Podcast appearances and mentions of rebecca wragg sykes

On today's episode, Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid sheds light on the history of Ancient Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, gave rise to writing, literature, astronomy, and law - shaping human history in ways that still resonate today. Drawing on her new book Between Two Rivers, Al-Rashid brings to life the stories of ordinary people from thousands of years ago: working mothers, enslaved individuals seeking freedom, and even a princess who may have founded the first museum. In conversation with archeologist and author Rebecca Wragg Sykes, Al-Rashid discusses the earliest written records, from economic tallies to personal letters, and explores how Mesopotamians grappled with timeless human concerns - love, illness, ambition, and the quest for knowledge. Why does Mesopotamia often remain in the shadow of Egypt and Greece? And what can we learn from this ancient civilization today? Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid is an Honorary Fellow at the University of Oxford's Wolfson College, where she specialises in the languages and history of ancient Mesopotamia. She has written for academic and popular journals, including History Today, on topics as diverse as mental illness in ancient Mesopotamia to Late Assyrian scholarly networks. If you'd like to become a Member and get access to all our full conversations, plus all of our Members-only content, just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more. For £4.99 per month you'll also receive: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared episodes, wherever you get your podcasts - Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series - 15% discount on livestreams and in-person tickets for all Intelligence Squared events  ...  Or Subscribe on Apple for £4.99: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared podcasts - Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series … Already a subscriber? Thank you for supporting our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations! Visit intelligencesquared.com to explore all your benefits including ad-free podcasts, exclusive bonus content and early access. … Subscribe to our newsletter here to hear about our latest events, discounts and much more. https://www.intelligencesquared.com/newsletter-signup/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Episode 285 New archaeological evidence from Iron Age Britain has shaken up long-held beliefs about the role of women in ancient civilisations. By studying the genes of the Durotriges tribe, who lived in Dorset 2000 years ago, researchers have discovered women were the centrepiece of Celtic society - supporting evidence that they had high status across Europe. Rachel Pope, Reader in European Prehistory at the University of Liverpool, explores the “jaw-dropping” findings. We also hear from author and archaeologist Rebecca Wragg-Sykes, who explains why we shouldn't be surprised that women in prehistory had such power and autonomy. Sudden swings in weather extremes caused by climate change could be to blame for the wildfires spreading across Los Angeles. The effect, known as “climate whiplash”, is becoming increasingly common and has wide-reaching implications, threatening crops, water supplies and more. And with the news that we breached 1.5C of global warming in 2024, we discuss what this all means for our climate goals. The world's first chatbot, ELIZA, has been resurrected. Created by MIT computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum in the 1960s, it contains just 420 lines of code and is a very basic precursor to the likes of ChatGPT and Gemini. The team demonstrates its (limited) capabilities live on the show. They also discuss news of a woman who has an AI boyfriend on ChatGPT…that she has sex with. Hosts Rowan Hooper and Penny Sarchet discuss with guests Rachel Pope, Rebecca Wragg-Sykes, James Dinneen and Madeleine Cuff. To read more about these stories, visit https://www.newscientist.com/ Book your place on the Svalbard expedition here: https://www.newscientist.com/tours/new-scientist-arctic-cruise/  Read Maddie's article on the climate impacts of broken jet streams here: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg26535264-100-is-a-broken-jet-stream-causing-extreme-weather-that-lasts-longer/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Há centenas de milhares de anos, surge o Homo sapiens. Mas até a nossa espécie se consolidar evolutivamente e se adaptar, muitas outras surgiram e desapareceram. Será que a nossa espécie teve algum papel no desaparecimento pré-histórico de outras? Como era a interação entre Homo sapiens e Neandertais? Como ocorreram as grandes migrações e conquista de ambientes isolados geograficamente? Para desvendar essas e muitas outras curiosidades, Flávio e Wesley recebem o biólogo e pesquisador em paleoantropologia Gabriel Rocha em uma conversa pra primata nenhum botar defeito. *** Indicações do episódio: Kindred - Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art (livro de Rebecca Wragg Sykes); A história do corpo humano (livro de Daniel Linderman) *** Redes sociais e Drive do Gabriel: https://linktr.ee/paleorocha *** Considere tornar-se um apoiador da Biologismo. Você pode contribuir a partir de R$1,00 em ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠apoia.se/biologismo⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ou doar qualquer quantia através do nosso Pix: biologismo@gmail.com Conheça a Biolojinha: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠biologismo.lojaintegrada.com.br⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ***

Welcome back to Humanism Now! This week AJ & Mark from the Central London Humanists join the panel to discuss the latest news, plus our interview with  Monica Belițoiu, Chair of The Romanian Secular Humanist Association (ASUR) .Episode References Humanist UK; Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes awarded Darwin Day MedalRebecca Wragg Sykes InterviewHumanists UK;  Assisted Dying CampaignAssisted Dying Inquiry Report | Everything you need to knowBBC News; Greece legalises same-sex marriageMatthew Walker; Why We SleepMonica BelițoiuFacebookInstagramHumanists International; Why I contribute my experience and time to the Freedom of Thought Report, Monica BelițoiuHumanists International; Romanian humanists launch ScienceCalendar mobile appDownload ScienceCalendar App on Play StoreFollow ASURHomepageInstagram @asur.roFacebook @secularumanistiYouTube @ASURChannelSupport us on Patreon Click here to submit questions, nominate guest & topics or sponsor the show. Follow Humanism Now @HumanismNowPodX (Twitter) YouTubeInstagramTikTokFollow Central London Humanists @LondonHumanists Centrallondonhumanists.org.uk MeetupFacebookX (Twitter) YouTubeCLH are an official partner group of Humanists UK and an associate member of Humanists International

Hi friends, we will be on hiatus for the fall. To tide you over, we're putting up some favorite episodes from our archives. You may not be surprised to hear that the paper featured in this archive pick attracted a lot of attention. In the time since we first aired this episode, it prompted at least one direct critique, which then occasioned a reply by the authors.   Enjoy! ———  You have a big brain. I have a big brain. We, as a species, have pretty big brains. But this wasn't always the case. Way back when, our brains were much smaller; then they went through a bit of growth spurt, one that lasted for a couple million years. This steady ballooning of brain size is one of the key themes of the human story. But then there's a late-breaking twist in that story—a kind of unexpected epilogue. You see, after our brains grew, they shrank. But when this shrinkage happened and—of course, why—have remained mysterious.  My guest today is Jeremy DeSilva, a paleoanthropologist at Dartmouth College. He's an expert on the evolution of the foot and ankle. But, it turns out the body is all connected, so he also thinks about brains and heads. In a recent paper, Jerry and his colleagues took up the mystery of human brain shrinkage. They first set out to establish more precisely when in our past this occurred. Using a large database of crania, spanning few million years, Jerry's team was able to establish that this shrinkage event happened much more recently than previously thought—a mere 3000 years ago. Naturally, the next question was why? What happened around that time that could have possibly caused our brains to deflate? To answer this, Jerry and his collaborators turned to an unexpected source of insight: Ants. That's right, ants. They argue that these ultrasocial critters may offer clues to why we might have suddenly dispensed with a chunk of brain about the size of a lemon.  This is a really juicy paper and a super fun conversation, so we should just get to it. But I did want to mention: Jerry has a recent book from 2021 called First Steps that I whole-heartedly recommend. It's about origins of upright walking in humans—which it turns out, is bound up with all kinds of other important aspects of being human. So definitely check that out! Thanks folks—on to my chat with Dr. Jerry DeSilva. Enjoy!   The paper we discuss is available here. A transcript of this episode is available here.   Notes and links 3:00 ­– A podcast episode from the Leakey Foundation about the so-called “obstetrical dilemma.” 5:40 – A refresher for those who have trouble keeping their ‘cenes' straight: the Pleistocene refers to the period from 2.58 million years ago to 11,700 years ago; immediately after that came the Holocene, which we are still in today. 7:00 – An article discussing the issue of unethical collections of human remains. 10:30 – The key figure form Dr. DeSilva's paper—showing the changing “slopes” of brain size over time—is available here. 19:30 – The original article by Leslie Aiello and Peter Wheeler on the “expensive tissue hypothesis.” A more recent popular article on the hypothesis. 20:45 – An article by a major proponent of the social intelligence hypothesis, Dr. Robin Dunbar. A more critical review of the social intelligence hypothesis. 23:00 – A recent paper by Jeff Stibel and an older preprint by John Hawks evaluating the “body size” explanation of recent brain shrinkage.   24:00 – See our earlier episode on human self-domestication with Brian Hare.   29:00 – One of Dr. DeSilva's collaborators on this research is Dr. James Traniello, who specializes in ants. 34:45 – An overview of the earliest history of writing. 37:20 – Dr. DeSilva's book, First Steps, came out in 2021. 39:00 – A recent paper discussing the evolution of rotational birth in humans. Dr. DeSilva recommends: Kindred, by Rebecca Wragg Sykes (featured in an earlier episode!) Origin, by Jennifer Raff   You can find Dr. DeSilva on Twitter.   Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) (https://disi.org), which is made possible by a generous grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to UCLA. It is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from Assistant Producer Urte Laukaityte and with creative support from DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd (https://www.mayhilldesigns.co.uk/). Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala (https://sarahdopierala.wordpress.com/). You can subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. **You can now subscribe to the Many Minds newsletter here!** We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: manymindspodcast@gmail.com. For updates about the show, visit our website (https://disi.org/manyminds/), or follow us on Twitter: @ManyMindsPod.

We're still on vacation, and while we wait to come back for our ninth season of Tumble Science Podcast for Kids, we're sharing one of our favorite episodes from a few years ago: The Cave of the Neanderthal Tools. What tools did Neanderthals use? That's what Leo wants to know. We dig into the past of Neanderthal archeology, back to when people used to excavate caves with dynamite! Archeologist and author Rebecca Wragg Sykes shares the explosive story of how Neanderthals made tools, and what they can tell us about how Neanderthals lived. Listen to our bonus interview episode with Rebecca about Neanderthals caves, available for Patrons who pledge just $1/ month or more on patreon.com/tumblepodcast. Learn more about Neanderthals and their “knapping” habits with the free resources on our blog at www.sciencepodcastforkids.com.

On this episode, Emily Long and Kirsten Lopez interview two of the founders of Trowelblazers, Dr. Brenna Hassett and Dr. Rebecca Wragg Sykes. The Trowelblazers website highlights the contributions of women in archaeology, geology, and paleontology. The founders of Trowelblazers Suzanne Pilaar Birch, Tori Herridge, Brenna Hassett, and Rebecca Wragg Skykes are an amazing group... Continue Reading → The post Trowelblazers Interview with Dr. Brenna Hassett and Dr. Rebecca Wragg Sykes appeared first on Women In Archaeology.

There's a common story about the human past that goes something like this. For a few hundred thousand years during the Stone Age we were kind of limping along as a species, in a bit of a cognitive rut, let's say. But then, quite suddenly, around 30 or 40 thousand years ago in Europe, we really started to come into our own. All of a sudden we became masters of art and ornament, of symbolism and abstract thinking. This story of a kind of "cognitive revolution" in the Upper Paleolithic has been a mainstay of popular discourse for decades. I'm guessing you're familiar with it. It's been discussed in influential books by Jared Diamond and Yuval Harari; you can read about it on Wikipedia. What you may not know is that this story, compelling as it may be, is almost certainly wrong. My first guest today is Dr. Eleanor Scerri, an archaeologist at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, where she heads the Pan-African Evolution research group. My second guest is Dr. Manuel Will, an archaeologist and Lecturer at the University of Tübingen in Germany. Together, Eleanor and Manuel are authors of a new paper titled 'The revolution that still isn't: The origins of behavioral complexity in Homo sapiens.' In the paper, they pull together a wealth of evidence showing that there really was no cognitive revolution—no one watershed moment in time and space. Rather, the origins of modern human cognition and culture are to be found not in one part of Europe but across Africa. And they're also to be found much earlier than that classic picture suggests.  Here, we talk about the “cognitive revolution" model and why it has endured. We discuss a seminal paper from the year 2000 that first influentially challenged the revolution model. We talk about the latest evidence of complex cognition from the Middle Stone Age in Africa—including the perforation of marine shells to make necklaces; and the use of ochre for engraving, painting, and even sunblock. We discuss how, though the same complex cognitive abilities were likely in place for the last few hundred thousand years, those abilities were often expressed patchily in different parts of the world at different times. And we consider the factors that led to this patchy expression, especially changes in population size.   I confess I was always a bit taken with this whole "cognitive revolution" idea. It had a certain mystery and allure. This new picture that's taking its place is certainly a bit messier, but no less fascinating. And, more importantly, it's truer to the complexities of the human saga.  Alright friends, on to my conversation with Eleanor Scerri & Manuel Will. Enjoy!   A transcript of this episode will be available soon.   Notes and links 3:30 – The paper by Dr. Scerri and Dr. Will we discuss in this episode is here. Their paper updates and pays tribute to a classic paper by McBrearty and Brooks, published in 2000. 6:00 – The classic “cognitive revolution” model sometimes discussed under the banner of “behavioral modernity” or the “Great Leap Forward.” It has been recently featured, for instance, in Harari's Sapiens. 11:00 – Dr. Scerri has written extensively on debates about where humans evolved within Africa—see, e.g., this paper.  18:00 – A study of perforated marine shells in North Africa during the Middle Stone Age. A paper by Dr. Will and colleagues about the use of various marine resources during this period.  23:00 – A paper describing the uses of ochre across Africa during the Middle Stone Age. Another paper describing evidence for ochre processing 100,000 years ago at Blombos Cave in South Africa. At the same site, engraved pieces of ochre have been found. 27:00 – A study examining the evidence that ochre was used as an adhesive. 30:00 – For a recent review of the concept of “cumulative culture,” see here. We discussed the concept of “cumulative culture” in our earlier episode with Dr. Cristine Legare.  37:00 – For an overview of the career of the human brain and the timing of various changes, see our earlier episode with Dr. Jeremy DeSilva. 38:00 – An influential study on the role of demography in the emergence of complex human behavior. 41:00 – On the idea that distinctive human intelligence is due in large part to culture and our abilities to acquire cultural knowledge, see Henrich's The Secret of Our Success. See also our earlier episode with Dr. Michael Muthukrishna.  45:00 – For discussion of the Neanderthals and why they may have died out, see our earlier episode with Dr. Rebecca Wragg Sykes.    Recommendations Dr. Scerri recommends research on the oldest Homo sapiens fossils, found in Morocco and described here, and new research on the evidence for the widespread burning of landscapes in Malawi, described here.  Dr. Will recommends the forthcoming update of Peter Mitchell's book, The Archaeology of Southern Africa. See Twitter for more updates from Dr. Scerri and Dr. Will.   Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute, which is made possible by a generous grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to UCLA. It is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from Assistant Producer Urte Laukaityte and with creative support from DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd. Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala. Subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also now subscribe to the Many Minds newsletter here! We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: manymindspodcast@gmail.com.   For updates about the show, visit our website or follow us on Twitter: @ManyMindsPod.

Noi sapiens siamo l'unica specie umana rimasta sul pianeta perchè 40 mila anni fa i neandertaliani si estinsero, anche per colpa nostra. Però, prima di sparire, hanno fatto sesso con noi. Ce lo dice il DNA: oggi gran parte dell'umanità porta un po' dei loro geni. Chi erano i neandertaliani, come erano fatti, come vivevano e cosa facevano? Per commenti e suggerimenti scrivetemi qui. La musica sexy è di Massimo Anelli. Le fonti. Placca e baci. Sesso e DNA fossile. Fare l'amore coi neanderthal. La famiglia di neanderthal. Campo magnetico assassino. “Neandertal. Vita, arte, amore e morte” di Rebecca Wragg Sykes, Bollati Boringhieri, 2021. “L'uomo di Neanderthal. Alla ricerca dei genomi perduti” di Svante Pääbo, Einaudi, 2014. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bestselling author and self-confessed flint-knapping nerd, Rebecca Wragg-Sykes discusses her research on neanderthals with Melanie. Why were our fellow humans dismissed as a brute, dumb creature for so long, and what can recent research tell us about the minds of this lost but separate species of human? Rebecca is the author of Kindred: Neanderthal life, love, death and art, and her work can be found at: https://www.rebeccawraggsykes.com/

Here is another gem from our archive. In this fascinating episode the archaeologist and writer Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes takes us back further than we've ever been before, 125,000 years, to meet our extinct kindred: the Neanderthals. We visit the vibrant wild woodlands of Britain, a hornbeam forest on the European continent and a German lakeshore. Rebecca describes the world as it was in the interglacial age known as the Eemian and tell us how the Neanderthals lived, worked and loved in this warm woodland environment. The subject matter and scenes that feature in this episode come from Rebecca Wragg Sykes's new book, Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art. For much much more visit: tttpodcast.com Show Notes: Scene One: Britain, 123,000 years ago. A catastrophic flood breaks the ridge connecting Britain to the rest of Europe. The island becomes a wasteland for many thousands of years. Scene Two: A hornbeam forest in Germany, during the Eemian. We meet the weird and wonderful animals that populated the continent at the time. Scene Three: Neumark lakeshore, also during the Eemian. Tiny remains of organic material provide insight into the kinds of tools the Neanderthals were making and using. Memento: One of the spears used to kill deer at the Neumark lakeshore. People/Social Presenter: Artemis Irvine Guest: Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes Producers: Maria Nolan Titles: Jon O Follow us on Twitter: @tttpodcast_ Podcast Partner: ColorGraph  

Developments in new technology such as DNA sequencing have transformed our understanding of the Neanderthals, one of a group of archaic humans who occupied Europe, the Middle East and Western Asia more than 300,000 years ago. First identified by fossil remains in 1856 in a German quarry, the Neanderthals led an extremely physical existence as hunter-gatherers. They were stronger than us, adaptable as a species to huge variations in climate, with brains as large as ours and sophisticated ways of creating tools. Many of us carry some of the DNA of Neanderthals, thanks to interbreeding with homo sapiens. Although the Neanderthals today are no longer with us, their story has a lot to tell us about ourselves and our future survival on the planet. Rajan Datar is joined by Janet Kelso, a computational biologist and Group Leader of the Minerva Research Group for Bioinformatics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. She specialises in the analysis of DNA sequencing of ancient people such as Neanderthals; Katerina Harvati, the Senckenberg Professor for Paleoanthropology and Director of the Institute for Archaeological Sciences at the University of Tübingen. Her work focuses on the origins of modern humans and Neanderthal evolution; and archaeologist and writer Rebecca Wragg Sykes, Honorary Fellow in the School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology at the University of Liverpool. Her award-winning book Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art was published in 2020. Produced by Fiona Clampin for the BBC World Service (Image: Neanderthal Female, re-created by artists Andrie and Alfons Kennis. Photo: Joe McNally/Getty Images)

This is a live session from Jaipur Literature Festival 2023!

RHLSTP Book Club 39 - Kindred. Richard talks to archaeologist and writer Rebecca Wragg Sykes about her all encompassing, lyrical and fascinating book, Kindred. They chat about how and when Neanderthal were discovered, the triumph of archaeology that allows us to know about their life, loves and deaths, whether a line was crossed when Homo sapiens and Neanderthals had sex, why Neanderthals died out and what Rebecca would ask if one of them showed up today.Buy this brilliant book here https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kindred/dp/B08GL16KLVSUPPORT THE SHOW!Watch our TWITCH CHANNELSee extra content at our WEBSITE Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/rhlstp. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Neanderthals are stereotypically viewed as thoughtless savages - but is this an accurate depiction or was there more to Neanderthal society?Discovered only 160 years ago what can they tell us about the Palaeolithic past? In this episode, Tristan is joined by archaeologist and author Rebecca Wragg Sykes to help dispel some of these myths. Using cutting edge technology and looking at recent discoveries, archaeologists are able to give a clearer picture of what Neanderthal life was actually like. With evidence of seafood in their diet, the advanced use of tools and managing to survive for 300,000 years - there's more to Neanderthal's than meets the eye.For more Ancients content, subscribe to our Ancients newsletter here. If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When you hear the word “Neanderthal,” you probably picture a mindless, clumsy brute. It's often used as an insult — even by our president, who last year called anti-maskers “Neanderthals.” But what if we have more in common with our ancestral cousins than we think? On this week's On the Media, hear how these early humans have been unfairly maligned in science and in popular culture. 1. John Hawks [@johnhawks], professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, on our biological family tree—and the complicated branch that is Neanderthals. Listen. 2. Rebecca Wragg Sykes [@LeMoustier], archeologist and author of Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art, on and what we know about how they lived. Listen.  3. Clive Finlayson [@CliveFinlayson], Director, Chief Scientist, and Curator of the Gibraltar National Museum, on how studying what's inside Gorham and Vanguard caves can help reconstruct Neanderthal life beyond them. Listen.  4. Angela Saini, science journalist, on how Neanderthals have been co-opted to push mythologies about the genetic basis of race. Listen. Music:Boy Moves the Sun by Michael AndrewsYoung Heart by Brad MehldauSacred Oracle by John ZornTomorrow Never Knows by Quartetto d' Archi Di Dell'Orchestra di Milano Guiseppe VerdiInvestigations by Kevin MacLeod

Were neanderthals just dumb brutes waiting for extinction? The latest research says they were anything but dimwitted. They had culture, forethought, and emotion - just like us.REBECCA WRAGG SYKES is a palaeolithic archaeologist and honorary fellow at the University of Liverpool, specialising in Neanderthals. She is co-founder of the Trowelblazers website, celebrating women archaeologists, palaeontologists and geologists through the ages, and the author of Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art.MARK from Evolution Soup talks to Rebecca about neanderthal history, biology, and technology (stone tools). The amazing DNA work on this hominid is also discussed, as well as the world of the female neanderthal and what the evidence can tell us. Kindred spirits, to be sure.Original interview video:  https://bit.ly/3z6UKRH#neanderthal #evolution #humanevolutionLINKS FOR REBECCA WRAGG SYKES:SITE: https://www.rebeccawraggsykes.comBLOG: http://www.therocksremain.orgARTWORKS: https://www.redbubble.com/people/sili...TWITTER: https://twitter.com/LeMoustierhttps://trowelblazers.com/ #RealFossilHunterLottie 'Sheanderthal' - Rebecca's article on female Neanderthals https://bit.ly/37mJeEVEVOLUTION SOUPYouTube: http://www.Support the show

What makes us human? It's a question we keep coming back to, in part because it's got no definitive answer. In this week's episode we explore the ultimate existential query by looking at two of our most recent human ancestors–Homo floresiensis and Neanderthals–with two experts, anthropologist Gregory Forth and archeologist Rebecca Wragg Sykes. Discovered by archeologists in 2003 on the Indonesian island Flores, Homo floresiensis were nicknamed “Hobbits” for their small stature and large feet. They hunted and may have used fire and made stone tools. Despite their small brains, some scientists believe they may have had mental abilities similar to ours. As for Neanderthals, the last thirty years of research have led to a portrait of a species that is very far from bumbling cavemen wielding heavy clubs. In fact, Neanderthals were sophisticated thinkers, creators, explorers, and innovators, much like Homo sapiens. Eve and Julie talk with Gregory and then Rebecca about what our ancient relatives teach us about ourselves–and whether it's possible that one of these hominins is still alive today. Gregory Forth received his doctorate at the University of Oxford and was a professor of anthropology at the University of Alberta for more than three decades. He's a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and is the author of more than a hundred scholarly papers and several academic books. Between Ape and Human: An Anthropologist on the Trail of a Hidden Hominoid is his first book for a general audience. Rebecca Wragg Sykes is an archeologist, author, and honorary Fellow in the School of Archeology, Classics, and Egyptology at the University of Liverpool. Her doctoral thesis, awarded in 2010, was the first synthesis of evidence for late Neanderthals in Britain. Her critically acclaimed and bestselling first book, Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art, is a deep dive into the 21st century science and understanding of these ancient relatives. Kindred won the 2021 PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History, was awarded Book of the Year by Current Archeology, and was selected as one of 2021's 100 Notable Books by The New York Times and a Book of the Year by the Sunday Times. Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com. We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more. Book Dreams is a part of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy. Since you're listening to Book Dreams, we'd like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows about literature, writing, and storytelling like Storybound and The History of Literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rebecca Wragg Sykes uses her experience at the cutting-edge of Palaeolithic research to share our new understanding of Neanderthals, shoving aside clichés of rag-clad brutes in an icy wasteland. She reveals them to be curious, clever connoisseurs of their world, technologically inventive and ecologically adaptable. Above all, they were successful survivors for more than 300,000 years, during times of massive climatic upheaval. Since their discovery 150 years ago, Neanderthals have gone from the losers of the human family tree to A-list hominins. The perception of the Neanderthal has changed dramatically, but despite growing scientific curiosity, popular culture fascination, and a wealth of coverage in the media and Sykes asks are we getting the whole story? Join us when Rebecca Wragg Sykes shares her complex and fascinating research on the reality of 21st century Neanderthals which remains virtually unknown and inaccessible outside the scientific literature, on this installment of Leoanrd Lopate at Large.

We talk with Rebecca Wragg Sykes about her bestselling book, Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art. The post Rebecca Wragg Sykes, KINDRED appeared first on Writer's Voice.

Glöm den skäggige grottmannen och tänk dig istället en fingerfärdig och pratsam kulturvarelse med goda relationer med vår egen art. Det är författaren Rebecca Wragg Sykes budskap i aktuella Släktskap. Satte han på sig en kostym hade man knappt sett någon skillnad mellan neanderthalaren och oss själva. Vetenskapsradion Historia tar pulsen på den senaste forskningen om vår nära kusin som nu presenteras i aktuella boken Släktskap av arkeologen Rebecca Wragg Sykes. Med dagens vetenskapliga metoder kan en enda neanderthaltand avslöja vad personen åt, hur den reste, hur länge den ammades och hur den tillverkade sina verktyg, och all denna kunskap ger oss ny en helt ny bild av vår nära släkting. Glöm den barbariske grottmannen, och tänk dig istället en kulturellt utvecklad varelse som säkert hade nära samarbete med vår egen art, menar författaren.Och så tipsar Panelen om historiska sommaraktiviteter och lekar som kan förnöja oss och reder ut vilken roll barnen spelat i historien apropå aktuella säsongen av Stranger Things.Programledare är Tobias Svanelid.

John J. Miller is joined by Rebecca Wragg Sykes of the University of Liverpool to discuss William Golding's 'The Inheritors.'

Los últimos estudios sobre los neandertales están cambiando la visión que se tenía de ellos como una humanidad salvaje e inferior a nuestra especie. Desarrollaron el arte, enterraban a sus muertos, usaban herramientas complejas y mucho más. Lo descubrimos con la arqueóloga y divulgadora Rebecca Wragg Sykes. En la segunda parte, volvemos a salir de viaje con Tito Vivas y su sección “Se buscan hombres para viaje peligroso”. Síguenos en redes sociales, comenta y participa en: - YouTube: El Dragón Invisible - Twitter: @Dragon_Podcast - Instagram: @eldragoninvisible - Facebook: El Dragón Invisible - Whatsapp: 660 387 997 Dirige y presenta: Jesús Ortega

Weekly JourneywithJesus.net postings. Essay by Debie Thomas: *The Work of Forgiveness* for Sunday, 20 February 2022; book review by Dan Clendenin: *Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art* by Rebecca Wragg Sykes (2020); film review by Dan Clendenin: *Hail! Hail! Rock-n-Roll* (1987); poem selected by Dan Clendenin: *The Remnant of the Fury Will Not Go* by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette.

You have a big brain. I have a big brain. We, as a species, have pretty big brains. But this wasn't always the case. Way back when, our brains were much smaller; then they went through a bit of growth spurt, one that lasted for a couple million years. This steady ballooning of brain size is one of the key themes of the human story. But then there's a late-breaking twist in that story—a kind of unexpected epilogue. You see, after our brains grew, they shrank. But when this shrinkage happened and—of course, why—have remained mysterious.  My guest today is Jeremy DeSilva, a paleoanthropologist at Dartmouth College. He's an expert on the evolution of the foot and ankle. But, it turns out the body is all connected, so he also thinks about brains and heads. In a recent paper, Jerry and his colleagues took up the mystery of human brain shrinkage. They first set out to establish more precisely when in our past this occurred. Using a large database of crania, spanning few million years, Jerry's team was able to establish that this shrinkage event happened much more recently than previously thought—a mere 3000 years ago. Naturally, the next question was why? What happened around that time that could have possibly caused our brains to deflate? To answer this, Jerry and his collaborators turned to an unexpected source of insight: Ants. That's right, ants. They argue that these ultrasocial critters may offer clues to why we might have suddenly dispensed with a chunk of brain about the size of a lemon.  This is a really juicy paper and a super fun conversation, so we should just get to it. But I did want to mention: Jerry has a recent book from 2021 called First Steps that I whole-heartedly recommend. It's about origins of upright walking in humans—which it turns out, is bound up with all kinds of other important aspects of being human. So definitely check that out! Thanks folks—on to my chat with Dr. Jerry De Silva. Enjoy!   The paper we discuss is available here. A transcript of this episode will be available soon.   Notes and links 3:00 ­– A podcast episode from the Leakey Foundation about the so-called “obstetrical dilemma.” 5:40 – A refresher for those who have trouble keeping their ‘cenes' straight: the Pleistocene refers to the period from 2.58 million years ago to 11,700 years ago; immediately after that came the Holocene, which we are still in today. 7:00 – An article discussing the issue of unethical collections of human remains. 10:30 – The key figure form Dr. DeSilva's paper—showing the changing “slopes” of brain size over time—is available here. 19:30 – The original article by Leslie Aiello and Peter Wheeler on the “expensive tissue hypothesis.” A more recent popular article on the hypothesis. 20:45 – An article by a major proponent of the social intelligence hypothesis, Dr. Robin Dunbar. A more critical review of the social intelligence hypothesis. 23:00 – A recent paper by Jeff Stibel and an older preprint by John Hawks evaluating the “body size” explanation of recent brain shrinkage.   24:00 – See our earlier episode on human self-domestication with Brian Hare.   29:00 – One of Dr. DeSilva's collaborators on this research is Dr. James Traniello, who specializes in ants. 34:45 – An overview of the earliest history of writing. 37:20 – Dr. DeSilva's book, First Steps, came out in 2021. 39:00 – A recent paper discussing the evolution of rotational birth in humans. Dr. DeSilva recommends: Kindred, by Rebecca Wragg Sykes (featured in an earlier episode!) Origin, by Jennifer Raff   You can find Dr. DeSilva on Twitter.   Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) (https://disi.org), which is made possible by a generous grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to UCLA. It is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from assistant producer Cecilia Padilla. Creative support is provided by DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd (https://www.mayhilldesigns.co.uk/). Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala (https://sarahdopierala.wordpress.com/). You can subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: manymindspodcast@gmail.com. For updates about the show, visit our website (https://disi.org/manyminds/), or follow us on Twitter: @ManyMindsPod.

When you hear the word “Neanderthal,” you probably picture a mindless, clumsy brute. It's often used as an insult — even by our president, who last year called anti-maskers “Neanderthals.” But what if we have more in common with our ancestral cousins than we think? On this week's On the Media, hear how these early humans have been unfairly maligned in science and in popular culture. 1. John Hawks [@johnhawks], professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, on our biological family tree—and the complicated branch that is Neanderthals. Listen. 2. Rebecca Wragg Sykes [@LeMoustier], archeologist and author of Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art, on and what we know about how they lived. Listen.  3. Clive Finlayson [@CliveFinlayson], Director, Chief Scientist, and Curator of the Gibraltar National Museum, on how studying what's inside Gorham and Vanguard caves can help reconstruct Neanderthal life beyond them. Listen.  4. Angela Saini, science journalist, on how Neanderthals have been co-opted to push mythologies about the genetic basis of race. Listen. Music:Boy Moves the Sun by Michael AndrewsYoung Heart by Brad MehldauSacred Oracle by John ZornTomorrow Never Knows by Quartetto d' Archi Di Dell'Orchestra di Milano Guiseppe VerdiInvestigations by Kevin MacLeod

We hope you enjoy this great interview from the archives. If you're doing cool research, and want to talk about it on the show, drop us a note at thedirtpodcast@gmail.com! Anna and Amber sit down with Dr. Rebecca Wragg Sykes, Paleolithic archaeologist and author of the book "Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death, and Art." We talk about Rebecca's education and her love for all things ancient, and she resolves some common misconceptions about our Neanderthal cousins. "Kindred" just came out in the States, so pick up a copy of your very own for an amazing synthesis of current Neanderthal knowledge. Start your own podcast with 30% off Zencastr for the first 3 months with The Dirt! Click anywhere on this paragraph. Links Neanderthals Among Mammoths: Excavations at Lynford Quarry, Norfolk (via Archaeology Data Service) Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (European Commission) Trowelblazers Rebecca Wragg Sykes Contact Email the Dirt Podcast: thedirtpodcast@gmail.com ArchPodNet APN Website: https://www.archpodnet.com APN on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/archpodnet APN on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/archpodnet APN on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/archpodnet Tee Public Store Affiliates Wildnote TeePublic Timeular

We hope you enjoy this great interview from the archives. If you're doing cool research, and want to talk about it on the show, drop us a note at thedirtpodcast@gmail.com! Anna and Amber sit down with Dr. Rebecca Wragg Sykes, Paleolithic archaeologist and author of the book "Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death, and Art." We talk about Rebecca's education and her love for all things ancient, and she resolves some common misconceptions about our Neanderthal cousins. "Kindred" just came out in the States, so pick up a copy of your very own for an amazing synthesis of current Neanderthal knowledge. Links Neanderthals Among Mammoths: Excavations at Lynford Quarry, Norfolk (via Archaeology Data Service) Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (European Commission) Trowelblazers Rebecca Wragg Sykes Contact Email the Dirt Podcast: thedirtpodcast@gmail.com ArchPodNet APN Website: https://www.archpodnet.com APN on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/archpodnet APN on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/archpodnet APN on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/archpodnet Tee Public Store Affiliates Wildnote TeePublic Timeular

The Cundill Prize and PEN Hessell-Tiltman prizes for non-fiction writing about history are announced in early December. Rana Mitter talks to Cundill judge Henrietta Harrison about why their choice this year was Blood On The River by Marjoleine Kars. And with the news tonight that Rebecca Wragg Sykes book Neanderthals has won the PEN Hessell Tiltman - we revisit the conversation Rana recorded when the book came out bringing together Priya Atwal, Joseph Henrich and Rebecca Wragg Sykes in a conversation about family ties and power networks which ranges across Sikh queens, through the ties of marriage and religion which helped shape the Western world, back to the links between Neanderthals and early man. Priya Atwal has published Royal and Rebels: The Rise and Fall of the Sikh Empire. Dr Atwal is a Teaching Fellow in Modern South Asian History at King's College London. Joseph Henrich is a Professor in the department of Human and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and the author of The Weirdest People in the World: How the West became psychologically peculiar and particularly prosperous. Rebecca Wragg Sykes is an Honorary Fellow at University of Liverpool and Université de Bordeaux. She is the author of Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art and is one of the founders of https://trowelblazers.com/ Marjoleine Kars has won the 2021 Cundill Prize for her book Blood on the River: A Chronicle of Mutiny and Freedom on the Wild Coast You might be interested in other Free Thinking conversations with Rutger Bregman author of Human Kind https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08d77hx Penny Spikins speaking about Neanderthal history at the 2019 Free Thinking Festival https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0003zp2 Tom Holland on his history of the impact of Christianity on Western thinking in a programme called East Meets West https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00093d1 The 2020 Cundill prize winner Camilla Townsend discussing Times of Change with Tom Holland, Emma Griffin and Jared Diamond https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000py89 Producer: Robyn Read

What tools did Neanderthals use? That's what Leo wants to know. We dig into the past of Neanderthal archeology, back to when people used to excavate caves with dynamite! Archeologist and author Rebecca Wragg Sykes shares the explosive story of how Neanderthals made tools, and what they can tell us about how Neanderthals lived. Listen to our bonus interview episode with Rebecca about Neanderthals caves, available for Patrons who pledge just $1/ month or more on patreon.com/tumblepodcast. Learn more about Neanderthals and their “knapping” habits with the free resources on our blog at www.sciencepodcastforkids.com.

Avevano i capelli rossi, vivevano tra i ghiacci e si sono estinti perché noi Sapiens eravamo più in gamba... o no?

Welcome back folks! Today's episode circles some big questions. What does it mean to be human? What's distinctive about the human mind and the human mode of being? What is human nature—if such a thing exists—and how could we catch a glimpse of it? Should we go looking for it in other primate species? Should we look deep in our fossil record? My guest today is Dr. Agustín Fuentes, Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University. He is the other of a number of books, most recently The Creative Spark, in 2017, and Why We Believe, in 2019. Agustín was trained as a biological anthropologist, but as, you'll hear, he's very much interested in the whole human, not just our skulls and teeth and genes. He's spent the better part of his career trying to build a more integrated, more fully fleshed out view of our species—one that takes seriously our bodies and brains, our culture and cognition, our primate heritage and our Pleistocene past.  Here we talk about Agustín's career—how he got into anthropology in the first place, and how he went from observing langurs in Indonesia, to writing about human creativity and belief. We discuss the human niche and why it's distinctive (but maybe not unique). We touch on monogamy and how it's not a monolith. We talk about maleness and masculinity. And, for those who've been following recent hubbubs online, rest assured that we also talk about Darwin—and specifically what Darwin got wrong about biological sex and race. I've been following Agustín's work for some time and was thrilled to get him on the show. He's an unusually expansive and boundary-crossing thinker—and that's on full display in this conversation. He also doesn't shy away from messiness. He welcomes the mess. He celebrates complexity. He enthuses about the richly, entangled human condition. Whether or not you yourself celebrate mess and complexity and entanglement—I'm pretty sure you'll enjoy hearing what Agustín has to say about it.  One quick announcement before he get to it: we'd like to welcome a new member of the Many Minds team: Cecilia Padilla. She is our new Assistant Producer, and we're super excited to have her on board.  Alright friends—here's my chat with Dr. Agustín Fuentes. Enjoy!   A transcript of this episode is available here.    Notes and links 6:00 – One of the first anthropology courses to inspire Dr. Fuentes was taught by Dr. Phyllis Dolhinow of UC Berkeley. 9:15 – An early publication by Dr. Fuentes on the Mentawai langur (Presbytis potenziani). 12:00 – A 2012 paper by Dr. Fuentes laying out the aims, findings, and history of the subfield known as ethnoprimatology, which studies interactions between humans and primates. 13:30 – A 2013 paper by Dr. Fuentes describing ethnoprimatological findings from Bali. 17:30 – Dr. Fuentes's 1998 paper on monogamy, which he considers one of his first important contributions to the field. 22:00 – In 2008 Dr. Fuentes published Evolution and Human Behavior, a book-length comparison of different accounts of why humans are the way they are. 23:15 – The classic book on niche construction by Odling-Smee and colleagues. A single-article discussion of the concept of niche construction is available here. 26:00 – The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis website, which Dr. Fuentes recommends. 29:40 – A paper by Dr. Fuentes on the human niche. 32:00 – One distinctive aspect of the human niche—belief—is discussed extensively in Dr. Fuentes's book Why We Believe. 37:00 – Dr. Fuentes recently reviewed Kindred, by Rebecca Wragg Sykes, who we had on the show previously. 39:30 – Dr. Fuentes's recent paper on the search for the “roots” of masculinity. 54:00 – Dr. Fuentes recently wrote a chapter on Darwin's account of the “races of man” in A Most Interesting Problem, a volume edited by Jeremy De Silva. See also his recent editorial in Science, which raised quite a stir. Dr. Fuentes also recommends the chapter in the De Silva volume by Dr. Holly Dunsworth titled ‘This View of Wife.' 1:03:00 – For the broader historical and biographical context of Darwin's ideas, I recommend Janet Browne's two-volume biography. 1:12:15 – Dr. Fuentes quotes Tim Ingold's idea that “anthropology is philosophy with people in it.” If you're interested in learning more about the topics we discussed, be sure to check out Why We Believe and The Creative Spark. Dr. Fuentes also recommends: Kindred, Rebecca Wragg Sykes The Promise of Contemporary Primatology, Erin P. Riley Emergent Warfare in Our Evolutionary Past, Nam C. Kim & Marc Kissel Recent books on race by Dorothy Roberts and Alondra Nelson Anthropology: Why It Matters, Tim Ingold Darwin's Unfinished Symphony, Kevin Laland Pink Brain, Blue Brain, Lise Eliot The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry   You can find Dr. Fuentes on Twitter (@Anthrofuentes) and follow his research at his website.      Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) (https://disi.org), which is made possible by a generous grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to UCLA. It is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from assistant producer Cecilia Padilla. Creative support is provided by DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd (https://www.mayhilldesigns.co.uk/). Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala (https://sarahdopierala.wordpress.com/). You can subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: manymindspodcast@gmail.com. For updates about the show, visit our website (https://disi.org/manyminds/), or follow us on Twitter: @ManyMindsPod.

Indian authorities have approved the world's first DNA-based Covid vaccine for emergency use. Not all the data that has led to the opening of the phase 3 trials is yet publicly available, but as public health policy expert Chandrakant Lahariya explains to presenter Roland Pease, it could be a real help in India's, and the world's, fight to get things under control. WHO Wuhan expedition The origins of the Covid virus were investigated last winter by a WHO team sent to Wuhan – where the first cases were discovered – earlier this year. Their work has since become the subject of intense political scrutiny and some criticism. This week, members of the team including Marian Koopmans have written a rebuttal, setting out the original terms of the investigation and urging the continuation of the process, as she explains to Victoria Gill. Decolonise Science Most of the science written by people from or about the African continent is written in English. Many local African languages do not currently have a meaningful vocabulary for many of the scientific terms and concepts researchers use. This week a team of scientists, journalists, and translators are completing the launch of a project called Decolonise Science, which will take 180 nominated papers posted on the website AfricaArxiv, translate them into 6 African languages including isiZulu, Sothu, and Hausa, and then use Machine Learning methods to build resources for science communication and education in people's home languages. Project partner Sibusiso Byela explains the thinking. Royal Society Africa Prize winner This week the UK's Royal Society announced its annual awards. Kenya's George Warimwe has taken the Africa Award for his work creating vaccines for a virus that creates disease in livestock and humans – Rift Valley Fever. His promising approach stems from years of working with adenovirus technology akin to the AstraZeneca Covid virus. But as he explains, his One Health approach is to learn from the immune response in humans and apply it to animals, and vice-versa. The grant associated with the award should also help him and his team pick- up on research left-off before the coronavirus pandemic. How did our ancestors sleep? How we sleep is a topic of endless fascination and for some can, ironically be quite exhausting. Modern life has allowed us to invade the night, and those pesky late night work emails, social media and TV all conspire to limit our sleep or simply prevent us from a truly restful night. But if we travel back in time, did our ancestors master sleep any better? No air-con or electric fan for them on hot humid nights, and only smoky fires to keep them warm on cold, snowy nights. What if we go way back into our pre-history, to our ancient human ancestors? No interruption for them from an unwanted work email, however perhaps a ravenous lion gave them more reason for those night time worries. CrowdScience listener Tom asks our sleep deprived presenter Datshiane Navanayagam to investigate how our sleep has changed over history and pre-history. She talks to Professor Russell Foster, Head of the Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute at the University of Oxford and Neanderthal expert Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes about slumber habits in days of yore, and in doing so, she uncovers some top tips from our ancestors that may give us all a better nights rest. (Image: Getty Images) Presenters: Roland Pease and Datshiane Navanayagam Producers: Alex Mansfield and Alexandra Feachem

How we sleep is a topic of endless fascination and for some can, ironically be quite exhausting. Modern life has allowed us to invade the night, and those pesky late night work emails, social media and TV all conspire to limit our sleep or simply prevent us from a truly restful night. But if we travel back in time, did our ancestors master sleep any better? No air-con or electric fan for them on hot humid nights, and only smoky fires to keep them warm on cold, snowy nights. What if we go way back into our pre-history, to our ancient human ancestors? No interruption for them from an unwanted work email, however perhaps a ravenous lion gave them more reason for those night time worries. CrowdScience listener Tom asks our sleep deprived presenter Datshiane Navanayagam to investigate how our sleep has changed over history and pre-history. She talks to Professor Russell Foster, Head of the Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute at the University of Oxford and Neanderthal expert Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes about slumber habits in days of yore, and in doing so, she uncovers some top tips from our ancestors that may give us all a better nights rest. Presented by Datshiane Navanayagam and Produced by Alexandra Feachem (Woman sitting in bed and yawning. Credit: JGI/Jamie Grill/Getty Images)

The pop-culture stereotype of a Neanderthal – even the word itself – conjures the image of a stumbling buffoon, dressed in a loincloth, banging some rocks together. But who actually were our ancient relatives?

On this week's episode we speak to archaeologist and author of Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art, Rebecca Wragg Sykes. She joins managing editor Sameer Rahim to discuss the fascinating story of our closest cousins, the Neanderthals: how they might have lived, whether they had imagination—and just how much of our perceptions of them has changed in the 150 years since we first discovered their fossils. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We're on summer break this week. Back in a couple weeks with the kick-off of Season 3! In the meanwhile, here's a favorite episode from our archives: a conversation with Dr. Rebecca Wragg Sykes about her 2020 book, Kindred. Enjoy! --- You probably think you know the Neanderthals. We've all been hearing about them since we were kids, after all. They were all over the comics; they were in museum dioramas and on cartoons. They were always cast as mammoth-eating, cave-dwelling dimwits—nasty brutes, in other words. You probably also learned that they died off because they couldn't keep pace with us, Homo sapiens, their svelter, savvier superiors. That's story we had long been told anyhow. But, over the past few decades, there's been a slow-moving sea change—a revolution in how archaeologists understand our closest cousins. For this episode I talked to Dr. Rebecca Wragg Sykes about this revolution. She is a Neanderthal specialist and the author of the new book Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art. Rebecca and I discuss the new picture of Neanderthals emerging from the latest archaeological research. We talk about where they lived, what they ate, the tools and clothing they made. We talk about the evidence that they had a considerable degree of cognitive sophistication and—very possibly—an aesthetic sense. Once we put all this together—and let the new picture come into focus—the gap long thought to separate them from us from them starts to close. And this makes the question of why they vanished about 40 thousand years ago all the more puzzling. I really hope you enjoy this one—I certainly did. And if you do, I definitely encourage you to check out Kindred!   A transcript of this episode is available here.   Notes and links  Most of the topics we discuss are treated in detail in Rebecca Wragg Sykes's book, Kindred. 5:40 – Earlier book-length treatments of the Neanderthals include The Smart Neanderthal and Neanderthals Revisited. 9:15 – The archaeological site of Atapuerca in Spain, which includes the Sima de los Huesos (Pit of Bones). 11:20 – The Neander Valley in Germany was the site of the very first Neanderthal find in 1856. 11:50 – Another early site was Krapina, Croatia, which is now home to a Neanderthal museum. 24:30 – A recent academic article on the complexity of Neanderthal tool use. 28:27 – A French site—La Folie—gives a sense of what some Neanderthal dwellings were like. 41:05 – A popular article about the “wow site” at Bruniquel. The original academic article. 49:16 – An article on the evidence that Neanderthals were preparing and using birch tar. 56:45 – Some evidence suggests Neanderthals were interested in bird feathers and talons. 1:01:30 – There is now evidence for repeated phases of interbreeding between human and Neanderthals. 1:05:00 – Other ancient hominin species included the Denisovans. 1:07:00 – There are some reasons to believe that pathogens carried by humans may have played a role in the demise of the Neanderthals. 1:13:30 – Another richly imaginative treatment of ancient human life is Ancestral Geographies of the Neolithic, by Mark Edmonds. To keep up with the latest Neanderthal research, Dr. Wragg Sykes recommends following archaeologists such as John Hawks (@johnhawks). She is also on Twitter (@LeMoustier) and her website is: https://www.rebeccawraggsykes.com/. Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) (https://www.diverseintelligencessummer.com/), which is made possible by a generous grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to UCLA. It is hosted by Kensy Cooperrider, with creative support from DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster, and Associate Director Hilda Loury. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd (https://www.mayhilldesigns.co.uk/). Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala (https://sarahdopierala.wordpress.com/). You can subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: manymindspodcast@gmail.com. For updates about the show, follow us on Twitter: @ManyMindsPod.

“Neanderthal” is a common term of abuse but should we stop feeling so superior towards our close evolutionary relatives? Did they think like us, even at the abstract level? Rebecca Wragg Sykes, author of the “insanely fascinating” Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death And Art tells Ian Dunt what we know about the astonishing sophistication of Neanderthal mind, manufacturing and material culture… and why there are traces of Neanderthal in us today. “If we could scan a Neanderthal brain it's very possible we'd see they didn't think so differently from us.”“We assume we're ‘better' than Neanderthals because we dominated them… That doesn't fit with the idea of different human groups meeting and interbreeding.” “We shouldn't be surprised that we could breed with Neanderthals. They are another kind of human”“Homo sapiens are weird in the evolutionary tree, with our big balloon heads.” “Neanderthal women were highly muscled. You wouldn't want to arm-wrestle them.” Presented by Ian Dunt. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers: Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hosted by Robin Ince and Dr Helen Czerski this episode of the Science Shambles podcast is an audio recording of our weekly Sunday Science Q and A show that goes out at 10am BST on our YouTube channel. This week Robin and Helen are joined by Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes and Prof Chris Stringer to talk of Dragon Man, Neanderthal music and jam vapour... Watch them on our YouTube channel at youtube.com/cosmicshambles and get bonus content and extended conversations with guests by subscribing at patreon.com/cosmicshambles

Everything you didn't know you didn't know about Neanderthals. As wolves are to dogs, these people are our evolutionary cousins. Were Neanderthals just a bunch of ‘neanderthals' (cue common insult), or was there so much more to them? It seems there was. We are learning more and more everyday and my guests are at the absolute cutting, digging, scraping and genetically testing edge. Professor Tom Higham, author of ‘The World Before Us' and Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes, author of ‘Kindred' tell me who they were. Mysteries are solved but one big one remains. Why did they go extinct?

Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes tells us all about Neanderthals, and reveals how they continue to shape our view about deep human history.Once you've mastered the basics with Instant Genius. Dive deeper with Instant Genius Extra, where you'll find longer, richer discussions about the most exciting ideas in the world of science and technology. Only available on Apple Podcasts.Produced by the team behind BBC Science Focus Magazine. Visit our website: https://www.sciencefocus.com/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Best-selling author of the book Kindred, archaeologist Rebecca Wragg-Sykes chats with Melanie about the intelligence of Neanderthals and what their skill with technology might reveal about their kind of mind.

'Fascinating and entertaining. If you read one book on human origins, this should be it' Ian Morris, author of Why the West Rules - For Now 'The who, what, where, when and how of human evolution, from one of the world's experts on the dating of prehistoric fossils' Steve Brusatte, author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs 50,000 years ago, we were not the only species of human in the world. There were at least four others, including the Neanderthals, Homo floresiensis, Homo luzonesis and the Denisovans. At the forefront of the latter's ground-breaking discovery was Oxford Professor Tom Higham. In The World Before Us, he explains the scientific and technological advancements - in radiocarbon dating and ancient DNA, for example - that allowed each of these discoveries to be made, enabling us to be more accurate in our predictions about not just how long ago these other humans lived, but how they lived, interacted and live on in our genes today. This is the story of us, told for the first time with its full cast of characters. 'The application of new genetic science to pre-history is analogous to how the telescope transformed astronomy. Tom Higham brings us to the frontier of recent discoveries with a book that is both gripping and fun' Paul Collier, author of The Bottom Billion 'This exciting book shows that we now have a revolutionary new tool for reconstructing the human past: DNA from minute pieces of tooth and bone, and even from the dirt on the floor of caves' David Abulafia, author of The Boundless Sea 'The remarkable new science of palaeoanthropology, from lab bench to trench' Rebecca Wragg Sykes, author of Kindred 'Higham's thrilling account makes readers feel as if they were participating themselves in the extraordinary series of events that in the last few years has revealed our long-lost cousins' David Reich, author of Who We Are and How We Got Here 'A brilliant distillation of the ideas and discoveries revolutionising our understanding of human evolution' Chris Gosden, author of The History of Magic

Rebecca Wragg Sykes introduces us to 19th-century fossil hunter Mary Anning, whose life has inspired the new film Ammonite. She reveals the real woman behind the film, discussing Anning’s personal relationships, highlighting her most important discoveries and explaining how she was part of a substantial network of women scientists. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Happy (belated) birthday, Kim Stanley Robinson! Is he the author of this podcast? Hilary says, in some ways, yes. Matt says, most certainly, no! You be the judge! Anyway, it's weird to have a podcast that people listen to and seem to enjoy... This episode we talk a lot about art, making art, the experience of art, and the work (pun intended) of art. Language and communication seems to be a key theme in our discussion as well--between people, between humans and non-human persons (wolverine, Heather, and Click), and between homo sapiens and other non-homo sapiens humans (Heather and Click). We talk more about the dialectic between novelty and sameness, social organization and the place of the individual within the group in Shaman, and the patterns and diversity of experience available to pre-historic people. These chapters depict the eight eight festival, Loon's meeting Elga, and a long winter in which one member of the Wolf pack dies. At the eight eight festival, the shamans have their corroboree, and we see that not only do these people have a very accurate calendar, they also, according to the song sung by Pippi, have a sense that the world is probably round, and very big. But the key thing is Thorn and Loon's journey into the cave to bid farewell to the year and to get immersed in painting and art. In what may be KSR's most extended depiction of the process of art-making, we get a discussion of representation and abstraction, naturalism and realism, and the ability humans have to communicate with each other across eons and to alarm themselves with what they make. Along the way we also mention John Lanchester's review of Kindred, the book on Neanderthals by Rebecca Wragg Sykes, for the London Review of Books, and Matt reads a passage from James C. Scott's Against the Grain about the possible mass deskilling of early humans with the late Neolithic revolution. We also thank Shred Magazine and Sean Estelle @chitrans_plant and Daniel Aldana Cohen @aldatweets for a wonderful conversation last week about KSR's oeuvre. The full recorded conversation can be found on YouTube here. Thanks for listening! Email us at maroonedonmarspodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter @podcastonmars Leave us a voicemail on the Anchor.fm app Rate and review us on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts! Music by Spirit of Space --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/marooned-on-mars/message

Back off, you Neanderthal! It sounds as if you’ve just been dissed, but maybe you should take it as a compliment. Contrary to common cliches, our Pleistocene relatives were clever, curious, and technologically inventive. Find out how our assessment of Neanderthals has undergone a radical rethinking, and hear about the influence they have as they live on in our DNA. For example, some of their genes have a strong association with severe Covid 19 infection. Plus, how Neanderthal mini-brains grown in a lab will teach us about the evolution of Homo sapiens. Guests: Svante Pääbo – Evolutionary geneticist and Director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Doyle Stevick – Associate professor of educational leadership and policies at the University of South Carolina. Beverly Brown – Professor emerita of anthropology, Rockland Community College, New York. Rebecca Wragg Sykes – Paleolithic anthropologist, author of “Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art.” Alysson Muotri -  Neuroscientist and professor of pediatrics, cellular and molecular medicine at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine

* But didn't know to ask. Rebecca Wragg Sykes will also tell us about the art, language, and mysterious extinction of our brawny cousins. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ever looked up at the Moon and thought “I could live there”? Well… this week we hear how Chinese researchers have managed to make an almost completely self-sustaining base on Earth which could be replicated on the lunar surface. They’re also joined by Rebecca Wragg Sykes, the author of ‘Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art’, who explores new evidence suggesting the extinct humans may have had the power of language and speech. Pulitzer-prize winning environment reporter Elizabeth Kolbert also joins the pod to talk about her new book ‘Under a White Sky’, and whether environmental fixes like geoengineering will help or harm our efforts to address climate change. In the mix is a brand new theory for creating a working warp drive, and new research looking at human friendship. On the pod are Rowan Hooper, Tiffany O’Callaghan and Michael Le Page. To read more about the stories, subscribe at newscientist.com/podcasts.

They walk among us. Some percentage of the genes of many modern humans have been handed down to us from Neanderthals. Alan, who has about 2% of those genes, is more than a little excited to hear from expert Rebecca Wragg Sykes how Neanderthals looked, lived and loved. Her new book is Kindred. Support the show: https://www.aldacommunicationtraining.com/podcasts/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Archaeo-Chat: Rebecca Wragg Sykes - Kindred: Neanderthals Life, Love Death and Art Welcome to Archaeo-Chat. In this series we record unscripted conversations about archaeology, what it is like to be an archaeologist and related topics.   Today, I chat with Rebecca Wragg Sykes about her new book and our oft' misunderstood cousins, Neanderthals...   Links:   Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art:   https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/kindred...   Rebecca on Twitter:   https://twitter.com/LeMoustier   Website:   https://www.rebeccawraggsykes.com/

Early prehistorians had little more than stones and bones to work with as they tried to piece together the story of the Neanderthals, but today’s researchers work in ways that early prehistorians could never have imagined. Archaeologist and author Rebecca Wragg Sykes' new book Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Art, and Death synthesizes more than a century of research on Neanderthals – from the first Neanderthal fossil discovered, to the most up to date and cutting edge research - revealing a vivid portrait of one of our most intriguing and misunderstood relatives. Links Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death, and Art by Rebecca Wragg Sykes Rebecca Wragg Sykes' website Kindred bibliography with 61 pages of Neanderthal research papers Leakey Foundation grantee Carolina Mallol's Neanderthal Fire Project The Leakey Foundation Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. Support The Leakey Foundation Support this show and the science we talk about. For the month of February, we are running a campaign in celebration of Charles Darwin’s birthday. 100% of the money we raise will go towards funding research grants, and all donations up to a total of $2,500 will be matched by Leakey Foundation trustee Mike Smith and matched again by the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation. leakeyfoundation.org/donate  A Most Interesting Problem As part of our Darwin celebration, we’re having a virtual event on Saturday, February 13. “A Most Interesting Problem” celebrates Charles Darwin's contributions to science and explores what Darwin got right and wrong about human evolution - 150 years after the publication of his book The Descent of Man. The speakers will be Jeremey DeSilva, Darwin historian Janet Browne, Brian Hare, Yohannes Haile-Selassie, Augustin Fuentes, Holly Dunsworth, and Ann Gibbons. Visit bit.ly/originsdarwin to get your free tickets. Lunch Break Science Lunch Break Science is The Leakey Foundation's web series featuring short talks and interviews with Leakey Foundation grantees. Episodes stream live on the first and third Thursdays of every month. leakeyfoundation.org/live.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Paul Heer about the conundrum of Taiwan — one of the thorniest and most fraught issues confronting the new Biden foreign policy team as it navigates the U.S.-China relationship. Paul is a Distinguished Fellow at the Center for the National Interest and studies Chinese and East Asian issues. He served as the national intelligence officer for East Asia from 2007 to 2015, and was previously a senior analyst at the CIA’s Directorate of Intelligence in its China Issue Group. In December 2020, Paul published two articles about Taiwan policy in The National Interest: “The Strategic Dilemma of Taiwan’s Democracy” and “The Inconvenient Truth About Taiwan’s Place in the World.” This episode’s conversation centers on the diagnosis and recommendations made in those two pieces.6:48: The democratic David versus the authoritarian Goliath17:47: Taiwan reunification in the Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 era36:55: The U.S. position on Taiwan40:22: The future of one country, two systemsRecommendations:Paul: The works of Charles Dickens. Kaiser: Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art, by Rebecca Wragg Sykes.

The Neanderthals Brian Cox and Robin Ince are joined by hominids Alan Davies, Neanderthal expert and author Rebecca Wragg Sykes, and paleontologist and woolly mammoth expert Tori Herridge and learn just how misunderstood our ancestors have been. The image of the lumbering, ape like, simple, grunting Neanderthal has been turned on its head with the discovery that we are far more related to Neanderthals then we ever thought possible. Nearly all Europeans will have around 2% Neanderthal DNA, and the revelation of widespread interbreeding between Neanderthals and modern humans has turned the idea of our exceptionalism on its head. It seems that what defines us may have defined the Neanderthals as well, and we are not so different after all. Producer: Alexandra Feachem

And there you have it Cave Dwellers. Absolutely amazing and highly informative conversation with Rebecca Wragg Sykes. I know, without a doubt, you took away some fantastic and awesome content from that conversation, and remember, there is a rewind button for you to go back, so you can jot down all of that knowledge Rebecca so graciously shared with the Community. I would like to once again Thank Rebecca for giving up her precious time to hang with the Cave Dweller Community, so, make sure you support her by visiting her home page, and buying her book: Kindred, Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art. Amazing is all I can think of. So Cave Dwellers, don't forget, Join me next week. I am going to take a shot at going Solo next episode, and possibly a few after that. I am going to do a series of episodes where I recap all my previous conversations, with the awesome guests I had the utmost privilege to sit down with. I hope to also go into more detail about the subject matter I covered with all of them. I will start with the first episode with Joe Lawlor and work my way through to Rebecca Wragg Sykes conversation, so, I hope to not disappoint you. So, Cave Dwellers, I would love to hear from you about how you feel the podcast is going. Is it what you were expecting? Are there things I can do differently to make this any better? If I don't hear from you, I can only assume that I am giving you what you want from The Neanderthal Mind. I will take all criticism that you give, and try to mold the show to your liking, but, I can't promise I will be able to do everything, everyone wants me to do, so please, email the show at theneanderthalmind@gmail.com, and go to the somewhat of a web site theneanderthalmind.com, and leave me some messages. …. And don't forget to check out Dr. Rebecca Wragg Sykes home page and Social Media links to follow all Rebecca does and plans to do……. Until next time Cave Dwellerswww.rebeccawraggsykes.com@LeMoustier https://trowelblazers.com/ 

Well Cave Dwellers, there you have it, and that's just the first part of two with Rebecca Wragg Sykes. I am on the second round of Rebecca's book, Kindred, Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art. I just love how Rebecca tells a story of a day in the life of a Neanderthal, as the opening to  the next chapter, it really draws the reader/listener in, and gets you ready for the next chapter. I will have links in the show notes to Rebecca's web sites, so you can indulge in everything she has to offer. So, Cave Dwellers, I would love to hear from you about how you feel the podcast is going. Is it what you were expecting? Are there things I can do differently to make this any better? If I don't hear from you, I can only assume that I am giving you what you want from The Neanderthal Mind. I will take all criticism that you give, and try to mold the show to your liking, but, I can't promise I will be able to do everything, everyone wants me to do, so please, email the show at theneanderthalmind@gmail.com, and go to the somewhat of a web site theneanderthalmind.com, and leave me some messages. Until next time Cave Dwellers…. www.rebeccawraggsykes.com@LeMoustierhttps://trowelblazers.com/

Stardust is the new film about David Bowie’s promotional tour of the United States in 1971 during which he began to develop the concept of Ziggy Stardust. Bowie is played by musician and actor Johnny Flynn and the film has already attracted attention as they were unable to secure the rights to Bowie’s songs. Writer and Bowie fan Mark Billingham reviews. A vivid 45,500 year old painting of a warty pig, discovered on a cave wall in the Indonesian island of Sulawesi is the oldest representational art in the world. What does the striking work tell us about the value of art to the civilisation that created it. With archeologist Rebecca Wragg Sykes. Novelist Jenni Fagan talks about her latest book, Luckenbooth. It opens as the devil's daughter rows to Edinburgh in a coffin to work as maid for the Minister of Culture, a man who lives a dual life. But the real reason she's there is to bear him and his barren wife a child, the consequences of which curse the tenement building that is their home for a hundred years. How are students whose arts subjects at university or college require them to undertake in-person tuition adapting to the third lockdown? Callum Bruce, a second year musical theatre student at Trinity Laban in London, and Mary Johnson, third year percussion student at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff, discuss how the pandemic has affected their studies. Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Timothy Prosser

OK, wow, wow, wow! Is all I can say to all that knowledge being splayed out there for us. I want to Thank Alan again for sticking around longer than the allotted time to take us to class. Cave Dwellers, I know you will be overflowing with knowledge after that, again, repeat, repeat and repeat to take notes. Absolutely amazing content. Thanks again Cave Dwellers, for joining me weekly on The Neanderthal Mind, giving me your time and ears, and mind. As I have said previously, I would love to hear from you about how you feel the podcast is going. Is it what you were expecting? Are there things I can do differently to make this any better? If I don't hear from you, I can only assume that I am giving you what you want from The Neanderthal Mind. I will take all criticism that you give, and try to mold the show to your liking, but, I can't promise I will be able to do everything, everyone wants me to do, so please, email the show at theneanderthalmind@gmail.com, and go to the website theneanderthalmind.com, and leave me some messages. Until next time Cave Dwellers…. And here is a little of what's to come next week when we sit down with Author, Dr. Rebecca Wragg Sykes, about her new book: Kindred, Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art. A fantastic listen as well as an awesome read for books about our Neanderthal Ancestors. https://store.bookbaby.com/book/human-fossil-record-and-classification Facebook Group Denisovan Link:https://www.facebook.com/groups/DenisovanFacebook Group The into Africa Theory of Human Evolution Link:https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheIntoAfricaTheoryFacebook Group Archaic Human Club link:https://www.facebook.com/groups/Archaic Human Club

John Lanchester reads his review of Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art by Rebecca Wragg Sykes.Read the piece here: lrb.me/neanderthalspodSubscribe to the LRB from just £1 per issue: https://mylrb.co.uk/podcast20b See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

(12/14/20)Since their discovery more than 160 years ago, Neanderthals have only gained importance in most anthropologists’ perception of early humans. In her new book Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art, Dr. Rebecca Wragg Sykes shoves aside clichés of rag-clad brutes in an icy wasteland to reveal curious, clever connoisseurs of the world in their time, technologically inventive and ecologically adaptable. Join us for a reconsideration of 300,000 years of humankind in this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large on WBAI.

The pop culture stereotype of a Neanderthal – even the word itself – conjures the image of a stumbling buffoon, dressed in a loincloth, banging some rocks together. But who actually were our ancient relatives?

Rebecca Wragg Sykes highlights the surprising depth and breadth of what we know about the Neanderthals. They were far more advanced and inventive than usually assumed.

What were Neanderthals really like? Our closest relatives shared an incredible amount in common with us, argues Dr. Rebecca Wragg Sykes, author of the wonderful new book Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death, and Art. But we shouldn't pigeonhole them; Neanderthals persisted for hundreds of thousands of years across time and space, living diverse and varied lives everywhere from mountains to deserts to icy tundra.Listen to new episodes 1 week early, to exclusive seasons 1 and 2, and to all episodes ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App here.Support us by supporting our sponsors! The Great Courses Plus - Go to thegreatcoursesPLUS.com/TIDES and treat yourself to a FREE Trial of access to the entire library.SimpliSafe - Get 30% off SimpliSafe plus a free security camera today by visiting SIMPLISAFE.com/TIDES. Hurry! This deal expires on Friday.

Hosted by Robin Ince and Dr Helen Czerski this episode of the Science Shambles podcast is an audio recording of our weekly Sunday Science Q and A show that goes out at 3pm BST on our YouTube channel. On this episode Robin and Helen are joined by Prof Chris Stringer and Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes to talk human evolution, Neanderthals and plush squids... Watch them on our YouTube channel at youtube.com/cosmicshambles and get bonus content and extended conversations with guests by subscribing at patreon.com/cosmicshambles

Rebecca Wragg Sykes has been fascinated by the vanished worlds of the Pleistocene ice ages since childhood, and followed this interest through a career researching the most enigmatic characters of all, the Neanderthals. Alongside her academic expertise, she has also earned a reputation for exceptional public engagement as a speaker, in print and broadcast. Her writing has featured in the Guardian, Aeon and Scientific American, and she has appeared on history and science programmes for BBC Radio 4. She works as an archaeological and creative consultant, and co-founded the influential TrowelBlazers project, and Rebecca is now the author of Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Gyles Brandreth cheers up lockdown by lifting the lid on all the stories and gossip since theatres began. Art gallerist Johnny Messum tells us how Messums keeps opening new galleries and thriving during lockdown. And we lift the lid on our TV habits. We're revelling in: The Oxford Book of Theatrical Anecdotes by Gyles Brandreth We've voted for our favourite books and now we're going to watch who wins: (https://www.youtube.com/user/welovebookshops). Awards Ceremony hosted by Grace Dent to be screened on Tuesday November 10 th at 5.30 pm – see website above for details We're watching: The Undoing on Now TV Roadkill on BBC iPlayer Better Things on BBC iPlayer The Queen's Gambit on Netflix Adult Material on More 4 We're visiting (virtually): James Dodds ‘The Work of Human Hands' till 29 th November https://messumswiltshire.com/exhibitions/exhibition-james-dodds-the-work-of-human-hands/ Jørgen Haugen Sørensen: ‘A Dark Story in White' https://messumswiltshire.com/exhibitions/exhibition-jorgen-haugen-sorensen-a-dark-story-in-white/ We're tuning into the Messums Conversation with Rebecca Wragg Sykes, Author of Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art, on Wednesday 18 th November at 6.30 pm https://messumswiltshire.com/exhibitions/online-talk-neanderthals/ See all other Conversations at https://messumswiltshire.com Produced and Edited by Alex Graham

Anna and Amber sit down with Dr. Rebecca Wragg Sykes, Paleolithic archaeologist and author of the book "Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death, and Art." We talk about Rebecca's education and her love for all things ancient, and she resolves some common misconceptions about our Neanderthal cousins. "Kindred" just came out in the States, so pick up a copy of your very own for an amazing synthesis of current Neanderthal knowledge. Links Neanderthals Among Mammoths: Excavations at Lynford Quarry, Norfolk (via Archaeology Data Service) Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (European Commission) Trowelblazers Rebecca Wragg Sykes Contact Email the Dirt Podcast Affiliates Wildnote TeePublic Timeular Find this show on the educational podcast app, Lyceum.fm!

Anna and Amber sit down with Dr. Rebecca Wragg Sykes, Paleolithic archaeologist and author of the book "Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death, and Art." We talk about Rebecca's education and her love for all things ancient, and she resolves some common misconceptions about our Neanderthal cousins. "Kindred" just came out in the States, so pick up a copy of your very own for an amazing synthesis of current Neanderthal knowledge. Links Neanderthals Among Mammoths: Excavations at Lynford Quarry, Norfolk (via Archaeology Data Service) Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (European Commission) Trowelblazers Rebecca Wragg Sykes Contact Email the Dirt Podcast Affiliates Wildnote TeePublic Timeular Find this show on the educational podcast app, Lyceum.fm!

You probably think you know the Neanderthals. We’ve all been hearing about them since we were kids, after all. They were all over the comics; they were in museum dioramas and on cartoons. They were always cast as mammoth-eating, cave-dwelling dimwits—nasty brutes, in other words. You probably also learned that they died off because they couldn’t keep pace with us, Homo sapiens, their svelter, savvier superiors. That’s story we had long been told anyhow. But, over the past few decades, there’s been a slow-moving sea change—a revolution in how archaeologists understand our closest cousins. For this episode I talked to Dr. Rebecca Wragg Sykes about this revolution. She is a Neanderthal specialist and the author of the new book Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art. Rebecca and I discuss the new picture of Neanderthals emerging from the latest archaeological research. We talk about where they lived, what they ate, the tools and clothing they made. We talk about the evidence that they had a considerable degree of cognitive sophistication and—very possibly—an aesthetic sense. Once we put all this together—and let the new picture come into focus—the gap long thought to separate them from us from them starts to close. And this makes the question of why they vanished about 40 thousand years ago all the more puzzling. I really hope you enjoy this one—I certainly did. And if you do, I definitely encourage you to check out Kindred!   A transcript of this episode is available here.   Notes and links  Most of the topics we discuss are treated in detail in Rebecca Wragg Sykes’s book, Kindred. 5:40 – Earlier book-length treatments of the Neanderthals include The Smart Neanderthal and Neanderthals Revisited. 9:15 – The archaeological site of Atapuerca in Spain, which includes the Sima de los Huesos (Pit of Bones). 11:20 – The Neander Valley in Germany was the site of the very first Neanderthal find in 1856. 11:50 – Another early site was Krapina, Croatia, which is now home to a Neanderthal museum. 24:30 – A recent academic article on the complexity of Neanderthal tool use. 28:27 – A French site—La Folie—gives a sense of what some Neanderthal dwellings were like. 41:05 – A popular article about the “wow site” at Bruniquel. The original academic article. 49:16 – An article on the evidence that Neanderthals were preparing and using birch tar. 56:45 – Some evidence suggests Neanderthals were interested in bird feathers and talons. 1:01:30 – There is now evidence for repeated phases of interbreeding between human and Neanderthals. 1:05:00 – Other ancient hominin species included the Denisovans. 1:07:00 – There are some reasons to believe that pathogens carried by humans may have played a role in the demise of the Neanderthals. 1:13:30 – Another richly imaginative treatment of ancient human life is Ancestral geographies of the Neolithic, by Mark Edmonds. To keep up with the latest Neanderthal research, Dr. Wragg Sykes recommends following archaeologists such as John Hawks (@johnhawks). She is also on Twitter (@LeMoustier) and her website is: https://www.rebeccawraggsykes.com/. Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) (https://www.diverseintelligencessummer.com/), which is made possible by a generous grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to UCLA. It is hosted by Kensy Cooperrider, with creative support from DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster, and Associate Director Hilda Loury. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd (https://www.mayhilldesigns.co.uk/). Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala (https://sarahdopierala.wordpress.com/). You can subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: manymindspodcast@gmail.com. For updates about the show, follow us on Twitter: @ManyMindsPod.

The common narrative of Neanderthals is that they were a group of dullard losers whose extinction 40,000 years ago was due to smarter competition and a little of interbreeding with our own forebears. Likening someone to a Neanderthal was and, most likely, still is a top-rate anthropological insult. But, in the past few decades, Neanderthal finds have greatly contradicted our perception of the species. In Kindred, Rebecca Wragg Sykes combs through the avalanche of scientific discoveries of the species and uses her experience at the cutting-edge of Paleolithic research to share our new understanding of Neanderthals, shoving aside cliches of rag-clad brutes in an icy wasteland. She reveals them to be curious, clever connoisseurs of their world, technologically inventive and ecologically adaptable. They ranged across vast tracts of tundra and steppe, but also stalked in dappled forests and waded in the Mediterranean Sea. Above all, they were successful survivors for more than 300,000 years, during times of massive climatic upheaval. Shermer and Sykes also discuss: the nature of species and if Neanderthals and Homo sapiens are one or two species, the deep time span of Neanderthals, the wide geography of Neanderthals, how archaeologists work today to discern Neanderthal lives and minds, Neanderthal DNA and what we have learned from it, Neanderthal bodies, Neanderthal brains and minds, Neanderthal tools and what they tell us about their lives, Neanderthal hunting/caloric needs, Neanderthal art, Neanderthal sex and love and social lives, Neanderthal death, burial, afterlife beliefs, and possible religious beliefs, and extinction: what happened to the Neanderthals? Rebecca Wragg Sykes has been fascinated by the vanished worlds of the Pleistocene ice ages since childhood, and followed this interest through a career researching the most enigmatic characters of all, the Neanderthals. After a Ph.D. on the last Neanderthals living in Britain, she worked in France at the world-famous PACEA laboratory, Université de Bordeaux, on topics ranging from Neanderthal landscapes and territories in the Massif Central region of south-east France, to examining how they were the first ancient humans to produce a synthetic material and tools made of multiple parts. Alongside her academic activities, she has also earned a reputation for exceptional public engagement. The public can follow her research through a personal blog and Twitter account, and she frequently writes for the popular media, including the Scientific American and Guardian science blogs. Becky is passionate about sharing the privileged access scientists have to fascinating discoveries about the Neanderthals. She is also co-founder of the influential Trowelblazers project, which highlights women archaeologists, palaeontologists and geologists through innovative outreach and collaboration.

Dr. Rebecca Wragg Sykes is an archaeologist, writer and creative professional. She earned her Ph.D. in Archaeology from the University of Sheffield (UK) in 2010. She is the author of the just published book Kindred which is about Neanderthal life, love, death and art. Dr. Sykes attributes her interest in Archaeology to “mucking around in the dirt in the backyard” as a child. But also her parents took her to historic sites on holidays. Then she started devouring books about the ancient Egyptians. By and by, she became keenly interested in the reality of life in the past. Rebecca humorously explained how “Archaeology is like Anthropology but for dead people.” In segment two, we explored her new book about the Neanderthals, and it was mesmerizing. For example, new findings have proven that there was interbreeding with Homo sapiens. There is much more in this delightful show.

Since their discovery over 160 years ago, Neanderthals metamorphosed from the losers of the human family tree to A-list hominins. In conversation with particle physicist and broadcaster Brian Cox, archaeologist Rebecca Wragg Sykes reveals the Neanderthals as curious, clever connoisseurs of their world, technologically inventive and ecologically adaptable. They ranged across vast tracts of tundra and steppe, but also stalked in dappled forests and waded in the Mediterranean Sea. Above all, they were successful: survivors of over 300,000 years of massive climate change. Rebecca reveals a deeper, more nuanced story where humanity itself is our ancient, shared inheritance. It is only by understanding them, that we can truly understand ourselves.

On this week's Science Book Shambles Robin chats with one of the founding members of The Trowelblazers, Rebecca Wragg Sykes. Her new book, Kindred, takes one of the fullest looks yet about what we know, and don't know, about Neanderthals. Robin also learns how Neanderthals have become clickbait... Hear an extended edition of chat by pledging your support at patreon.com/cosmicshambles

On this week's Science Book Shambles Robin chats with one of the founding members of The Trowelblazers, Rebecca Wragg Sykes. Her new book, Kindred, takes one of the fullest looks yet about what we know, and don't know, about Neanderthals. Robin also learns how Neanderthals have become clickbait... Hear an extended edition of chat by pledging your support at patreon.com/bookshambles

In an episode produced in collaboration with our colleagues at BBC Science Focus Magazine, archaeologist Rebecca Wragg Sykes tackles some of the big questions about Neanderthals and their relations with modern humans. Historyextra.com/podcastEnter the podcast survey here: https://immediateinsiders.com/uc/admin/65da/?a=1&b=6Survey closes Sunday 4th October 2020 at 11:59pm See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

From the influential part played by Sikh queens, through the ties of marriage and religion which helped shape the Western world, back to the links between Neanderthals and early man: Rana Mitter talks to Priya Atwal, Joseph Henrich, and Rebecca Wragg Sykes about family ties, power networks, and history. Priya Atwal has published Royal and Rebels: The Rise and Fall of the Sikh Empire. Dr Atwal is a Teaching Fellow in Modern South Asian History at King's College London. Joseph Henrich is a Professor in the department of Human and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and the author of The Weirdest People in the World: How the West became psychologically peculiar and particularly prosperous. Rebecca Wragg Sykes is an Honorary Fellow at University of Liverpool and Université de Bordeaux. She is the author of Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art and is one of the founders of https://trowelblazers.com/ You might be interested in other Free Thinking conversations with Rutger Bregman author of Human Kind https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08d77hx Penny Spikins speaking about Neanderthal history at the 2019 Free Thinking Festival https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0003zp2 Tom Holland on his history of the impact of Christianity on Western thinking in a programme called East Meets West https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00093d1 Producer: Robyn Read

Neanderthal’s have suffered something of a public relations disaster over the years to the point that the name itself has become a byword for something approaching lumbering idiot. But recent evidence has pointed to a very different type of Neanderthal, one who had art, practiced funeral rights and may even have talked. So, what do we now know about our distant cousins and how do we know it? Rebecca Wragg Sykes is an Archaeologist and Author of Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art.

In this fascinating and unusual episode of Travels Through Time the archaeologist and writer Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes takes us back further than we’ve ever been before, 125,000 years, to meet our extinct kindred: the Neanderthals. We visit the vibrant wild woodlands of Britain, a hornbeam forest on the European continent and a German lakeshore. Rebecca describes the world as it was in the interglacial age known as the Eemian and tell us how the Neanderthals lived, worked and loved in this warm woodland environment. The subject matter and scenes that feature in this episode come from Rebecca Wragg Sykes's new book, Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art. For much much more visit: tttpodcast.com Show Notes: Scene One: Britain, 123,000 years ago. A catastrophic flood breaks the ridge connecting Britain to the rest of Europe. The island becomes a wasteland for many thousands of years. Scene Two: A hornbeam forest in Germany, during the Eemian. We meet the weird and wonderful animals that populated the continent at the time. Scene Three: Neumark lakeshore, also during the Eemian. Tiny remains of organic material provide insight into the kinds of tools the Neanderthals were making and using. Memento: One of the spears used to kill deer at the Neumark lakeshore. People/Social Presenter: Artemis Irvine Guest: Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes Producers: Maria Nolan Titles: Jon O Follow us on Twitter: @tttpodcast_ Podcast Partner: ColorGraph

Rebecca Wragg Sykes joined me on the pod to discuss our perception of the Neanderthals, which has undergone a metamorphosis since their discovery 150 years ago, from the losers of the human family tree to A-list hominins.Subscribe to History Hit and you'll get access to hundreds of history documentaries, as well as every single episode of this podcast from the beginning (400 extra episodes). We're running live podcasts on Zoom, we've got weekly quizzes where you can win prizes, and exclusive subscriber only articles. It's the ultimate history package. Just go to historyhit.tv to subscribe. Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/€/$1. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Rebecca Wragg Sykes joined me on the pod to discuss our perception of the Neanderthals, which has undergone a metamorphosis since their discovery 150 years ago, from the losers of the human family tree to A-list hominins.Subscribe to History Hit and you'll get access to hundreds of history documentaries, as well as every single episode of this podcast from the beginning (400 extra episodes). We're running live podcasts on Zoom, we've got weekly quizzes where you can win prizes, and exclusive subscriber only articles. It's the ultimate history package. Just go to historyhit.tv to subscribe. Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/€/$1. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week we look at some of the lesser known historical figures and current public perception of anthropology, archaeology, and other fields that end in "ology". Rebecca Wragg Sykes, an archaeologist, writer, and co-founder of the TrowelBlazers, tells us about the Raising Horizons project and how their team is trying to shine the spotlight on the forgotten historical women of archaeological, geological, and palaeontological science. And Kristina Killgrove, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of West Florida and science writer, talks about the public perception of the fields of anthropology and archeology, and how those science are represented -...

This week we look at some of the lesser known historical figures and current public perception of anthropology, archaeology, and other fields that end in "ology". Rebecca Wragg Sykes, an archaeologist, writer, and co-founder of the TrowelBlazers, tells us about the Raising Horizons project and how their team is trying to shine the spotlight on the forgotten historical women of archaeological, geological, and palaeontological science. And Kristina Killgrove, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of West Florida and science writer, talks about the public perception of the fields of anthropology and archeology, and how those science are represented -...

What you need when discussing Clan of the Cave Bear are two Neanderthal experts, which is what I got – Rebecca Wragg Sykes of Bordeaux University and Matthew Pope of UCL, London. The fascinating subject of Neanderthal/Homo sapiens relations occupied us at length, when we weren't being diverted by thoughts of an American mini-series of the book produced by Ron Howard.