On Humans

What was life like before farming? Was it nasty, brutish, and short? Or did our hunter-gatherer ancestors live lives that were relatively free, affluent, and ecologically stable?

In the lack of a time machine, many anthropologists have sought answers from studying the few hunter-gatherer communities that still exist today. In 1966, several leading names in the field were invited to present their results at a symposium at the Univers...

The world is full of religions, but none as timeless as shamanism. And whilst many modern religions have shed their shamanic skins, the shaman is rarely as far away as we have been told.

Or so argues anthropologist Manvir Singh in his book, Shamanism: The Timeless Religion.  

Singh’s work is fascinating in its capacity to link the exocit with the familiar, showing how rainforest rituals are not so far removed from urban modernity as ...

Happy 2026! On Humans has typically marked the coming of January by revisiting the previous year’s most popular episode. This time, the New Year special packs the five-hour-long "Origins of Humankind" series into one fast-paced dive through deep time.

By mixing highlights from the original interviews with fresh narration, this episode offers a captivating journey through many of the great topics around human origins, such ...

“The podcast is great, but one thing hasn’t been covered yet: humour. It’s an essential part of our human condition, and would certainly be worth an episode.”

This listener feedback was easy to agree with.

From standup comedy to nervous laughter, our lives are filled with chuckles and giggles.

Why?

Why do adults laugh at witty jokes whilst children laugh at the simple pleasures of peek-a-boo? And why should any of us laugh in the fi...

We are a movable species. In less than 50 thousand years, Homo sapiens has penetrated practically all corners of the earth.

This is an episode about those epic migrations, with a focus on the two furthest edges of the human migratory map: the Americas in the West and the Polynesian islands in the East. In the end, we discuss emerging evidence that those branches met each other -- work coming directly out of the work of my guest, An...

European thinkers once divided humanity into distinct "races". The idea stuck, even if the science moved on. The shape of humanity, it turned out, is far messier than the old race theorists ever imagined.

This much is well known.

Still , genetics does study different human "populations". Biological differences between these populations are reported every day. So have we simply changed words? Has anything really ch...

Genetics is rewriting the human story. This week, On Humans takes you behind the scenes of this rapidly evolving frontier via three live-recordings, captured at the Salk Institute's CARTA symposium on ancient DNA.

The first episode explores the differences between us and the Neanderthals.

For centuries, we tried to understand Neanderthals through stones and bones alone. Now genetics is offering a new tool, allowing researchers t...

The science of human origins keeps producing new theories. But are we any closer to telling a true story of human origins? Or are we simply drowning in data? 

Earlier this November, the chair of UCSD’s Department of Anthropology invited me to explore this question in a campus talk. My optimistic claim was that underneath many of the field’s important debates, a powerful story has been emerging. At its core, this is a story about cal...

You decided to start reading this. But could you have chosen otherwise?

In this short epilogue to this fall's brain science -series, Oxford biologist Tim Coulson gives his defense of free will.

(The episode is an unheard clip from the conversation with Tim Coulson, originally recorded as part of the Origins of Humankind -series in March 2025. )

LINKS

For highlights, longer quotes, and references, see my essay at OnHumans.Sub...

Science has learned much about the brain. But how well do we understand this organ of the mind? Are we even close to cracking the neural code? Is a groundbreaking theory of consciousness just around the corner?

In this final episode of the brain science -series, Matthew Cobb takes us on a tour of the story of neuroscience. We meet many colourful characters, but this is not just a history for history’s sake. More importantly, this is...

Dopamine. Serotonin. Endorphins. We have all heard these terms. And these are not just scientific curiosities. Few are those who have never wondered if their brain chemicals are "just off balance".

So how accurate are the popular theories about these mythic molecules?

To guide us through the topic, I'm joined by Judy Grisel—an ex-addict and a world-leading neuroscientist of addiction.

We will discuss all the main elem...

Our brains can feel remote and abstract. Hidden behind Latin names and textbook diagrams, they rarely feel as personal to us as our hearts and stomachs.

In this episode, neurologist and author Pria Anand helps us get a little more intimate with that grey, wrinkly seat of our consciousness.

Together we explore both the structural architecture and the musical synchronies of the brain. We travel across the left and the right brain, &qu...

Here is a simple story about the origins of the human brain: All primate brains are dense with neurons—they are the supercomputers of the animal world. What's more, the human brain is just what you’d expect from a primate of our size: big, packed with neurons, but no more special than that. It's the chimps and gorillas who are special: without cooked food, their brains lacked the fuel to keep up with the growing body.

Or so ...

I'm excited to announce that On Humans is launching a new series this fall! This one will explore the wonders of the human brain. The new episodes will drop throughout September and early October.

To set the stage, we will revisit a conversation with neuroscientist Suzana Herculano-Houzel, newly re-edited and remastered. It’s the simplest and most elegant story I’ve heard about how our brains came to be — and it sets the stage ...

Why did the great powers of Asia stagnate whilst Europe was rising? This question—often called the Great Divergence—is one of the most defining questions of modern history.

Few case studies illuminate this question as well as the contrast between Britain and India. Did colonialism make Britain rich and India poor? Or was Britain’s rise already underway before conquest? And what does all this tell us about the everyday experiences of...

Climate. Weathers. History.

Here's an encore episode to wrap up the mini-series on these themes!

This episode on the puzzling origins of farming is one of my all-time favourites on the show. I thought it was a good time to put it out again.

You can also read my essay on the topic ⁠here⁠.

Enjoy!

~

ORIGINAL SHOW NOTES

Agriculture changed everything. Traditionally, this “Neolithic Revolution” was celebrated for opening the gates of civil...

Before they built empires, the Europeans built ports.

Across Africa and Asia, European sailors arrived as merchants. They traded and negotiated. They defended their interests—sometimes with cannon fire. But they were not trying to govern a foreign land.

Yet things changed.

Why?

Historian Tirthankar Roy has a bold new answer.

Roy is a professor at the London School of Economics, where he teaches a renowned course on the economic histor...

On Humans is back from the break!

To mark the summer heat, here is a two-part series on how climate has shaped the human story. In next week's episodes, we will explore the role of water and weather in the origins of European colonialism. But today, we start by crawling deeper into the past: to the origins of humanity itself.

In this episode, Yale professor Jessica Thompson helps us navigate one of the most influential ideas in ...

Binary thinking is out of fashion. But what about biological sex?

Whatever we might say about diversity and fluidity, the ideas of “male” and “female” seem essential in biology. I’ve taught the subject. I’ve drawn bees and flowers, with arrows from anthers to ovaries. I’ve used the terms “dad cell” and “mother cell” while doing so. I don’t know how I could have done it any differently.

And maybe that’s just fine. Human sex cells are ...