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The Big Mysteries of Human Evolution
4 hours and 28 minutes
Who are we? Where did we come from?
These aren’t flippant questions, in the least. For millennia, poets, artists, philosophers, politicians, historians, scientists, and spiritual leaders have grappled with them because their answers could hold the key to explaining the complexities of human existence.
Creating a coherent picture of our earliest relatives can be a challenging undertaking. Even with recent scientific developments and archaeological discoveries, there’s still a lot we don’t know about the evolution of the human species. Crucial pieces of the puzzle are still missing, and every new discovery—fossil or otherwise—has the potential to rewrite our understanding of our own family tree.
In 10 riveting episodes, paleoanthropologist Elen Feuerriegel takes you on an unrivaled tour of the human fossil record in search of the biological and behavioral underpinnings of our very “humanness”. Big Mysteries of Human Evolution draws on current research to highlight (and maybe even help solve) these and other enduring mysteries about our closest ancestors: how the first bipeds took their first steps, how tools gave humans a cutting edge over other species, how early social groups (and diets) were structured, and how modern humans evolved to become the dominant species on the planet.
Think of this Audible Original as On the Origin of Species—updated for the 21st century.
Who are we? Where did we come from?
These aren’t flippant questions, in the least. For millennia, poets, artists, philosophers, politicians, historians, scientists, and spiritual leaders have grappled with them because their answers could hold the key to explaining the complexities of human existence.
Creating a coherent picture of our earliest relatives can be a challenging undertaking. Even with recent scientific developments and archaeological discoveries, there’s still a lot we don’t know about the evolution of the human species. Crucial pieces of the puzzle are still missing, and every new discovery—fossil or otherwise—has the potential to rewrite our understanding of our own family tree.
In 10 riveting episodes, paleoanthropologist Elen Feuerriegel takes you on an unrivaled tour of the human fossil record in search of the biological and behavioral underpinnings of our very “humanness”. Big Mysteries of Human Evolution draws on current research to highlight (and maybe even help solve) these and other enduring mysteries about our closest ancestors: how the first bipeds took their first steps, how tools gave humans a cutting edge over other species, how early social groups (and diets) were structured, and how modern humans evolved to become the dominant species on the planet.
Think of this Audible Original as On the Origin of Species—updated for the 21st century.
5 pages, Audible Audio
Published April 7, 2022
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March 19, 2025
Very good explanation of evolution.
However, I will say that for those of us who aren't science-y, there is a flood of all the different names that I could never quite keep straight.
Australopithecus afarensis, Australopithecus sediba, Homo erectus, Homo floresiensis, Homo naledi, Homo habilis, etc, etc, etc. So I was kind of doing a what-what-what face and just trying to catch the main gist.
And I think I kind of did that.
But only because Feuerriegel probably dumbed it down a lot for folks like me.
The main thing she did was dispel a lot of the myths of evolution that I heard growing up, and helped me get a bit of a grip on what our ancestry may have looked like over the course of millions of years. I'm sure there is a lot more to it than what she covered, but I felt like I learned quite a bit.
My backstory is that I grew up going to those wonky private church schools that taught the earth was 5,000 years old, dinosaurs were suspect, and Noah and his ark full of animals were historical events.
And while it has been decades since I thought anything close to that was true, I just...well, I missed out on an education. So, here I am at almost 50, trying to remedy that.
For anyone out there like me who has a lot of catching up to do, I think this lecture is a good place to start.
Recommended.
However, I will say that for those of us who aren't science-y, there is a flood of all the different names that I could never quite keep straight.
Australopithecus afarensis, Australopithecus sediba, Homo erectus, Homo floresiensis, Homo naledi, Homo habilis, etc, etc, etc. So I was kind of doing a what-what-what face and just trying to catch the main gist.
And I think I kind of did that.
But only because Feuerriegel probably dumbed it down a lot for folks like me.
The main thing she did was dispel a lot of the myths of evolution that I heard growing up, and helped me get a bit of a grip on what our ancestry may have looked like over the course of millions of years. I'm sure there is a lot more to it than what she covered, but I felt like I learned quite a bit.
My backstory is that I grew up going to those wonky private church schools that taught the earth was 5,000 years old, dinosaurs were suspect, and Noah and his ark full of animals were historical events.
And while it has been decades since I thought anything close to that was true, I just...well, I missed out on an education. So, here I am at almost 50, trying to remedy that.
For anyone out there like me who has a lot of catching up to do, I think this lecture is a good place to start.
Recommended.
December 20, 2025
These are ten 30 minute lectures which describe who we as humans are as a species and where we come from. Below are my short review comments for each lecture:
Lecture 1: Human Evolutionary History in 24 Hours
This lecture describes hominid evolution over a seven million year span in terms of a 24 hour day similar to as summarized below. Many more species are mentioned in the lectures, but I have included only important milestones and the better known species.
• 12:00 AM, ~7.0 Million Years Ago (MYA): The human lineage begins, marked by primitive bipedalism in ancestors like Sahelanthropus or Orrorin after splitting from chimpanzee ancestors.
• 1:00 PM, ~3.2 MYA: Approximate date of fossilized bones of Lucy (Australopithecus).
• 3:30 PM, ~2.5 MYA: The first members of our own genus, Homo, appear, with tools becoming more common.
• 5:00 PM, ~2.04 MYA: Oldest identified Homo erectus specimen.
• 11:00 PM , ~300,000 Years Ago: Homo sapiens (modern humans) emerge in Africa, with fossils found in Morocco dating back this far.
• 11:20 PM, ~243,000 Years Ago: The first recognizable "early Neanderthals " show up in the fossil record.
It's important to remember that Hominid evolution isn't a straight line; many different human species evolved, lived concurrently, and became extinct, and over a period of millions of years sometimes these different species interbred.
Lecture 2: The First Bipeds
At one time it was theorized that bipedalism occurred when the grassland savannas developed and the early hominids who left the forests needed to develop the standing posture to see over the tall grass. We now know that upright bipedalism developed much earlier than that. There is evidence that the earliest hominids were bipedal long before the development of large brains and also long before the development of the savannas. Multiple theories have been developed regarding what environmental conditions might have encouraged the development of bipedalism, but no consensus has developed.
Lecture 3: How Humans Got Their Stride
Bipedalism was one of the pivotal steps in the evolutionary development of our lineage, but it is far from being a perfected development. It evolved from the mammalian four legged posture, and the lack of perfected adaptation to the upright position is the cause of much back and foot pain experienced by humans today. Changes in the pelvic region to accommodate bipedalism is the cause of increased probability of life threatening complications during childbirth. The human body is an evolved compromise between the advantages and disadvantages of bipedal upright posture.
Bipedalism was a behavioral innovation that freed our hands from the constraints of locomotion which allowed us to carry resources and offspring, and ultimately to specialize our upper limbs and hands for tool use. This specialization, in turn, allowed us to exploit resources that previously hadn't been available to us to use providing us with adequate energy to support a large brain. While we may not know for sure what specific environments drove the evolution of human bipedalism, or even who the first bipeds may have been what we do know is that the form of our bodies is inextricably tied to the landscapes through which we move and live.
Lecture 4: The Cutting Edge: The First Human Toolmakers
Tool use is not uniquely human (even crows have been seen using sticks as tools). What is more uniquely human is the making of tools that require skilled techniques (i.e. not accidentally made). Recent research has demonstrated that the anatomical and behavioral traits such as tool making that were long held to define our genus did not arise as a single integrated package, but instead emerged piecemeal over a million years in three separate hominin lineages. While the origins of genus Homo are murky at best, one thing is clear; we aren't human without our tools.
Lecture 5: Meat, Fat, and Starch: A Recipe for Change
This lecturer does not agree with supporters of the Paleo Diet who say that we are adapted to eating meat and raw vegetables. This lecturer says that the human ability to adapt to whatever food is available is what makes us unique. What hominins and later Paleolithic hunter-gatherers ate depended on where and when they lived and this is true for modern hunter-gatherers. We live in almost every ecosystem planet Earth has to offer, and what makes humans remarkable is the tremendous variety of food items we eat and thrive on.
Lecture 6: Skin Color and Other Phenotypic Qualities
The DNA markers that define skin color are very small compared to other genetic variability that occurs within human populations. The relationship between vitamin A uptake related to sun exposure easily explains why the evolution of skin color varied with latitude. The biological reality is that our varied skin pigmentation is a mark of our shared evolutionary history, and not some deeper genetic difference. The lecturer goes out of her way to make the point that race may be real as a sociopolitical construct, but it is not a significant genetic feature.
Lecture 7: Unraveling Human History: The Study of Ancient DNA
DNA holds the story of our lineage. It's a library of information about our ancestry, both at the local level (family & relatives), and also at a deeper level (relationship to other primates and timing of lineage dispersed out of Africa). We can think of the relationships between lineages as networks of genetic exchange that dissipate over time. The impact of genetic analyses on paleoanthropology has been nothing short of revolutionary. Thanks to ancient DNA sequencing, we now know that the lineage leading to modern humans diverged from the Neanderthal lineage some 800,000 years ago, that Neanderthals freely interbred with modern humans where they encountered them, and that at least two, possibly even three, distinct lineages of fossil hominin coincided with our own for a time before they eventually went extinct.
Lecture 8: The Peopling of the Americas
It is believed that the peopling of the Americas began when Paleolithic hunter-gatherers (Paleo-Indians) entered North America from the North Asian Mammoth steppe via the Beringia land bridge, which had formed between northeastern Siberia and western Alaska due to the lowering of sea level during the Last Glacial Maximum (26,000 to 19,000 years ago). It used to be thought that the Clovis migration from 13,250 to 12,800 years ago were the first humans in the Americas, but recent evidence has found older presence. The ancient human footprints at White Sands National Park date to between 23,000 and 21,000 years ago. Genetic studies have revealed an ancient, distant shared ancestry related to Australasian populations in some Amazonian groups from a tie that would had predated by many years the Polynesian occupation of the Pacific Islands. Mixed and varied evidence such as this leads to the likelihood that multiple small, diverse groups entering the continent at various points during the time when the Northwest approach was blocked with glacial ice. This leads to the hypothesis that they used canoes following the sea coast, and these groups were small and scattered enough to not leave archeological or other environmental evidence.
Lecture 9: Popular Misconceptions of Human Evolution
The lecturer spends much of this lecture saying that there's no such thing as "a missing link" that needs to be found. The combination of fossil evidence with DNA analysis has developed a generalized branching pattern of development of various hominids over time. While the exact path that led to our species is not fully understood, what we do know is that it wasn't a straightforward one. It was full of tension between morphology, ecology, and the need to survive in a constantly shifting environment. Some features that mark us as human evolved gradually in our lineage eventually arriving at the condition we see in ourselves today.
Lecture 10: Shaking the Family Tree: New Discoveries
This lecture reviews the rapid advances in our knowledge of paleontology and direction it may go in the future (we don't know what we don't know). She ends talking about an archeological dig she was involved with in South Africa which indicates that a small brained early species of hominid was purposefully burying their dead bodies in a hard to reach, absolutely dark, place in a cave. They would have needed to carry a source of light and to devise a means of transporting dead bodies through small up and down cave passages—all by a species thought to have predated tool making. I guess that is one of the "big mysteries" referenced by the title of these lectures.
Below are some books I've read on the same subject (links are to my reviews):
When Humans Nearly Vanished: The Catastrophic Explosion of the Toba Volcano, by Donald R. Prothero
Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past, by David Reich
Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art, by Rebecca Wragg Sykes
Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas, by Jennifer Raff
Lecture 1: Human Evolutionary History in 24 Hours
This lecture describes hominid evolution over a seven million year span in terms of a 24 hour day similar to as summarized below. Many more species are mentioned in the lectures, but I have included only important milestones and the better known species.
• 12:00 AM, ~7.0 Million Years Ago (MYA): The human lineage begins, marked by primitive bipedalism in ancestors like Sahelanthropus or Orrorin after splitting from chimpanzee ancestors.
• 1:00 PM, ~3.2 MYA: Approximate date of fossilized bones of Lucy (Australopithecus).
• 3:30 PM, ~2.5 MYA: The first members of our own genus, Homo, appear, with tools becoming more common.
• 5:00 PM, ~2.04 MYA: Oldest identified Homo erectus specimen.
• 11:00 PM , ~300,000 Years Ago: Homo sapiens (modern humans) emerge in Africa, with fossils found in Morocco dating back this far.
• 11:20 PM, ~243,000 Years Ago: The first recognizable "early Neanderthals " show up in the fossil record.
It's important to remember that Hominid evolution isn't a straight line; many different human species evolved, lived concurrently, and became extinct, and over a period of millions of years sometimes these different species interbred.
Lecture 2: The First Bipeds
At one time it was theorized that bipedalism occurred when the grassland savannas developed and the early hominids who left the forests needed to develop the standing posture to see over the tall grass. We now know that upright bipedalism developed much earlier than that. There is evidence that the earliest hominids were bipedal long before the development of large brains and also long before the development of the savannas. Multiple theories have been developed regarding what environmental conditions might have encouraged the development of bipedalism, but no consensus has developed.
Lecture 3: How Humans Got Their Stride
Bipedalism was one of the pivotal steps in the evolutionary development of our lineage, but it is far from being a perfected development. It evolved from the mammalian four legged posture, and the lack of perfected adaptation to the upright position is the cause of much back and foot pain experienced by humans today. Changes in the pelvic region to accommodate bipedalism is the cause of increased probability of life threatening complications during childbirth. The human body is an evolved compromise between the advantages and disadvantages of bipedal upright posture.
Bipedalism was a behavioral innovation that freed our hands from the constraints of locomotion which allowed us to carry resources and offspring, and ultimately to specialize our upper limbs and hands for tool use. This specialization, in turn, allowed us to exploit resources that previously hadn't been available to us to use providing us with adequate energy to support a large brain. While we may not know for sure what specific environments drove the evolution of human bipedalism, or even who the first bipeds may have been what we do know is that the form of our bodies is inextricably tied to the landscapes through which we move and live.
Lecture 4: The Cutting Edge: The First Human Toolmakers
Tool use is not uniquely human (even crows have been seen using sticks as tools). What is more uniquely human is the making of tools that require skilled techniques (i.e. not accidentally made). Recent research has demonstrated that the anatomical and behavioral traits such as tool making that were long held to define our genus did not arise as a single integrated package, but instead emerged piecemeal over a million years in three separate hominin lineages. While the origins of genus Homo are murky at best, one thing is clear; we aren't human without our tools.
Lecture 5: Meat, Fat, and Starch: A Recipe for Change
This lecturer does not agree with supporters of the Paleo Diet who say that we are adapted to eating meat and raw vegetables. This lecturer says that the human ability to adapt to whatever food is available is what makes us unique. What hominins and later Paleolithic hunter-gatherers ate depended on where and when they lived and this is true for modern hunter-gatherers. We live in almost every ecosystem planet Earth has to offer, and what makes humans remarkable is the tremendous variety of food items we eat and thrive on.
Lecture 6: Skin Color and Other Phenotypic Qualities
The DNA markers that define skin color are very small compared to other genetic variability that occurs within human populations. The relationship between vitamin A uptake related to sun exposure easily explains why the evolution of skin color varied with latitude. The biological reality is that our varied skin pigmentation is a mark of our shared evolutionary history, and not some deeper genetic difference. The lecturer goes out of her way to make the point that race may be real as a sociopolitical construct, but it is not a significant genetic feature.
Lecture 7: Unraveling Human History: The Study of Ancient DNA
DNA holds the story of our lineage. It's a library of information about our ancestry, both at the local level (family & relatives), and also at a deeper level (relationship to other primates and timing of lineage dispersed out of Africa). We can think of the relationships between lineages as networks of genetic exchange that dissipate over time. The impact of genetic analyses on paleoanthropology has been nothing short of revolutionary. Thanks to ancient DNA sequencing, we now know that the lineage leading to modern humans diverged from the Neanderthal lineage some 800,000 years ago, that Neanderthals freely interbred with modern humans where they encountered them, and that at least two, possibly even three, distinct lineages of fossil hominin coincided with our own for a time before they eventually went extinct.
Lecture 8: The Peopling of the Americas
It is believed that the peopling of the Americas began when Paleolithic hunter-gatherers (Paleo-Indians) entered North America from the North Asian Mammoth steppe via the Beringia land bridge, which had formed between northeastern Siberia and western Alaska due to the lowering of sea level during the Last Glacial Maximum (26,000 to 19,000 years ago). It used to be thought that the Clovis migration from 13,250 to 12,800 years ago were the first humans in the Americas, but recent evidence has found older presence. The ancient human footprints at White Sands National Park date to between 23,000 and 21,000 years ago. Genetic studies have revealed an ancient, distant shared ancestry related to Australasian populations in some Amazonian groups from a tie that would had predated by many years the Polynesian occupation of the Pacific Islands. Mixed and varied evidence such as this leads to the likelihood that multiple small, diverse groups entering the continent at various points during the time when the Northwest approach was blocked with glacial ice. This leads to the hypothesis that they used canoes following the sea coast, and these groups were small and scattered enough to not leave archeological or other environmental evidence.
Lecture 9: Popular Misconceptions of Human Evolution
The lecturer spends much of this lecture saying that there's no such thing as "a missing link" that needs to be found. The combination of fossil evidence with DNA analysis has developed a generalized branching pattern of development of various hominids over time. While the exact path that led to our species is not fully understood, what we do know is that it wasn't a straightforward one. It was full of tension between morphology, ecology, and the need to survive in a constantly shifting environment. Some features that mark us as human evolved gradually in our lineage eventually arriving at the condition we see in ourselves today.
Lecture 10: Shaking the Family Tree: New Discoveries
This lecture reviews the rapid advances in our knowledge of paleontology and direction it may go in the future (we don't know what we don't know). She ends talking about an archeological dig she was involved with in South Africa which indicates that a small brained early species of hominid was purposefully burying their dead bodies in a hard to reach, absolutely dark, place in a cave. They would have needed to carry a source of light and to devise a means of transporting dead bodies through small up and down cave passages—all by a species thought to have predated tool making. I guess that is one of the "big mysteries" referenced by the title of these lectures.
Below are some books I've read on the same subject (links are to my reviews):
When Humans Nearly Vanished: The Catastrophic Explosion of the Toba Volcano, by Donald R. Prothero
Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past, by David Reich
Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art, by Rebecca Wragg Sykes
Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas, by Jennifer Raff
April 11, 2022
This is an Audible Original audiobook (also labeled as a Great Courses book) about the evolution of humans and their hominin relatives. Anyone familiar with Audible Original books about science knows that they tend to be surface-level discussions of the topic, especially if they are about 4.5 hours in length, as this book is. So they are usually somewhat interesting, but a little disappointing because they can be light on the science.
This is not one of those. This is jam-packed with more sophisticated (but approachable) scientific discussion than I imagined an audiobook such as this could contain. I was really blown away by the breadth and depth of the discussion of hominin evolution, especially given its length.
It is narrated by its author, who complements
the book’s scientific breadth and rigorousness with a relentless enthusiasm and a quite digestible logical organization. This is someone who knows and loves their subject, and who wants to inject that knowledge into your brain.
If there’s one minor fault this book has, it’s that the narration can be a bit fast-paced for the amount of information being taught. But, who knows, maybe Audible told the author that she only had 4.5 hours to use and she took that as a challenge. Better that approach than the opposite.
If you’re a layperson interested in this subject and want a book to give you a comprehensive, up-to-date, scientifically-serious survey of our current understanding of hominin evolution in a tidy package, this book is for you.
This is not one of those. This is jam-packed with more sophisticated (but approachable) scientific discussion than I imagined an audiobook such as this could contain. I was really blown away by the breadth and depth of the discussion of hominin evolution, especially given its length.
It is narrated by its author, who complements
the book’s scientific breadth and rigorousness with a relentless enthusiasm and a quite digestible logical organization. This is someone who knows and loves their subject, and who wants to inject that knowledge into your brain.
If there’s one minor fault this book has, it’s that the narration can be a bit fast-paced for the amount of information being taught. But, who knows, maybe Audible told the author that she only had 4.5 hours to use and she took that as a challenge. Better that approach than the opposite.
If you’re a layperson interested in this subject and want a book to give you a comprehensive, up-to-date, scientifically-serious survey of our current understanding of hominin evolution in a tidy package, this book is for you.
July 14, 2025
a fascinating series of lectures that suffers from the audible original format that requires each to fit inside a 30-minute format. Because of that the lecturer is essentially just speed-reading her lecture notes, creating at times a data dump of scientific names and terms made denser for me not only by my unfamiliarity with some of the subject material but also by the unusual pronunciations that her Australian accent lends for those of us who learned those terms in America. Very good material, just a bit dense in the early lectures.
March 31, 2023
This was really dense for such a short book, i learned a ton of details and data. The tone was very approachable, i also loved that Feuerriegel didnt present everything as hard facts and readily acknowledged when something was still unclear. (Her healthy approach to minorities rights didnt hurt either)
All in all I had a great time!
All in all I had a great time!
December 3, 2025
Great lecturer, cohesive and well thought out series of lectures. I do wish it was longer!
May 7, 2023
Fascinating and informative read that offers a fresh perspective on one of the most enduring questions in science. Feuerriegel's background in anthropology and paleoanthropology shines through in her clear and accessible writing style, which makes complex scientific concepts easy to understand.
One of the strengths of this book is the way it explores the latest research and discoveries in the field of human evolution, while also highlighting the ongoing debates and controversies that surround it. Feuerriegel presents a balanced and nuanced view of the subject matter, allowing readers to draw their own conclusions about what it means to be human.
Overall, "The Big Mystery of Human Evolution" is an engaging and thought-provoking book that I would highly recommend to anyone interested in science, anthropology, or the mysteries of the human experience.
One of the strengths of this book is the way it explores the latest research and discoveries in the field of human evolution, while also highlighting the ongoing debates and controversies that surround it. Feuerriegel presents a balanced and nuanced view of the subject matter, allowing readers to draw their own conclusions about what it means to be human.
Overall, "The Big Mystery of Human Evolution" is an engaging and thought-provoking book that I would highly recommend to anyone interested in science, anthropology, or the mysteries of the human experience.
September 18, 2025
I just finished listening to The Big Mysteries of Human Evolution by Elen Feuerriegel today on Audible, part of The Great Courses series - and wow, what a fascinating journey through our ancient past. While I may not remember all the hominin names (and I’m still not 100% sure how to pronounce the author’s last name), the insights she shared will stick with me for a long time.
Feuerriegel presents complex scientific ideas in a way that’s totally engaging and approachable. Some of the facts that blew my mind: bipedalism actually came before the big brains we associate with modern humans, we’re the only animals with chins, and the evolutionary path from chimpanzees to Homo sapiens took around 7 million years - far from a straight line.
Her exploration of why we became bipedal and how traits evolved over time was especially thought-provoking. Evolution, it turns out, is messy, meandering, and full of surprises. This course made me look at our species in a completely new light.
If you're even a little curious about how we got here, this is a great listen. I’ll definitely be thinking about this one for a while.
Feuerriegel presents complex scientific ideas in a way that’s totally engaging and approachable. Some of the facts that blew my mind: bipedalism actually came before the big brains we associate with modern humans, we’re the only animals with chins, and the evolutionary path from chimpanzees to Homo sapiens took around 7 million years - far from a straight line.
Her exploration of why we became bipedal and how traits evolved over time was especially thought-provoking. Evolution, it turns out, is messy, meandering, and full of surprises. This course made me look at our species in a completely new light.
If you're even a little curious about how we got here, this is a great listen. I’ll definitely be thinking about this one for a while.
September 5, 2022
4-
This is a reasonably good survey of recent knowledge about our hominid, hominin ancestors, one of the Great Courses produced and offered by audible without cost to members. It is short, only 4 hours and 28 minutes, delivered in 10 lectures, and covering approximately 6 million years. Published in April of 2022, the information appears to be current on the topic. The first lecture lays out a sketch of what will be covered, and those following offer more specifics on each each of the extinct animals, using recent genetic information and archeological work.
I had learned of several of these creatures in college many years ago, but scientists have since advanced the number of our probable ancestors/cousins and are able to provide a few details of their social lives and physical characteristics. We know quite a bit, but there are volumes left to discover so much still remains unknown. I am always interested in learning more about the origins of our species and gained some new nuggets of information from this lecture series.
This is a reasonably good survey of recent knowledge about our hominid, hominin ancestors, one of the Great Courses produced and offered by audible without cost to members. It is short, only 4 hours and 28 minutes, delivered in 10 lectures, and covering approximately 6 million years. Published in April of 2022, the information appears to be current on the topic. The first lecture lays out a sketch of what will be covered, and those following offer more specifics on each each of the extinct animals, using recent genetic information and archeological work.
I had learned of several of these creatures in college many years ago, but scientists have since advanced the number of our probable ancestors/cousins and are able to provide a few details of their social lives and physical characteristics. We know quite a bit, but there are volumes left to discover so much still remains unknown. I am always interested in learning more about the origins of our species and gained some new nuggets of information from this lecture series.
February 13, 2023
I almost rated this 3 stars, but over all there is a lot of good information. I admired the professor's willingness to say what the paleontologists didn't know. I think that was what clinched it for me. I already knew a lot of stuff that the professor cited.
I suggest reading "Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History".
I might listen to this audio course again.
I suggest reading "Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History".
I might listen to this audio course again.
February 4, 2025
Was expecting a brief overview but it is more dense than you'd think for the size. Early couple of lectures are a bit too technical in terms of anatomy and not ideal for a listening format as some diagrams would help but after that, by the 3rd lecture, it's much more smooth. Instead of detailing the story of human evolution the lecturer covers the current state of the field at the major points: first upright hominids - early hominids - out of africa - neanderthals - into america - crossovers and much more. Surprsingly dense for such a short series. Great series.
April 29, 2024
Science is such a wonderful and, to many of us, complicated thing. I love listening to educational audiobooks on different topics, and this book wasn't any different. This was a well-researched, well-paced audiobook that was insightful and entertaining. This might not be a good choice for some people depending on your religious views and cultural beliefs, but if you're open-minded enough, give this book a go!
https://annietheinkdrinker.wordpress.com
https://annietheinkdrinker.wordpress.com
September 25, 2024
An interesting dive into human evolution, I did find some of the scientific terminology difficult, but I like subjects that make you think and research.
There is a lot of information in such a short format, and because of this, it can be hard to keep track of it all. The subjects would certainly benefit from a few hours' discussion.
I like the fact that the author acknowledges the gaps in the fossil record and our knowledge.
There is a lot of information in such a short format, and because of this, it can be hard to keep track of it all. The subjects would certainly benefit from a few hours' discussion.
I like the fact that the author acknowledges the gaps in the fossil record and our knowledge.
March 3, 2025
With a title starting with "The Big Mysteries" there is also a rather big expectation. Thankfully this short audiobook still somehow delivered despite only being around 4 hours long. Very informative and I could listen to the narrator/author discuss about evolution all day long. I do wish there's more though.
October 30, 2025
Very interesting, I learnt things, I understand more about how scientists can understand when a tooth or a partial skull fragment can change the whole understanding of the history of humans. It was however quite stale in the telling, lots of big words. I would have liked to be able to picture the differences more as a laywoman!!
Anyway, very interesting subject. Glad I listened.
Anyway, very interesting subject. Glad I listened.
January 2, 2023
This is a great primer or a refresher book.
Good narration, well paced and obviously well-researched.
One star was knocked off! - well apart from the fact that I could do so, it is because apart from the refresher part - there is not a single new thing in the book :(
Good narration, well paced and obviously well-researched.
One star was knocked off! - well apart from the fact that I could do so, it is because apart from the refresher part - there is not a single new thing in the book :(
February 8, 2023
What an exciting journey. We, as a species, have won the ultimate competition.
There is no gap in human evolution history. We have fossils of many intermediate species between us and our common ancestor with chimps.
There is no gap in human evolution history. We have fossils of many intermediate species between us and our common ancestor with chimps.
July 19, 2023
3.5 stars. This was read by the author who is clearly very knowledgable and passionate about the subject. As others have mentioned, this is very dense but I still found it approachable for my layman brain. I would have loved to follow along with a written copy but have been unable to find one.
November 14, 2024
It is a short and sweet informative read with lots of easy-to-understand big concepts. Perfect for a broad audience from newbies to long-time lovers of Anthropology. The book is dense but never dull. Highly recommend.
March 15, 2025
Free audio book audible
First chapter was a little rough I can’t lie. But the rest of them were very informative and interesting. Updated research about the topic and the author did a great job at explaining social misconceptions and outcomes of her field. Very good work for such a short runtime
First chapter was a little rough I can’t lie. But the rest of them were very informative and interesting. Updated research about the topic and the author did a great job at explaining social misconceptions and outcomes of her field. Very good work for such a short runtime
June 3, 2025
This was interesting. Its a relatively quick one to get through and it talks about hominid evolution. I was already interested in this kind of stuff so I was aware of most of this already. There was some really interesting parts, but I was kind of expecting more.
October 13, 2022
Very good lecture series about human evolution and all the interesting new finds that have contributed to new thinking over the past couple of decades.
September 13, 2024
Interesting topic and well crafted lessons. Sometimes a bit difficult to follow on audio, I have to admit that I zoned out at some points but always managed to fall back on my feet
February 17, 2025
Alot of information packed into a little book. Great overview of human evolution. Provides solid starting points to branch off and learn more specific
June 1, 2025
Loved this deep look into human history. I find it comforting to know we are not too separated from the nature that we have grown from.
July 29, 2025
I'm probably not smart enough to follow this anyway, but it was read quite quickly and not being able to read all the different species discussed did make it hard to follow.
October 24, 2025
Interesting, but very dry.
October 30, 2025
3.66 out of 5 Stars
November 6, 2025
Washington DC Natural History Museum in words with detail. Just fabulous!
November 10, 2025
I had to relisten to it twice; as the knowledge dispensed was worth to relearn. I will do another sweep at it soon again.
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