![On the Media artwork](https://is2-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Podcasts123/v4/ed/0a/f3/ed0af3ba-384e-7edb-f14f-b6c3a3916e19/mza_4450987209022544487.png/100x100bb.jpg)
We Are Family
On the Media
English - August 19, 2022 16:00 - 50 minutes - 46 MB - ★★★★★ - 8.2K ratingsNews Commentary News History news media radio advertising newspaper magazine npr wnyc journalism technology Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
When you hear the word “Neanderthal,” you probably picture a mindless, clumsy brute. It’s often used as an insult — even by our president, who last year called anti-maskers “Neanderthals.” But what if we have more in common with our ancestral cousins than we think? On this week’s On the Media, hear how these early humans have been unfairly maligned in science and in popular culture.
1. John Hawks [@johnhawks], professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, on our biological family tree—and the complicated branch that is Neanderthals. Listen.
2. Rebecca Wragg Sykes [@LeMoustier], archeologist and author of Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art, on and what we know about how they lived. Listen.
3. Clive Finlayson [@CliveFinlayson], Director, Chief Scientist, and Curator of the Gibraltar National Museum, on how studying what’s inside Gorham and Vanguard caves can help reconstruct Neanderthal life beyond them. Listen.
4. Angela Saini, science journalist, on how Neanderthals have been co-opted to push mythologies about the genetic basis of race. Listen.
Music:
Boy Moves the Sun by Michael Andrews
Young Heart by Brad Mehldau
Sacred Oracle by John Zorn
Tomorrow Never Knows by Quartetto d’ Archi Di Dell’Orchestra di Milano Guiseppe Verdi
Investigations by Kevin MacLeod