
Climate, Water, and the Origins of Colonialism ~ Tirthankar Roy
Before they built empires, the Europeans built ports.Across Africa and Asia, European sailors arrived as merchants. They traded and negotiated. They defended their interests—sometimes with cannon fire. But they …
Notas del episodio
Before they built empires, the Europeans built ports.
Across Africa and Asia, European sailors arrived as merchants. They traded and negotiated. They defended their interests—sometimes with cannon fire. But they were not trying to govern a foreign land.
Yet things changed.
Why?
Historian Tirthankar Roy has a bold new answer.
Roy is a professor at the London School of Economics, where he teaches a renowned course on the economic history of colonialism.
His most recent book isThe Origins of Colonialism. And in it, Roy explains that we cannot understand the origins of European Empires in Asia and Africa by simply zooming into the actions of Europeans. We must understand what happened to the elites of the lands being conquered. And more often than not, that had to do with the rains, rivers, and access to water.
In this episode, Roy explains how his theory sheds light on the rise of the British Empire in India. Along the way, we also sketch many broader ideas about the story of global colonialism, from Chinese ports to the conquest of Burma and from the water problems of Mumbai to the rubber plantations of Congo.
Enjoy!
This is part two of this summer’s mini-series on the way climate has shaped the human story. Curious to hear more? Head to last week’s episode on how an ancient climate change paved the way for the very origins of humanity!
Thoughts about Roy’s points? Or mine? Voice them at OnHumans.Substack.com! (Episode page uploaded within an hour of the episode drop.)
SUPPORT THE SHOW
You can pledge your support at Patreon.com/OnHumans
DIG DEEPER
Check out also the two-part "What About India?" series from this February!
KEYWORDS
Colonialism | Imperialism | British East India Company | European colonialism | Africa | Asia | India | China | History of Colonialism | Geographical Determinism | Environmental Determinism | Political History | Military History | Fiscal History | Great Divergence | Western Dominance | Early Modern History
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