Why Do We Do That? An anthropologist's guide to the modern world.
There are lots of everyday things which, when you think about them, are pretty weird. Like kissing, doomscrolling and sitting down to go to the loo. Social media may tell you to blame the latest influencer who went viral. Your therapist might tell you to blame your parents. But palaeoanthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi is here to tell you to blame your great, great, great, great, great, etc. grandparents. For some stuff at least. In this series, Ella is joined by some wonderful guests to dive into the cultural, historical and evolutionary story of everyday human habits and behaviour.
Photo: Sarah Cresswell / The Times / News Licensing
Ella Al-Shamahi explores evolutionary mysteries in More Play with Brenna Hassett. BBC Studios Audio Producer: Olivia Jani Additional Production: Emily Bird Series Producer: Geraldine Fitzgerald Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem
Paleoanthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi asks why do humans play? The Neanderthals are a species that was so close to us that we could reproduce with them, they had creativity, technology and they made art - handprints on cave walls and painted shells strung into necklaces. But it turns out the Neanderthals had shorter childhoods than us. Their children grew up quicker than their Homo sapiens counterparts. We don’t know why Neanderthals went extinct. It is probably for a few reasons but is it possibl...
Ella Al-Shamahi explores evolutionary mysteries in More Bad Boys with Julia Stern. BBC Studios Audio Producer: Olivia Jani Additional Production: Emily Bird Series Producer: Geraldine Fitzgerald Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem
Paleoanthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi looks at the evidence for what people want in a partner and how it changes as they get older. Psychologist Julia Stern from the University of Bremen shares the results of a study which recruited people from a singles night in a Berlin club and followed them for 13 years. Novelist Adele Parks explains why writing about bad boys is so much fun, and on the Bridget Jones scale of bad boys think more Hugh Grant and less Colin Firth.
Ella Al-Shamahi explores evolutionary mysteries in More Dancing with Bronwyn Tarr. BBC Studios Audio Producer: Olivia Jani Additional Production: Emily Bird Series Producer: Geraldine Fitzgerald Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem
Dance seems like such a natural thing, a good beat comes on and you can’t help it, you might find yourself bobbing, even the rhythmically impaired might find themselves tapping their fingers along to the music and it starts early - one study has shown that babies as young as 5 months engage in rhythmic movements. Every culture on earth dances and yet look around at the rest of the animal kingdom… besides birds, can we say that other animals dance? Paleoanthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi asks why do ...
Ella Al-Shamahi explores evolutionary mysteries in More Pubs with Robin Dunbar. BBC Studios Audio Producer: Olivia Jani Additional Production: Emily Bird Series Producer: Geraldine Fitzgerald Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem
Humans have evolved to drink alcohol, or at least to be able to metabolise it. And we share this ability with our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees and gorillas, who are also able to convert alcohol into sugar. It gave our ancestors an advantage because we could eat rotting fruit from the forest floor and convert the alcohol into sugars, providing a source of nutrients that not all species could digest. This is also known as the drunken monkey hypothesis. But paleoanthropologist Ella Al-...
Ella Al-Shamahi explores evolutionary mysteries in More Nature with Gregory Bratman. BBC Studios Audio Producer: Olivia Jani Additional Production: Emily Bird Series Producer: Geraldine Fitzgerald Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem
Nature is charismatic, a good view can take our breath away and a walk in the woods can help de-stress our frazzled minds. But have we always been this way? Because after all, our early ancestors didn’t have cities to escape from. Is an affinity with the natural world around us, something we inherited ? Ella Al-Shamahi asks psychologist Dr Gregory Bratman and Robin Muir Head of Maggie’s Cancer Care Centre Manchester what are the benefits of spending time in green spaces.
Ella Al-Shamahi explores evolutionary mysteries in More Blushing with Laith Al-Shawaf. BBC Studios Audio Producer: Olivia Jani Additional Production: Emily Bird Series Producer: Geraldine Fitzgerald Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem
Paleoanthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi asks why we blush. Even Darwin was intrigued by blushing. He called it “the most peculiar and most human of all expression” but didn’t think it had a function. Dr Laith Al-Shawaf from the University of Colorado makes students do embarrassing things to understand why we blush and how blushing can make people like you more when you make a mistake.
Ella Al-Shamahi explores evolutionary mysteries in More Lies with Roman Stengelin. BBC Studios Audio Producer: Olivia Jani Additional Production: Emily Bird Series Producer: Geraldine Fitzgerald Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem
Ella Al-Shamahi asks why do we lie? You might think that deception is a uniquely human characteristic, but does camouflage or mimicry in nature, where animals pretend to be another animal or the actual environment like the insects leaf-mimic katydids that walk around looking like a leaf. Does that count as lying? Or is it just us humans with our highly complex language that have the ability to tell a fib. Ella talks to Dr Roman Stengelin of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology,...
BONUS: Ella Al-Shamahi explores evolutionary mysteries in More Laughs with Sophie Scott. BBC Studios Audio Producer: Olivia Jani Additional Production: Emily Bird Series Producer: Geraldine Fitzgerald Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem
Ella Al-Shamahi asks why do we laugh? Some people might not have a sense of humour, you might even know someone who never laughs… but there isn’t a culture out there, say a tribe, where people just never laugh. It does appear to be universal but how universal and how primal? Many mammals and the great apes ( chimpanzees, gorillas and bononbos) laugh. Orangutans diverged from the other great apes including us about 12 million years ago and because we all laugh that suggests our shared common ance...
BONUS: Ella Al-Shamahi explores evolutionary mysteries in More Dogs with Greger Larson. BBC Studios Audio Producer: Olivia Jani Additional Production: Emily Bird Series Producer: Geraldine Fitzgerald Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem
Ella Al-Shamahi asks why do we love dogs? Dogs evolved from wolves but why did they choose us humans to be their best friends? They say dogs are a man’s best friend but all dogs, even chihuahuas are descended from wolves, the grey wolf, a majestic, fierce and incredibly dangerous species. How did this happen but more importantly, why did we start trusting wolves? And when did wolves turn into dogs? Dogs have been a part of our story for a long time. They are depicted in cave and rock art and dog...
Ella Al-Shamahi explores evolutionary mysteries in More Grandmothers with Emily Emmott. BBC Studios Audio Producer: Olivia Jani Additional Production: Emily Bird Series Producer: Geraldine Fitzgerald Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem
Grandmothers are a bit of a mystery, biologically speaking. If the biological purpose of life is to survive and have children, why are they so important even once they've stopped being able to reproduce? Of course, as we all know, grandma's are the rock of most families, and it turns out, biologically also incredibly useful. Grandmothers are a logical necessity, your mother and father also had mothers so that equals two grandmas for you. But the evolutionary role they play in many of our lives h...
Ella Al-Shamahi explores evolutionary mysteries in More Football Fanatics with Martha Newson. BBC Studios Audio Producer: Olivia Jani Additional Production: Emily Bird Series Producer: Geraldine Fitzgerald Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem
Ella Al-Shamahi is joined by Crystal Palace superfan Bobby and psychologist Martha Newson to find out why it's so devastating when our football team loses. People who normally keep a stiff upper lip through life's ups and downs are distraught after a defeat. Is this a cultural response or something more primeval? Martha’s work shows that being beaten by another team deepens social bonds with fellow fans. From her results the fans of the least successful football clubs, including Crystal Palace, ...
BONUS: Ella Al-Shamahi explores evolutionary mysteries in More Gossip with Nicole Hagen Hess. BBC Studios Audio Producer: Olivia Jani Additional Production: Emily Bird Series Producer: Geraldine Fitzgerald Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem
It can be the source of drama that ruins reputations or simply keeps you entertained during your lunch break. But is gossip ingrained in our nature? Anthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi digs into our evolutionary history to uncover the truth behind this age-old human habit. Joining her are Kelsey McKinney from the Normal Gossip podcast and anthropologist Dr. Nicole Hagen Hess, as they unravel the origins of this sometimes controversial behaviour. Could gossip be the social glue that binds us together,...
Ella Al-Shamahi is back to once again investigate the origins of everyday human habits and behaviour.
Are you drawn to the endless news cycle? Do you keep going back for more? Do you feel a strange compulsion to absorb negative news that is weirdly soothing but makes you more stressed? These are signs you may be doomscrolling. But fear not, you’re not the only one. Stuart Soroka is a professor at UCLA who’s been looking at our draw towards negative information and found that people all over the world do it, regardless of culture. In 2020, our year of misery, the Oxford English Dictionary added d...
It’s a familiar problem with any shared household - there’s always someone who doesn’t do their fair share. Studies have shown that when people with different thresholds live together, the person with the lower tolerance for mess cleans up more, quickly leading to resentment and conflict. So why do some people clean up more than others? What needs to happen for everyone to pull their weight? Evolutionary science has some answers. Ella Al-Shamahi speaks to Dr Nichola Raihani, Professor of Evoluti...
Make-up has a long history - from the surprising use of lipstick in ancient Greece to today's Tiktok trends - and though fashions may have changed, some things, like red lips, cheeks, and defined eyes, keep cropping up. So in this episode, Ella Al-Shamahi investigates if there is any biological basis to make-up? Joined by Journalist and BBC Radio 1 presenter Katie Thistleton, and psychologist Professor Richard Russell, Ella discovers fascinating research on how make-up can change the way we perc...
You might think sitting is a recent technological advancement, but both squat and sit-down toilets have been around for millennia. Today Westerners have embraced the sit-down toilet, whereas billions in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and even parts of Europe use toilets that are designed specifically for squatting. But which is better for us - sitting or squatting? Ella Al-Shamahi speaks to gastroenterologist Dr Rohan Modi who has been investigating the best way to do your business, and gets per...
Are you at one with midnight, or up before sunrise? In this episode, Ella Al-Shamahi investigates when we naturally feel tired and awake, known as our chronotype. Our chronotype depends on our lifestyle, our environment, where we live, and is also influenced by our genes. In this episode, Ella Al-Shamahi uncovers fascinating research which suggests our chronotype can be traced back over 100,000 years ago, to when our early modern human ancestors interbred with Neanderthals. She speaks to genetic...
