ARC

Behind one of science’s greatest breakthroughs lies a darker story of skulls measured, bodies taken, and lives diminished in the name of science. The discovery of the Taung Child helped prove humanity’s African origins, yet it unfolded within a world built on racism, colonial power, and exploitation. From Mapungubwe’s golden treasures to Johannesburg’s mining compounds, we trace how Dart’s legacy entwined brilliance with harm: coll...

In 1924, a mineworker in Taung likely held the fossilized skull of a three-year-old child before anyone else. That child, later named the Taung Child, would change science forever. Yet the man whose hands first touched the fossil remains unknown, while the credit went to Professor Raymond Dart.

In this episode, Unburied unearths the hidden histories of colonial mining, scientific prejudice, and racial bias entwined with the disc...

100 years ago, a tiny fossil skull in Taung, South Africa rewrote human history. The Taung Skull proved that humankind’s roots lie in Africa, but its story is tangled in colonialism, bias, and forgotten voices.

In this season premiere, Unburied digs into how the discovery of Australopithecus Africanus challenged scientific dogma, reshaped our understanding of human origins, and revealed how power shaped the stories we tell about...

Unburied is back for season 2: The Taung Child. 

A century after the fossilised skull of a three-year-old surfaced at the Northern Limeworks in Taung, South Africa, we retrace how a newly found species, Australopithecus africanus rooted human origins in Africa, while exposing the colonial prejudice that shaped its telling. Across four episodes, we trace the unnamed hands behind the find, revisit the Piltdown hoax that blind...

In this ARC Interview: "What’s Real About Race?" we speak with Dr. Phila Msimang, a philosopher at Stellenbosch University whose research critically assesses the uses and abuses of group descriptors like race and ethnicity in the sciences, and Dr. Tessa Moll, an anthropologist whose work explores medicine, reproduction, and the politics of health in South Africa. Using their collaborative infographic on the shifting history of raci...

In his book Letters of Stone professor Steven Robbins tells the deeply moving story of his quest to find out what happened to the family members he only knew from a picture on the wall of his childhood home in South Africa.

In this interview Steven reveals the surprising connections between his family members murdered in nazi death camps, the race science done by people like Rudolf Pöch in the Kalahari and the connections betwee...

This is the first in our new episode format: ARC Interviews — conversations with people whose stories and work challenge the way we see the world.

We begin with Brain Miennies — community leader, activist, and a key voice in Unburied. After sharing the episodes of Unburied with Brain, we sat down with him to reflect on the series, the ongoing struggle for the repatriation of Indigenous ancestors, and why this work is about more ...

As Rudolf Pöch prepared to leave Southern Africa in 1910, he left behind a legacy of exhumed graves, stolen bones, and silenced voices. But he also left behind a trail — one that leads, unexpectedly, to a small cemetery in Kuruman and a moment of reckoning.

In this final episode, Unburied follows the remains of Klaas and Trooi Pienaar, two ordinary people caught in an extraordinary story. Thanks to the disturbing decisions of Pö...

In the 1970s, a bookish young man was sorting shelves in a dusty library in apartheid South Africa. He noticed something strange — the way books were classified looked eerily similar to the way people were categorized outside. Years later, he would link that system back to a name few in his community had heard: Carl Linnaeus. 

In this episode, Unburied follows the legacy of racial classification from Sweden to the Kalahari,...

Inside an archive in Vienna, the grooves of old wax cylinders hold forgotten voices. These are the sonic remains of Rudolf Pöch’s expedition to the Kalahari in the early 1900s.

In this episode, we follow the distorted “language samples” Pöch left behind and the people whose lives — and deaths — they documented. From the field expertise of Xhosi Tshai to the frustrated warnings of Kxara the Elder, we finally get a glimpse in...

In 1907, an Austrian anthropologist rode into the Kalahari on an oxwagon and left with bones from more than 170 human beings. This episode begins our investigation into Rudolf Pöch — the man who (unwittingly or not) helped pioneer race science, the communities he studied (and exploited), and the legacy of human remains kept in museum boxes today.

We follow Pöch’s trail through the red dunes of the Kalahari, to the archives of Vi...

Unburied Season 1: Built from Bones

Season one of the Unburied series retraces the footsteps of Dr. Rudolf Pöch, an Austrian anthropologist who traveled through the Kalahari in the early 20th century. 

The series investigates how Pöch dug up graves and took the remains from more than 170 indigenous people and used the bones for race science, to justify white supremacy. 

Unburied seeks to understand what happened in t...

In this final episode of Hustling The African Dream we look at where the term "hustle" actually comes from, how it has evolved over time and what the term means to young Africans living their own hustle today. Hustling the African Dream is produced by Sound Africa in collaboration with The Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) in partnership with The Mastercard Foundation.

External Media (YouTube):04.26 – Lock Stock & Two ...

Hustling the African Dream is a podcast about innovative young Africans and their hustles. In this episode we speak to one truly remarkable young Kenyan who is bending the rules just enough to make an unjust system work for him. This podcast was produced in collaboration with The Human Sciences Research Council in partnership with The Mastercard Foundation.

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Hustling the African Dream is a podcast about innovative young Africans and their hustles. In this episode Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program Alumni, Emmanuel Ampomah, takes us to Ghana where we hear from young people who have struggled to find a job immediately after graduating. This series has shown that having a degree isn't always a ticket to employment, and in this episode we hear firsthand that expectations about jobs… an...

Hustling the African Dream is a podcast about innovative young Africans and their hustles. In this episode Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program Alumni, Theresa Ayerigah, takes us to her home country of Ghana to see how innovative young Africans are turning food into profit. This podcast was produced in collaboration with The Human Sciences Research Council in partnership with The Mastercard Foundation

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Hustling the African Dream is a podcast about innovative young Africans and their hustles. In this episode Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program Alumni, James Tayali, takes us to Malawi where some young boda-boda drivers, risk their lives to make a living. This podcast was produced in collaboration with The Human Sciences Research Council in partnership with The Mastercard Foundation.

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Hustling the African Dream is a podcast about about innovative young Africans and their hustles and in this episode Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program Alumni, Ibrahim Bahati, heads back to his home country of Uganda where art and the hustle come together in unexpected ways. This podcast was produced in collaboration with The Human Sciences Research Council with support from The Mastercard Foundation

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