David Reich — How one small tribe conquered the world 70,000 years ago

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

August 29, 2024

Duration

1h 57m

Channel

Dwarkesh Podcast

Watch on YouTube

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📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

I had no idea how wild human history was before chatting with the geneticist of ancient DNA David Reich. Human history has been again and again a story of one group figuring ‘something’ out, and then basically wiping everyone else out. From the tribe of 1k-10k modern humans who killed off all the other human species 70,000 years ago, to the Yamnaya steppe nomads 5,000 who killed off 90+% of (then) Europeans and also destroyed the Indus Valley Civilization. So much of what we thought we knew about human history is turning out to be wrong, from the ‘Out of Africa’ theory to the evolution of language, and this is all thanks to the research from David Reich’s lab.

• Buy David Reich's fascinating book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Who-Are-How-Got-Here/dp/110187032X 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐒

• Transcript: https://www.dwarkeshpatel.com/p/david-reich
• Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/3RFuS7b/
• Spotify: http://spoti.fi/3APeQ3L
• Me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dwarkesh_sp

𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐒

• This episode is sponsored by Stripe. Stripe builds financial infrastructure for the internet. Millions of companies from Anthropic to Amazon use Stripe to accept payments, automate financial processes and grow their revenue. Learn more here: https://stripe.com/ If you’re interested in advertising on the podcast: https://www.dwarkeshpatel.com/p/advertise 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 00:00:00 – Archaic and modern humans gene flow 00:21:13 – How early modern humans dominated the world 00:40:49 – How the bubonic plague rewrote history 00:50:52 – Was agriculture terrible for humans? 01:00:18 – Yamnaya expansion and how populations collide 01:16:29 – “Lost civilizations” and our Neanderthal ancestry 01:32:22 – The DNA Challenge 01:42:37 – India's caste system 01:47:40 – David's Career

🎤 SPEAKERS

• David Reich

  guest

• Dwarkesh Patel

  host

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Dwarkesh Podcast, featuring David Reich and Dwarkesh Patel, David Reich — How one small tribe conquered the world 70,000 years ago explores ancient DNA upends human origins: small tribe, global takeover explained Geneticist David Reich explains how ancient DNA is overturning textbook models of human evolution, including the relationships between modern humans, Neanderthals, Denisovans, and other archaic groups.

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