Episode 04: How to Document a Society

08/05/15 • 16 min

Every day for 55 years a dedicated group of researchers, students, and Tanzanian field assistants have spent their days crawling through thorns and vines as they follow chimpanzees to observe their behavior. They write everything down in notes and on maps and checksheets. It adds up to an impressive amount of data.

This episode tells the story of the evolution of data collection at Gombe, what it's like to collect it, and what we can learn from it.

Thanks to Anne Pusey, director of the Jane Goodall Institute Research Center at Duke University, and to Emily Boehm, Joseph Feldblum and Kara Walker from Duke University.

Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation. The Leakey Foundation is proud to support ongoing research at Gombe and around the world. Since 1968, we've awarded over 35 research grants to Jane Goodall and other scientists studying chimpanzees at Gombe. Learn more and help support science at leakeyfoundation.org!

Music in this episode is by Henry Nagle and Kevin MacLeod ("Backed Vibes" Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0).

Our editor is Audrey Quinn.

Support comes from Wells Fargo Bank. Transcripts provided by Adept Word Management.

If you like our show, please give us a review on iTunes! It really helps spread the word about our show, and we appreciate it very much!

This episode tells the story of the evolution of data collection at Gombe, what it's like to collect it, and what we can learn from it.

Thanks to Anne Pusey, director of the Jane Goodall Institute Research Center at Duke University, and to Emily Boehm, Joseph Feldblum and Kara Walker from Duke University.

Music in this episode is by Henry Nagle and Kevin MacLeod ("Backed Vibes" Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0).

Our editor is Audrey Quinn.

Support comes from Wells Fargo Bank. Transcripts provided by Adept Word Management.

If you like our show, please give us a review on iTunes! It really helps spread the word about our show, and we appreciate it very much!

Previous Episode

Episode 03: Jane Goodall

Dr. Jane Goodall is a legend. She is a science hero, a trailblazing researcher who inspires people around the world. In this episode, Jane Goodall shares part of the story of how she went from working as a secretary to becoming the world's leading expert on chimpanzee behavior.

In 2004, author and Leakey family biographer Virginia Morrell interviewed Jane Goodall for the Louis Leakey Centennial Oral History Project. This never before heard recording covers the time in Goodall's life from 1957 when she arrived in Nairobi, Kenya, to November 1960 when she made her first groundbreaking discovery, one that changed the way we see chimpanzees as well as the way we define ourselves as humans.

Links

The Jane Goodall Institute
The Leakey Foundation
ROHO. The Regional Oral History Office of the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley
Virginia Morrell

Credits

This episode was produced by Meredith Johnson and edited by Audrey Quinn, production help from Schuyler Swenson. Scoring and composition by Henry Nagle. Additional Music from the Blue Dot Sessions and Lee Rosevere.

Thanks for listening! If you like our show, please subscribe and give us a rating on iTunes. We're new and reviews really help. We appreciate it a lot!

You can support long term studies of primates in the wild by supporting The Leakey Foundation.

Next Episode

Episode 05: Discovery at Ledi-Geraru

Have you ever wondered what it's like to make a major fossil discovery? Arizona State University graduate student Chalachew Seyoum and professor Kaye Reed tell us their exciting story.

Seyoum was working as part of a team co-directed by Reed. While searching for hominid fossils at a site called Ledi-Geraru in the Afar region of Ethiopia, he found a fossil jaw sticking out of the 2.8 million year old sediment. That jaw turned out to be the earliest known fossil from our genus Homo. It was around 400,000 years older than any Homo fossil found before. The discovery was published in the journal Science in March of 2015. Dr. Susan Anton from New York University tells us why this find and the time period it's from are important in helping us connect the dots in our picture of early human evolution.

Links:

Early Homo at 2.8 MA from Ledi-Geraru, Afar, Ethiopia : Science

'First Human' discovered in Ethiopia : BBC News

Jawbone fossil fills a gap in early human evolution : New York Times

Credits:

This show is a project of The Leakey Foundation. The Leakey Foundation funds human origins research and shares that information with the public. You can learn more and help support science at leakeyfoundation.org.

This episode was produced by Schuyler Swenson. Our editor is Audrey Quinn. Music and scoring by Henry Nagle.

Origin Stories is made possible by a grant from Wells Fargo Bank. Transcripts are provided by Adept Word Management.