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“What a chimera then is man! What a novelty! What a monster, what a chaos, what a contradiction!” — Blaise Pascal. No moment in my teaching career has left a deeper impression on me than a biology class I gave in 2018. The topic was evolution and the tree of life. The pupils were ten-year-olds. “So teacher, are all the animals our cousins?” one student asked. I gave a few qualifications, but then conceded the youthful wisdom. “Yes. And so are all trees and flowers.” The bell rang but many students stayed in the classroom, wanting to hear more about the way we relate to monkeys, dogs, or the silver birches swaying in the schoolyard. I’ve taught the same theme many times since, and while doing so, I have developed a very visceral sense that, as Mary Midgley said, “we humans are not just rather like animals; we are animals.” At the same time, it is obvious that humans are a peculiar species, perhaps the most peculiar one alive. We speak in tongues, we travel to space, we wreck ecosystems. So how do we fit into the story of life? Jonathan Loh’s new book, Life Story, offered me a fresh way to think about this. Loh is a biologist, author, and an honorary fellow at the University of Sussex. His book is thoroughly biological, but it also takes human peculiarity seriously. In fact, Loh suggests that humans are extraordinarily weird precisely because we are the first life form to have copied many of the foundational tricks that life itself once developed. That central idea takes us from the origins of life and the great transitions of biological evolution all the way to agriculture, cities, and the technological world we inhabit today. We end with reflections on climate change, AI, and Alan Turing’s prophetic-sounding claim that our machines are “only a foretaste of what is to come, and only the shadow of what is going to be.” Enjoy! FACT-CHECKING No factual errors have been detected yet. If you find a factual error, please leave a comment in the extended show notes (link below). LINKS Full show notes with a transcript. Support at Patreon.com/OnHumans⁠ KEYWORDS Names Lynn Margulis | Adam Smith | John Maynard Smith | Eörs Szathmáry | Eva Jablonka Technical terms Proto-Indo-European | LUCA (Last Universal Common Ancestor) | hydrothermal vents | cyanobacteria | anoxygenic photosynthesis | oxygenic photosynthesis | Great Oxidation Event | banded iron formations | Snowball Earth | prokaryotes | eukaryotes | endosymbiosis | mitochondria | ATP | plastids | chloroplasts | Fertile Crescent | Uruk | Mesopotamia | The Major Transitions in Evolution | Kōjima macaques | Imo | Cambrian Explosion | Tiktaalik | Cretaceous mass extinction | Homo erectus | Homo sapiens | Australopithecus | Anthropic | Claude | IPCC | Holocene Topics covered human evolution | history of life | evolution of life | human origins | deep time | evolution explained | DNA | genetic code | evolution of language | animal cultures | evolution of intelligence | evolution of consciousness | photosynthesis | Great Oxidation Event | mitochondria | endosymbiosis | multicellular life | Cambrian Explosion | cultural evolution | social evolution | hunter-gatherers | origins of agriculture | domestication | origins of civilisation | origins of cities | origins of states | rise of complex societies | evolution of land animals | Tiktaalik | biodiversity | climate change | artificial intelligence | AI | future of humanity | technological evolution Music credit: Aleksey Chistilin (Lexin_Music) via Pixabay. Get in touch: [email protected]

“What do you think of the paleo diet?” To my surprise, this has become the most common question I get after telling people that I cover human evolution. I’ve long struggled to answer. Yes, the idea makes a lot of sense: humans evolved as hunter-gatherers, so our bodies should do well when we eat like hunter-gatherers. But what exactly do hunter-gatherers eat? Harvard professor Daniel Lieberman wanted to find out. After reviewing the evidence we have on the diets of hunter-gatherers, he came to a surprising conclusion. “Not a single one of them eats the paleo diet”, he says. Some hunter-gatherers eat more meat than the paleo diet prescribes; most eat much less. Plenty of them eat legumes and cereals, both of which are banned by paleo cookbooks. “There is no one paleo diet,” Lieberman concludes. “The unique thing about humans is that we evolved to eat almost everything.” Instead of fixating on a single “true” diet, Lieberman’s new book, Fed Up, offers a tour of the dietary history of humanity, discussing what lessons we can learn along the way. In this episode, we cover the sweeping story of food and cooking, from the first chefs who processed food with stone tools to the explosion of ultra-processed foods during Lieberman’s own lifetime. Along the way, Lieberman offers insightful comparisons between humans and chimpanzees and discusses the many ways in which farming has — and has not — affected the human condition. He also explains why humans have always been “a very fat ape”, and what his experience of racing against horses tells us about the quirks of human evolution. Towards the end of the episode, we also evaluate the pros and the cons of the modern food system. We finish with Lieberman’s deeply compassionate advice to all who would like to find a healthier lifestyle amidst the many challenges of industrial modernity. Enjoy! FACT-CHECKING No factual errors have been detected yet. If you find a factual error, please leave a comment in the extended show notes (link below) LINKS Full show notes with references: https://OnHumans.Substack.com/p/Beyond-Paleo-a-Culinary-History-of Support: Patreon.com/OnHumans KEYWORDS Ethnic groups & technical terms The Hadza | Inuit | Agta | Homo erectus | Australopithecines | Lucy | Olduvai Hominid OH 8 | Oldowan stone tools | the Nandi Hills Topics covered Human evolution | evolutionary anthropology | human origins | big history | palaeoanthropology | paleo diet | hunter-gatherer studies | meat eating | persistence hunting | endurance running | sweating | human body fat | origins of cooking | origins of food processing | agriculture | neolithic revolution | peasant diets | famines | infectious disease | Mediterranean diet | ultra-processed foods | fibre | saturated and unsaturated fats | obesity | insulin resistance | type 2 diabetes | GLUT4 transporters | exercise | weight maintenance | Music credit: Aleksey Chistilin (Lexin_Music) via Pixabay.

We can decide to stay home, but even then, the wider world is always close to our skin. From global trade to ideas that travel across continents, the wider world is always woven into our modern life. Since when has this been the case? There is a modern story about globalisation — a story about telecommunications and aeroplanes and such — but this is the climax of a long process, not its beginning. To find the deeper roots of globalisation, we should turn our gaze to the medieval world, and specifically to events around the year 1000. Or so argues historian Valerie Hansen. In this episode, we discuss the various curious developments around the year 1000 that began to connect the world into an interconnected web. From Viking explorers to the Silk Roads in Africa, Hansen offers many fascinating windows into the surprising connections that were already beginning to link the medieval world together. We also discuss the spread of inventions and world religions, as well as the deeper forces that Hansen thinks have long been driving world history. Enjoy! FACT-CHECKING No errors have been detected in this conversation. If you notice one, please get in touch via Substack or the form below. LINKS Hansen's books: The Silk Road: A New History ⁠and ⁠The Year 1000. Support: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon.com/OnHumans⁠⁠⁠⁠ Articles & newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠OnHumans.Substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ Get in touch: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://forms.gle/h5wcmefuwvD6asos8⁠⁠⁠⁠ KEYWORDS Names: Erik the Red | Bjarni Herjólfsson | Jacques Cartier | Vladimir the Great | Mansa Musa | William Dalrymple | Kenneth Pomeranz | Andrés Moreno-Estrada | Michael Coe | Mary Miller | Ralph Austen | Richard Davis | Paul Freedman | Thor Heyerdahl Historical places: L’Anse aux Meadows | Greenland | Newfoundland | Chichén Itzá | the Yucatán Peninsula | the Baltic Sea | the Song dynasty | the Liao dynasty | the Abbasid Caliphate | Baghdad | the Indian Ocean | the Swahili Coast | Mali | Kaifeng | Hagia Sophia Topics covered: Global history | macrohistory | economic history | medieval history | early global trade | long-distance trade | Silk Roads | Indian Ocean trade | trans-Saharan trade | maritime trade networks | Viking / Norse exploration | Polynesian migrations | population genetics | pre-Columbian contact | Viking–Maya contact hypothesis | Polynesian–Native American contact hypothesis | Song dynasty | Liao dynasty | Abbasid Caliphate | medieval Africa | Swahili Coast trade | medieval slavery | trans-Saharan slave trade | slavery and serfdom | slavery in China | spread of world religions | Christianisation of Europe | spread of Islam | Buddhism in Asia | diffusion of technology | history of inventions | paper, printing, gunpowder and the compass | Indian numerals and zero | Maya mathematics | history of food Music credit: Aleksey Chistilin (Lexin_Music) via Pixabay.

How old is war? Does it stretch deep into human origins, or did warfare become common only as growing populations settled down?  In Part II of this conversation with Douglas P. Fry, we return to the long-running debate about the origins of war. Fry revisits his argument that aggression is ancient, but war is not. I put that claim to the test, raising some of the strongest objections from archaeology and the study of modern hunter-gatherers. We discuss Jebel Sahaba, nomadic and settled foragers, food storage, marine resources, population growth, and the archaeological sequences through which warfare seems to emerge in different parts of the world. Is war an ancient adaptation—or a more recent cultural development? And is the answer relevant to our modern quest for a more peaceful world? Enjoy! FACT-CHECKING No factual errors have been detected in this conversation, but there is a potentially unfair criticism of Wrangham and Glowacki's (2012) methodology. Contrary to the impression offered by the episode, the authors had explicitly excluded Malaysian hunter-gatherer groups on the grounds of substantial contact with surrounding farming and state societies. For the original exchange, see Wrangham & Glowacki's (2012) and Fry & Söderberg (2014). If you notice an error, please get in touch via Substack or the form below. LINKS Fry's 2026 book: ⁠Advanced Introduction to Conflict Resolution⁠ Support: ⁠⁠Patreon.com/OnHumans⁠⁠ Articles & newsletter: ⁠⁠OnHumans.Substack.com⁠⁠ Get in touch: ⁠⁠https://forms.gle/h5wcmefuwvD6asos8⁠⁠ Music credit: Aleksey Chistilin (Lexin_Music) via Pixabay. NAMES MENTIONED Douglas P. Fry | Luke Glowacki | Richard Wrangham | Brian Ferguson | Christopher Boehm | Richard B. Lee | Donald E. Brown ETHNIC GROUPS AND HISTORICAL REGIONS Northwestern Alaska | Valley of Oaxaca | Jebel Sahaba  | Monte Albán | Zapotec Empire | Calusa people | Batek people | Orang Asli | Juǀ’hoansi, !Kung | Mbuti  KEY WORDS Origins of war | prehistory of war | history of warfare | causes of war | why humans go to war | anthropology of war | anthropology of peace | peace studies | conflict studies | war studies | peace and conflict studies | evolutionary anthropology | human evolution | human nature and war | hunter-gatherer warfare | hunter-gatherers | nomadic hunter-gatherers | mobile foragers | complex hunter-gatherers | prehistoric violence | interpersonal violence | coalitionary aggression | coalitionary killing | lethal aggression | human aggression | conflict resolution | restraint of aggression | archaeological evidence of war | archaeology of warfare | archaeological record | Pleistocene | Holocene | Neolithic warfare | origins of social complexity | sedentism | permanent settlements | food storage | population growth | population density | resource competition | resource intensification | marine resources | aquatic resources | Neolithic revolution | human universals | evolutionary psychology | chimpanzee warfare

History is full of wars. Why? Is war driven by fear? Greed? Revenge? Ambitious leaders? Is it rooted deep in human nature—or does it emerge only under particular social conditions? And what do we learn if we change the angle from wars to non-wars? What lessons emerge from a study of all the periods and regions where war did not take place?  My guest in this two-part mini-series is Douglas P. Fry, an anthropologist who has spent decades studying these questions. He is also a returning guest, and one of the first scholars ever to appear on this podcast. In Part II of our conversation, we will return to the topic of our episode from years back: the origins of war in prehistory. In this first part, however, we take a very different approach. We discuss lessons from modernity, with our topics ranging from the quest for peace after WWII to the societies in the Brazilian Amazon and Indigenous North America. What makes former enemies trust one another? What roles are played by equality, trade, or a new shared enemy? And how can cycles of fear, retaliation, and revenge be reversed without simply surrendering to aggression? At a time when war once again dominates the news, these questions could hardly be more urgent. But they also point towards a part of the human story that is too easily forgotten: our capacity not only to make war, but to understand it—and to build peace that lasts. Enjoy! FACT-CHECKING My wording on Ukraine giving up its nuclear arsenal in exchange for "security guarantees" is slightly stronger than the formal language of the Budapest Memorandum, which talked of “security assurances” rather than legally binding security guarantees. If you notice a factual error in this conversation, please get in touch via Substack or the form below. LINKS Fry's 2026 book: Advanced Introduction to Conflict Resolution Support: ⁠Patreon.com/OnHumans⁠ Articles & newsletter: ⁠OnHumans.Substack.com⁠ Get in touch: ⁠https://forms.gle/h5wcmefuwvD6asos8⁠ Music credit: Aleksey Chistilin (Lexin_Music) via Pixabay. NAMES MENTIONED Douglas P. Fry | Geneviève Souillac | Jean Monnet | Konrad Adenauer | Mahatma Gandhi | Edward Westermarck | Charles E. Osgood | Brian Ferguson | Eleanor Roosevelt | Vladimir Putin  KEY WORDS Douglas P. Fry | peace studies | conflict studies | war studies | peace and conflict studies | anthropology of war | anthropology of peace | war and peace | causes of war | origins of war | human nature and war | peacebuilding | conflict resolution | peace systems | lasting peace | international cooperation | nonviolence | revenge | reciprocity | negative reciprocity | deterrence | security dilemma | arms race | nuclear weapons | nuclear disarmament | Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons | TPNW | Budapest Memorandum | United Nations | UN peacekeeping | Blue Helmets | UN Security Council | international law | global governance | World War II | Second World War | post-war peace | European integration | Jean Monnet | European Coal and Steel Community | Switzerland | Nordic peace | Åland Islands dispute | League of Nations | Upper Xingu peace system | Indigenous peace systems | Haudenosaunee Confederacy | Iroquois Confederacy | Great League of Peace | GRIT strategy | Graduated Reciprocation in Tension Reduction | Charles E. Osgood | Edward Westermarck | Ukraine war | Russia–Ukraine war

Was India once an affluent empire, later impoverished by British colonisation? Or was India never rich to begin with? More generally, what does historical data on wages and other economic indicators tell us about the broader story of the making of the modern world – a world with great affluence, but where much of the riches are still concentrated in the Western world. For over 20 years now, Stephen Broadberry and Bishnupriya Gupta have worked to measure the evolution of global living standards from the medieval period onwards. In this episode, they begin by discussing a comparison between the historical economies of India and Britain. We then continue to a broader story of the living standards of the pre-industrial world. We also discuss different theories of the “Great Divergence” between the West and the rest of the world. We finish by turning our attention to the future, asking if the 21st century will be remembered as the Asian century. This episode concludes the five-part series on the making of the modern world, produced by CAGE Research Centre and On Humans.  LINKS AND REFERENCES Do you prefer reading to listening? You can find⁠ a summarised essay ⁠of this conversation, with a bibliography, at our series page:⁠ ⁠https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/news/podcasts/⁠⁠  NAMES MENTIONED Kenneth Pomeranz | Angus Maddison | Daron Acemoglu | James Robinson |  Nico Voigtländer | Hans-Joachim Voth | Debin Ma | Robert Allen | Joel Mokyr   KEYWORDS Economics | History | Global Economic History | Industrial Revolution | Indian history | Imperial history | East India Company | Emperor Akbar | Colonisation | Historical GDP estimates | Historical living standard estimates | Wage history | History of labour | Social history | Comparative development | State capacity | Malthusian trap | History of Technology  INFO Guests: Bishnupriya Gupta (University of Warwick) and Stephen Broadberry (University of Oxford)   ⁠⁠⁠ Contact: ⁠[email protected]

The tech gap between China and the West is closing fast. But why did the land that invented paper and gunpowder ever fall behind? Debin Ma is the world’s leading economic historian of East Asia. In this fourth episode of our Great Divergence series, he approaches the making of the modern world from an eastern perspective. We discuss why China fell behind, why Japan modernised early, and why East Asia has experienced so many economic miracles. We also discuss China’s recent transformation – a transformation that Ma has witnessed firsthand.  LINKS AND REFERENCES Do you prefer reading to listening? You can find⁠ a summarised essay ⁠of this conversation, with a bibliography, at our series page:⁠ ⁠https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/news/podcasts/⁠⁠ GREAT DIVERGENCE: THE MAKING OF THE MODERN WORLD This episode is part of a series produced by Warwick University’s⁠ ⁠CAGE Research Centre⁠⁠ in collaboration with⁠ ⁠On Humans⁠, searching for explanations to why Western Europe and North America emerged as the most affluent and technologically advanced regions of the modern world. Guided by six expert guests, including a winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize in economics, we approach this topic with balance and breadth, exploring everything from colonialism and fossil fuels to science and technology.  1 | Why the West? Colonies, fossil fuels, and lessons from China (Kenneth Pomeranz) 2 | Why did so many inventions come from Europe? (Joel Mokyr) 3 | Why did the Industrial Revolution happen in Britain? (Robert Allen)   4 | A view from the East: China, Japan, and the other paths to prosperity (Debin Ma) 5 | The big picture: Measuring the origins of the modern world (Bishnupriya Gupta and Stephen Broadberry) NAMES MENTIONED Joseph Needham | Kenneth Pomeranz | Joel Mokyr | Robert Allen | Francis Fukuyama | Jared Rubin | Yin Weiwen | Kaiser Kuo | Deng Xiaoping | Yasheng Huang   KEYWORDS Economics | History | Global Economic History | Industrial Revolution | Chinese history | Japanese history | Developmental Economics | Needham Puzzle | Needham Question | Qianlong Emperor | Macartney embassy | Meiji Japan | Iwakura mission |  Age heaping | Comparative development | State capacity | Modern fiscal state | History of taxation | Industrial Policy | History of Technology | Human capital INFO Guest: Debin Ma (Fudan University and All Souls College, University of Oxford)   ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Host: Ilari Mäkelä (⁠⁠⁠On Humans⁠⁠⁠) Contact: ⁠[email protected]

Why was industrial modernity born in Europe and not, say, China? This is one of the most consequential questions about the origins of the modern world. Yet asking “why Europe” can mislead. The Industrial Revolution was not a European event. It was a British event. So why was the steam engine invented in Britain, and not France or Italy? Oxford professor Robert Allen has worked for decades trying to understand this question. Allen believes that to understand the path to modernity, we must forget grand generalisations about the West. Instead, he asks us to zoom in on two very specific dynamics that shaped the British economy in the 1700s: cheap fuel and expensive workers. Together, they jolted Britain into a path where ever more work was streamlined with the help of machines and fossil fuels — a path that we are still walking on, with AI and robotics simply the latest sightings on this long march of modernity. In this episode, we discuss the surprising revelations that led Allen to his theory. We discuss the reasons that British wages were high, and we discuss recent scholarship suggesting that this wasn’t the case–or at least, was not the cause for the Industrial Revolution. We also discuss the more humane side of wages, tracing the history of worker wellbeing from the Black Death to today.  As always in this series, we finish with our guests’ reflections on the future. LINKS AND REFERENCES Do you prefer reading to listening? You can find⁠ a summarised essay ⁠of this conversation, with a bibliography, at our series page:⁠ ⁠https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/news/podcasts/⁠⁠ GREAT DIVERGENCE: THE MAKING OF THE MODERN WORLD This episode is part of a series produced by Warwick University’s⁠⁠ ⁠CAGE Research Centre⁠⁠⁠ in collaboration with⁠⁠ ⁠On Humans⁠⁠, searching for explanations to why Western Europe and North America emerged as the most affluent and technologically advanced regions of the modern world. Guided by six expert guests, including a winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize in economics, we approach this topic with balance and breadth, exploring everything from colonialism and fossil fuels to science and technology.  1 | Why the West? Colonies, fossil fuels, and lessons from China (Kenneth Pomeranz) 2 | Why did so many inventions come from Europe? (with Joel Mokyr) 3 | Why did the Industrial Revolution happen in Britain? (Robert Allen)   4 | A view from the East: China, Japan, and the other paths to prosperity (Debin Ma) 5 | The big picture: Measuring the origins of the modern world (Bishnupriya Gupta and Stephen Broadberry) NAMES MENTIONED James E. Thorold Rogers | Kenneth Pomeranz | Joel Mokyr | Jane Humphries | Daniel Defoe | Bradford J. (Brad) DeLong | Branko Milanovic | Daron Acemoglu | Oded Galor KEYWORDS Economics | History | Global Economic History | Industrial Revolution | Age of Inventions | Steam engine| European Miracle | British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective | Wage history | History of labour | Social history | Comparative development | Meiji Japan | Spinning Jenny | Industrial Policy | History of Technology | History of Inventions  EPISODE INFO Guest: Robert C. Allen (Nuffield College, University of Oxford and NYU Abu Dhabi)   ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Host: Ilari Mäkelä Contact: ⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠⁠ Music by Aleksey Chistilin (Lexin_Music) ⁠⁠⁠via Pixabay⁠

Several inventions mark the progress towards modernity - the Gutenberg printing press, the Galileo telescope, the Watt steam engine. But why was Europe the birthplace of so many of these?  Joel Mokyr, winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize in economics, thinks the cause was culture. For decades he has asked economists to take intellectual history more seriously. Economies are shaped by new inventions, Mokyr argues, and inventions can only be understood when we understand the culture that gives rise to them.  But how much did Europe's culture shape its economy? And how to square early modern Europe's progressive culture with it's colonial legacy? Mokyr answers these and other questions in this episodes, finishing with his reflections on the future of technological progress. Enjoy! LINKS AND REFERENCES Do you prefer reading to listening? You can find⁠ a summarised essay ⁠of this conversation, with a bibliography, at our series page: ⁠https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/news/podcasts/ GREAT DIVERGENCE: THE MAKING OF THE MODERN WORLD This episode is part of a series produced by Warwick University’s⁠⁠ ⁠CAGE Research Centre⁠⁠⁠ in collaboration with⁠⁠ ⁠On Humans⁠⁠, searching for explanations to why Western Europe and North America emerged as the most affluent and technologically advanced regions of the modern world. Guided by six expert guests, including a winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize in economics, we approach this topic with balance and breadth, exploring everything from colonialism and fossil fuels to science and technology.  1 | Why the West? Colonies, fossil fuels, and lessons from China (Kenneth Pomeranz) 2 | Why did so many inventions come from Europe? (with Joel Mokyr) 3 | Why did the Industrial Revolution happen in Britain? (Robert Allen)   4 | A view from the East: China, Japan, and the other paths to prosperity (Debin Ma) 5 | The big picture: Measuring the origins of the modern world (Bishnupriya Gupta and Stephen Broadberry) NAMES MENTIONED Joel Mokyr | Robert Lucas | David Hume | Isaac Newton | Antoine Lavoisier | Joseph Black | James Watt | John Robison | Josiah Wedgwood | Sadi Carnot | Margaret Jacob | Evangelista Torricelli | Galileo Galilei | Blaise Pascal | Otto von Guericke | Aristotle | Denis Diderot | William Harvey | Song Yingxing | Marco Polo | Zheng He | Louis XIV | Avner Greif | Guido Tabellini | Kenneth Pomeranz | Adam Smith | Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot | Montesquieu | Voltaire | Confucius | al-Ghazali | Ptolemy | Euclid | David Ricardo | Karl Marx | Hippocrates | Galen | Xi Jinping | Joseph Needham | Nigel Farage | Joseph Stalin | Trofim Lysenko | Robert Allen KEYWORDS Economics | History | Global Economic History | Intellectual History | Age of Inventions | Rise of the West | European Miracle | Enlightened Economy | Culture of Growth | Gift of Athena |Industrial Revolution | History of technology | History of inventions   INFO Guest: Joel Mokyr (⁠⁠⁠Northwestern University)⁠⁠⁠ Host: Ilari Mäkelä Contact: ⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠ Music by Aleksey Chistilin (Lexin_Music) ⁠⁠via Pixabay

Why did Western Europe become the richest region of the early modern world? Was the rise of the West powered by colonization, inventions, or something else entirely? And what happened to the medieval might of China and India? The term “great divergence” is increasingly used by historians who want to study this immense question, but who want to do it carefully, without falling into traditional East-West clichés.  This episode marks the beginning of a five-episode series exploring the state of this research, produced by the University of Warwick’s CAGE Research Centre in collaboration with the On Humans Podcast. In this opening episode, we meet Kenneth Pomeranz, the historian of China who coined the term "great divergence" in a field-defining book of the same name. We begin by discussing Pomeranz’s groundbreaking approach and the surprising answers that he arrived at. In the second half of the episode, we zoom out and place the rise of the West into the broader story about the history of humanity – a story Pomeranz divides into four parts, with the fifth one beginning right now. Enjoy! LINKS AND REFERENCES Do you prefer reading to listening? You can find summary essays, bibliographies, and much more at our series page: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/news/podcasts/ GREAT DIVERGENCE: THE MAKING OF THE MODERN WORLD This episode is part of a series produced by Warwick University’s⁠⁠⁠ ⁠CAGE Research Centre⁠⁠⁠⁠ in collaboration with⁠⁠⁠ ⁠On Humans⁠⁠⁠, searching for explanations to why Western Europe and North America emerged as the most affluent and technologically advanced regions of the modern world. Guided by six expert guests, including a winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize in economics, we approach this topic with balance and breadth, exploring everything from colonialism and fossil fuels to science and technology.  1 | Why the West? Colonies, fossil fuels, and lessons from China (Kenneth Pomeranz) 2 | Why did so many inventions come from Europe? (with Joel Mokyr) 3 | Why did the Industrial Revolution happen in Britain? (Robert Allen)   4 | A view from the East: China, Japan, and the other paths to prosperity (Debin Ma) 5 | The big picture: Measuring the origins of the modern world (Bishnupriya Gupta and Stephen Broadberry) NAMES MENTIONED Joel Mokyr | Brad DeLong | Arthur Wigley | Jan De Vries | Robert Allen | Simon Schama | Isaac Newton | Vasco da Gama | Jonathan Spence| Anthony Wrigley | Thomas Malthus | Nate Hagens | Charles Lockyer | Marshall Hodgson | Aristotle | Plato | Jared Diamond | Adam Smith |  KEYWORDS  Economics | History | Global Economic History | Malthusian Economics | Fossil Fuel Economics | Economics of Colonialism | Rise of the West | European Miracle | California School of Economics | Atlantic Trade | Industrial Revolution | Second Industrial Revolution | Historic living standards INFO Guest: Kenneth Pomeranz (⁠⁠University of Chicago⁠⁠) Host: Ilari Mäkelä Contact: ⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠ Music by Aleksey Chistilin (Lexin_Music) ⁠⁠⁠via Pixabay.⁠⁠

Something big is coming soon. Stay tuned! Whilst waiting, you can enjoy one of my all-time favourites from the archives. A lot of the recent episodes have mentioned the impact of bipedalism in the human story, but the remarks have hardly done justice to the depth of the matter. Jeremy DeSilva did it justice. Enjoy!  ORIGINAL SHOW NOTES Humans are odd in many ways. But perhaps the oddest of our features is our upright posture. We walk on two legs. And we are the only mammal to do so.  So why do we walk upright? And why does it matter?  Jeremy DeSilva is a fossil expert and a professor of paleoanthropology at Dartmouth College. He is also the author of a remarkable book, aptly titled First Steps: How Upright Walking Made Us Human DeSilva’s treatment of the subject is sweeping: while tracing the journey of human posture, he draws remarkable links between bipedalism and many facets of the human condition, from difficult births to complex language and from lower back pains to the beauty of friendships. In this episode, we talk about questions such as: What Darwin got right and wrong about the role of walking in human evolution When and why did we start walking upright?Why the common picture of human evolution is wrong - and what would be a better pictureWhy walking makes us fragileHow our ancestors survived bone fractures - and why this is a big deal Why is human birth so difficultWhy walking is so good for us: introducing the “myokines”What studying the human journey has taught DeSilva about our species_________ Please consider becoming a supporter of On Humans. Even small monthly donations can make a huge impact on the long-term sustainability of the program. Visit: ⁠⁠Patreon.com/OnHumans ⁠⁠ _________ Names mentioned Charles Darwin / Ian Tattersall / Donald Johanson / Mary Leakey / Sherwood Washburn / Richard Wrangham (ep 21) / Kristen Hawkes (ep 6) / Holly Dunsworth / Daniel Lieberman  Mentioned hominin species Sahelanthropus / Ardipithecus / Australopithecus (e.g. Lucy) / Homo habilis / Homo erectus / Homo sapiens Music by Aleksey Chistilin (Lexin_Music) ⁠via Pixabay.⁠

Imagine a group of ancient humans, crafting stone tools at the dawn of humankind. What did these creatures look like?  To find out, we can stare at the skulls in museums or glance at reconstructions made by paleo-artists. Not a bad start. But what if we move the lens and zoom into their surroundings? What was the scientific “Garden of Eden” like? Was it a lush forest, a dry savanna, or an icy cave? And what can the answer tell us about human nature more broadly? Denise Su is a world-leading expert on these questions. A paleoecologist at Arizona State University’s Institute of Human Origins, she uses ever-more imaginative ways to get a glimpse into the nature and the weather that set the stage for the human story. In this episode, we focus on two kinds of “changes” in the ecology of human evolution: both the actual climate change that drummed the beat of human origins, and the theoretical changes in the views of scientists thinking about these topics. Indeed, this episode digs deep into one of the hotly contested questions about the reasons why humans evolved: "the savanna hypothesis". According to the savanna hypothesis, our naked, upright species evolved because African forests were shrinking and dry savannas emerged instead. Other apes stayed in the shrinking forests, but our brave ancestors took the shot, conquering the vast flatlands. As they did so, they started standing upright to better walk on the savanna and lost their fur, to sweat away the heat of the scorching sun. I have told versions of this story on the show, and so have many senior guests. Yet even a brief Google search will give you plenty of critics telling that the savanna hypothesis is nothing but a convenient myth.⁠ Articles by Denise Su⁠ are often included in the evidence. So what’s going on? Listen to the episode to find out! TIMELINE  Last common ancestor with humans and chimpanzees: 6–7 million years ago Ardipithecus ramidus: 4.5–4.2 million years ago Australopithecus anamnesis: 4.2–3.8 million years ago Austrolopithecus afarensis (e.g. Lucy): 3.9–2.9 million years ago Australopithecus deyiremeda: 3.5–3.3 million years ago Earliest Homo: about 2.8 million years ago Homo erectus: 1.9 million–112,000 years ago Homo sapiens: 300,000 years ago till present  FACT-CHECKING No factual errors have been detected so far. However, timing estimates and species names are still debated. Furthermore, the “hours” in the metaphorical clock can shift a fair amount based on the “midnight”: our last common ancestor with chimpanzees lived 6 to 7 million years ago, with some estimates pushing the date as far as 8 million. In the episode, our clock is tuned to 6 million years ago.  If you see an error, you can get in touch using the form below. LINKS Support: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon.com/OnHumans⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Articles & newsletter: OnHumans/Substack.com Get in touch: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://forms.gle/h5wcmefuwvD6asos8⁠⁠⁠⁠ Music by Aleksey Chistilin (Lexin_Music) ⁠via Pixabay.⁠ KEY WORDS anthropology | archaeology | paleontology | human origins | human behavioural ecology | savanna hypothesis | paleolithic | paleoecology | hominid fossils | carbon isotopes C3/C4 | human evolution | human biology | climate change | human futures

What was life like before farming? Was it nasty, brutish, and short? Or did our hunter-gatherer ancestors live lives that were relatively free, affluent, and ecologically stable? In the lack of a time machine, many anthropologists have sought answers from studying the few hunter-gatherer communities that still exist today. In 1966, several leading names in the field were invited to present their results at a symposium at the University of Chicago. This “Man the Hunter” conference became a landmark event, but what exactly were the results? And have they stood the test of time?  To mark the 60th anniversary of the "Man the Hunter" symposium, On Humans is glad to share the first-ever long-form podcast with the legendary anthropologist and co-organiser of the symposium, Richard B. Lee. We discuss the legacy of the conference, Lee’s own experiences living with hunter-gatherers in the Kalahari, and his reflections on what we do and do not know about the ancient lifeways of hunter-gatherers. As we do so, we also discuss various controversies and mysteries, from women's roles to Native American farmers, and from archaeological black holes toThe Dawn of Everything. Enjoy! FACT-CHECKING No factual errors have been detected so far. If you see an error, you can get in touch using the form below. LINKS Support: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon.com/OnHumans⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Get in touch: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://forms.gle/h5wcmefuwvD6asos8⁠⁠⁠ Music by Aleksey Chistilin (Lexin_Music) ⁠via Pixabay.⁠ MENTIONS The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race (Jared Diamond) https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-worst-mistake-in-the-history-of-the-human-race-12157 The Original Affluent Society (Marshall Sahlins) https://www.uvm.edu/~jdericks/EE/Sahlins-Original_Affluent_Society.pdf For my previous coverage on “woman the hunter” controversies, see “Is Man the Hunter Dead” and my interviews with Cara Ocobock and Katie Starkweather, all available here: ⁠https://onhumans.substack.com/p/is-man-the-hunter-dead⁠ For Richard Lee's own comments on the controversy, see his interview with Vivek Venkataraman ⁠https://osf.io/x7ar3_v1/ Names: Richard B. Lee | James Suzman | Marshall Sahlins | David Graeber | David Wengrow | Jared Diamond | Sarah Blaffer Hrdy | Jerome Lewis | Colin Turnbull | James Woodburn | Eleanor Leacock | Louis Henry Morgan | Karl Marx | George Armelagos | Irvin DeVore | Sherwood Washburn | Jay Desmond Clark | Harriet Rosenberg | Lawrence K. Marshall | Elizabeth Marshall | John Marshall | Greta Thunberg | Vivek Venkataraman Ethnic groups: San | Ju/’hoansi | !Kung | Khoisan | Khoikhoi | “Bushmen” | “Hottentots” | First Nations | Tlingit | Haida | Inuit | Australian Aboriginal peoples | Bayaka| Batek | Huron-Wendat | Iroquois | Six Nations | Plains Indians | Hopi | Navajo | Cherokee KEY WORDS anthropology | archaeology | ethnography | human origins | human behavioural ecology | hunter-gatherers | paleolithic | neolithic transition | original affluent society | Kalahari Desert | Botswana | Namibia | paleogenetics | gathering vs hunting | gender roles | women hunting | egalitarianism | origins of hierarchy | surplus | food storage | salmon economies | Northwest Coast hunter-gatherers | archaeology of early farmers | bioarchaeology | stature/height decline | teeth health | disease burden | zoonoses | cross-species infection | Neolithic fertility increase | population pressure and “intensification” | chiefdoms | states | empires | ecology vs culture debate | materialist vs idealist | concentration–dispersion | colonialism | exploitation | land rights | climate change | human futures

The world is full of religions, but none as timeless as shamanism. And whilst many modern religions have shed their shamanic skins, the shaman is rarely as far away as we have been told. Or so argues anthropologist Manvir Singh in his book, Shamanism: The Timeless Religion.   Singh’s work is fascinating in its capacity to link the exocit with the familiar, showing how rainforest rituals are not so far removed from urban modernity as we might think. Today, I will have the rare chance to enjoy Singh's insights together with you, as a listener. The hard work will be done by Kensy Cooperider, the host of the Many Minds Podcast. Many Minds is one of my own go-to shows and has a lot to recommend for it. Just like On Humans, it breaks down complex scientific concepts about humanity into easy-to-follow yet in-depth conversations. Yet unlike On Humans, it has insanely well-referenced show notes! Just check this one out. Kensy and I had a beachside chat this November and decided it would be good to introduce ourselves to each other's audiences. So here we go! LINKS Many Minds: https://disi.org/manyminds/ Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute: https://disi.org/ Episode page: https://disi.org/the-shaman-with-a-thousand-faces/ Manvir Singh: https://www.manvir.org/ KEYWORDS Anthropology | Psychology | Religion | Cross-cultural study | Abrahamic religions | Neo-shamanism | Human universals |

Happy 2026! On Humans has typically marked the coming of January by revisiting the previous year’s most popular episode. This time, the New Year special packs the five-hour-long "Origins of Humankind" series into one fast-paced dive through deep time. By mixing highlights from the original interviews with fresh narration, this episode offers a captivating journey through many of the great topics around human origins, such as: Who were the first primates The role of fruits, snakes, and predators The human solution to dangerHow to grow a human brain?What did our ancestors eat?Effects of our upright posture Origins of music & language How Homo sapiens took over the worldEnjoy! LINKS For the original five-hour experience, see: OnHumans.Substack.com/Origins For a shorter series on ancient DNA: see OnHumans.Substack.com/DNA Support: Patreon.com/OnHumans The series was produced together with CARTA (UCSD & Salk Institute). For past recordings of CARTA symposia on human origins, see: Carta.Anthropogeny.org/Symposia KEYWORDS Human evolution | Human origins | Science | Biology | Paleoanthropology | Anthropology | Archaeology | Fossils | aDNA | History of life | Life history | Dinosaurs | Primates | Apes | Hominins | Homo sapiens | Evolution of language | Evolution of music | Brain evolution | Paleoneurology | Neanderthals | Denisovans | Neolithic Revolution | Spread of agriculture | Human destiny