Joe Rogan Experience #1561 - Kermit Pattison

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumming music plays) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. KPKermit Pattison0:02

      (drumming music plays) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.

   2. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music plays) Welcome. Thanks for doing this, man. I really appreciate it. I'm very, very fascinated by this subject.

   3. KPKermit Pattison0:18

      Well, thank you for having me. It's great to be here.

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:20

      So this is a, this is a long journey for you t- to have r- written this book and be i- to be involved in this project. Can you talk us through how you got involved in this?

   5. KPKermit Pattison0:31

      Sure. Uh, it was, um, completely unintentional. Uh, I had started off working on a different book on, um, the evolution of human locomotion. And, uh, I mean, just as an aside, s- humans are weird primates in a lot of ways. But one way we're weird is just we ... We're slow, we're weak, but we have this ability to walk and run long distances, which is kind of unique. So I thought, okay ... Uh, I mean, I'm not ... Certainly a lot of other people have n- noted that before, but as far as I was concerned, no one had really written the deep history of that. So I was gonna go sort of investigate the, the anthropology of where this weird human capacity came from. And, uh, you know, so I thought that the early human history, like Ardi would be this, you know, a little sliver of background before I got to the interesting stuff. Uh, but anyway, I started reading the Ardi papers, and they kind of undercut a lot of the things that I had ... the research community had taken for granted, or at least challenged them, let's say. And, um, so anyway, started talking to the people on the Ardi team, and, and then, uh, thinking, "Oh, this ... Tell me about how you found this thing. Oh, that sounds pretty interesting." And then, um ... So I thought, "Okay, well maybe Ardi, it'll ... Maybe they'll, they'll ... It'll be a page. It's more than this little line." Then, you know, little, learned a little more. "Ah, it's five pages. No, no, actually this is a whole chapter. No, this is three chapters. Oh, this, this is..." And then at some point after this agonizing time of reappraisal, I said, "You know what? This is much better than the actual story I was working on." Uh, I mean, this is a discovery that has, has been announced to the world, but it hasn't really been described in detail. And it's interesting at a whole, uh, number of different levels. I mean, there's the anatomy. It's just the exploring the natural history of the human body, literally from head to toe, because the skeleton was so remarkably complete. They had a skull, they had hands, um, they had feet. And the hands and feet were almost complete, which is, is, is unheard of. I mean, uh, you're lucky to find any skeleton at this age, and to get something that's that complete is really unusual. And so are there are other parts of the skeleton too. But, um, so it sort of became a way to sort of tickle this interest I had in like the, the natural history of the human body and human biology. Um, so that's the science of it. And then the sh- s- discovery story, the sheer adventure story was just astounding to me when I started talking to the field crew in particular, and hearing about how they ... Uh, you know, all the challenges in the field. And I go, "Oh my God." I mean, this is like collision of cultures in the Ethiopian desert. You know, the indigenous Afar people and the highland Ethiopians, and then the foreigner, you know, the Americans, the Japanese, you know, coming in and all, you know, meeting. And th- and the initial meetings were not friendly. You know what I mean? You got guys coming out, Afar guys coming out with guns and saying, you know, "Get the hell out of here." And, uh, so that part is fascinating, and then the drama of discovery, and there's bullets flying overhead, and there's this excitement of finding one little piece and another little piece. I mean, anyway, to make a long story short, um, I kind of stumbled on this, and every time I turned over a rock, there was something interesting. Um, and then it got, you know, more interesting once this whole saga kind of moved into the lab, because, uh, you know, th- there's this old cliche in, in, in the science and that is, it's not so much what you find, it's what you find out. So in other words, when you find a skeleton or something like that, the, the, the truths that it contains, the scientific revelations aren't immediately evident, you know? You look at the skeletons like, "Oh, that's ..." You know, this, that, that ... I mean, these people spend years studying this thing, measuring, you know, thinking about it. So, there was also this other detective story that sort of followed the field. There's a lab detective story that sort of followed the field detective story, um, that went along with it. And then, and of course, when this thing finally was revealed to the world, there was this, again, another clash. You know, this time a clash in the world of science, in academia about, um, people taking issue with the interpretation or denying its importance or trying to ... (laughs) tr- trying to bury the skeleton again, if you will, (laughs) you know, with inattention, uh, and, and, and denial. So, anyway, long story short, it just, uh ... You know, I didn't set out to do this, but it just sort of dawned on me that this was like a huge scientific saga that was still mostly untold.

   6. JRJoe Rogan5:11

      We should fill people in on exactly what we're talking about. So we're talking about a skeleton that was discovered that is 1.2 million years older than Lucy? Is that correct?

   7. KPKermit Pattison5:20

      Yeah. Her skeleton is ... Yeah, it's 4.4 million years old. And-

   8. JRJoe Rogan5:23

      The oldest known human relative.

   9. KPKermit Pattison5:27

      Uh, well, it's the oldest known skeleton. The, and actually this is an-

   10. JRJoe Rogan5:30

       Okay.

   11. KPKermit Pattison5:31

       ... important distinction I, I should make. So, like I said before, skeletons are rare. Um, this is the oldest skeleton. There are, uh, two, three other members of the human family that are, uh, older, but the thing is, they're much more fragmentary. They're not anywhere near as complete. Like, there's one, another one from Ethiopia found by the same team that found the skeleton we're talking about. Um, that's, you know, some, some teeth, you know, a, like a toe bone, a few other broken elements of the skeleton. There's another thing-... uh, noth- another species called Orrorin are from Kenya, which is about six million years old. Again, you know, much more fragmentary some teeth. Uh, I think they got a couple, um, thigh bones, partial thigh bones, and then there's a, a skull from Chad called Sahelanthropus that's about, uh, six million, maybe seven years old depending on whose dating you believe. Uh, and that's, that's a very nice skull, but it's a head without body. So- Right. Um, so, so anyway, so there are, uh, people sometimes get confused by this. So Ardi is, is indeed the oldest skeleton. It's by far more complete than this other stuff, uh, but, uh, there are some, you know, fragmentary things that are older. And they're, they all become part of this story too. And what is the, what is the scientific controversy? Do you think it's, uh, i- i- i- is it based on real skepticism or i- i- is ego involved in this? (laughs) Like, wha- you're laughing, so. Ego? It's science. What are you talking about? It's, it's unfortunate, man. You're a theist. You don't ... No, no, no. These are, these are scientists. They're ... No, no. Yeah, yeah. There was, there's- There's a lot of egos involved in science unfortunately, right? Yeah. There's, there's a lot of egos, there's a lot of disbelief, uh, because the, the, the skeleton was so surprising in a lot of ways, and so contrary to the predictions that many people in science had made, that there was a kind of like a (explosion sound) you know, a head explode for a lot of people. Right. So we should, we should- So why- ... break down those particular things that are different than what was expected. Yeah. Right? First of all, it walked upright. Yeah. So it, it, it walked upright. So it, it's primitive. I mean, if, if you saw- Yeah. ... you know, if, if we could go back in a time machine and look at it, you know, this, this thing, our, uh, the species name is Ardipithicus Ramidus. That's kind of a mouthful, but Ardi is the, the individual skeleton that they found, is, that's ... You know, the individual, like, like you're Joe, you're the individual and your species is homo sapiens, that's how you think about this. Ardipithicus Ramidus, species; Ardi, the individual skeleton. So, um, uh, so the interesting revelations with it is, it has upright posture, so it's standing upright, but it's still got the opposable toe. So this is a creature that was in the trees, um, you know, clearly climbing, but i- it also up- you know, appears to be upright, uh, walking with this opposable toe. So it has seem- it ... You know, everyone knows that sometime deep in the human past, there was some kind of arboreal ancestor, you know, some kind of ape. But, you know, the question has always been, well, what, what kind of ape? Does it look like a modern ape or does it look like, you know, something we've never seen before? And, um, uh, so the surprising thing about Ardi is, it's actually quite different than the living apes. Um, so y- yeah, so it's got this opposable toe, walks upright. Um- Are there, are there proportions, uh, y- chimps have shorter legs than they have arms. Are th- Yeah. Is Ardi's proportions similar to that? Uh, no. Ardi, I mean, it's certainly more ape-like than, than, than, than any of us. (laughs) Uh, but it's, uh ... There's a couple interesting things about its, its proportions. So all the other living apes have longer arms than they do legs. You know, they spent a lot of time climbing. That's, you know, that's, you know, you have long arms, long ... And they have, you know, the different proportions, but they all have that in common. They got longer forelimbs than hind limbs. Ardi was a big surprise, th- because it actually had longer legs than forelimbs. I mean, you know, it, it definitely has bigger hands, has longer arms than we do, but, uh, y- y- you know, that was a surprise, at least was to me and I think to so- at least some of the researchers. Um, and, you know, I was talking before about these kind of, um, surprises that appear after the fact. Well, that, that was one, because the bones are broken. You know, these guys on this research team, it's called the, the Middle Awash Research Project. Um, they spent a lot of time, you know, reconstructing this and then estimating, you know, how ... What are the lengths of the pieces that are not there, and then, you know, run all kinds of regressions and lot of calculations and stuff. But, uh, so that (laughs) revelation was sort of a, a delayed, you know, delayed bombshell, if you will, that it actually had, uh, these limb proportions of ... That were more like a biped. Mm. And so, uh, ours, our legs are longer. Chimps have longer arms. So is this like, does it have almost equal length arms and legs? Like ... Uh, I- Jamie actually just put a photo of it up here and I, and I'm getting a chance to take a look at it. Oh, it's fascinating. Uh- So it has long legs, almost like a person. Right. But longer arms than we do. Yeah. Yeah. Longer arms than we do for, for sure. I, I think, uh, I, I don't remember the exact number, but I, I think the calculation they did was that legs are, um, uh ... Oh, I think, I think the arms ... Yeah, I wanna say it's like nine- 90-something percent. So it, it's pretty close to one to one, um, of, uh, length. But indeed, the, the arms are, uh, a bit shorter. So the surprising part was that it didn't walk at all on its knuckles? (laughs) D- being it th- that it was that old. Uh, yeah. So, so the ... Okay. So humans are ... We come from the African apes. That's pretty clear from genetics. That's been clear for a long time. Um, there are two main groups of African apes. There's, uh, gorillas and there's chimps. Now within those ... And, and chimps also includes this other species you might have heard of called bonobos, and uh, within those there's like debate about, you know, should we divide them into sub- subspecies and stuff, but you know, I, we ... Don't worry about that for now. Right. But anyway, what they all have in common is they knuckle walk. So they got these long fingers, and when they walk, you know, I mean, they, you know, do this. I mean, if you look at a video sometime, you'll see it. And, um, you know, because our two closest cousins both do that-... you know, there was a perfectly plausible theory that, um, human ancestors did it well, so we e- evolved from a knuckle walking ancestor. I mean, there was even a cover story in Nature that- that- that ti- the- the headline was al- almost that, you know, humans evolved from a knuckle walking ancestor. Uh, so, um, yeah, so that was- that was the theory, and then so here with Ardi we have a creature that's, you know, it's- it's- it's not the (laughs) last common ancestor with the African apes, but it's- it's- it's certainly getting closer. It's getting a big step closer and, uh, the people, you know, the anatomists who specialize in these things say that there's like no hint of knuckle walking. Not- th- not only was it not knuckle walking, uh, to get around, but also it has no vestige of a knuckle walking ancestry. So in other words, there's no like residual anatomy that would suggest that-

   12. JRJoe Rogan13:03

       That it ever knuckle walked.

   13. KPKermit Pattison13:05

       ... you know, its ancestors knuckle walked. Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan13:05

       So it was bipedal from the very early days?

   15. KPKermit Pattison13:11

       At very, very early days of the species-

   16. JRJoe Rogan13:13

       Of its evolut- yeah, of the species' evolution.

   17. KPKermit Pattison13:16

       Well, it- it's- it's- it's bi-

   18. JRJoe Rogan13:19

       Bipedal theory.

   19. KPKermit Pattison13:19

       All you're always- what you find, you know, at that- at that- at that 4 p- you know, 4.4 million year old window.

   20. JRJoe Rogan13:25

       Right.

   21. KPKermit Pattison13:25

       And that, you know, what comes before that is- is-

   22. JRJoe Rogan13:28

       Speculation.

   23. KPKermit Pattison13:29

       ... you know. It, yeah, I mean it's, you know, these are the people that do this, you know, it's- it's intelligent speculation obviously.

   24. JRJoe Rogan13:35

       Right.

   25. KPKermit Pattison13:35

       But you don't know what you haven't found. And so, um, uh, you know, now the- the, I mean there's a debate about just how long ago the last common ancestor of- of humans and chimps lived. Um, it's probably at least, you know, anywhere from 1.5 million years before Ardi to, you know, some estimates put it even further back than that. So, yeah. The- the- the- there's another school of thought that's kind of emerged that says, "Well, it still could be a knuckle walking ancestor, you know, that gave rise to humans and Ardi, but it just, all the stuff had disappeared by the time you got to- to Ardi." Anyway-

   26. JRJoe Rogan14:16

       Hm.

   27. KPKermit Pattison14:16

       ... that's- that's kind of a counter argument that we can get more into that later. I don't wanna get too esoteric on you, but, uh ...

   28. JRJoe Rogan14:21

       But it seems so fascinating that it has these really long arms, uh, but that there's no evidence whatsoever of not only knuckle walking in that species, but knuckle walking as an ancestry.

   29. KPKermit Pattison14:34

       Yeah. And that- that blew the mind of a lot of people, and- and there's- there's a school of thought, uh, of- of critic out there sort of, um ... Okay, so this thing was announced in 2009, it, you know, surprised a lot of people.

   30. JRJoe Rogan14:47

       When was it discovered? When was it discovered?
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Long, long. Stretch it…

   1. KPKermit Pattison15:00

      or long ... (laughs)

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:01

      Long, long. Stretch it out. I like it. I wanna hear the whole thing.

   3. KPKermit Pattison15:04

      All right. Well, I'll- I'll take you back to the- to- to the beginning of how like the whole detective story was- was framed.

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:09

      Okay. Sure.

   5. KPKermit Pattison15:10

      And then if- if- if you want me to speed up, just- just find me-

   6. JRJoe Rogan15:13

      No, no, no, no. This show's all about just letting-

   7. KPKermit Pattison15:15

      Watch for the stick. Watch for the stick.

   8. JRJoe Rogan15:16

      ... your s- I want you to have air.

   9. KPKermit Pattison15:17

      Okay. So, um, this group, uh- uh- uh- went to Ethiopia, um, in, they started doing this work in, uh, fir- first one, um, uh, an expedition to Ethiopia 1981. Um, they-

   10. JRJoe Rogan15:35

       Specifically for this purpose of looking for ancient man?

   11. KPKermit Pattison15:38

       Yeah, they- they, I mean, they were looking for fossils, and- and they were actually, I mean, they found this fossil, but they found a lot of other stuff too, you know, and like all up and down the timeline of human la- evolution. So some- some stuff that's like recent and like, um, you know, uh, i- in the order of hundreds of thousands of years ago to stuff that's like six, you know, getting near e- you know, i- i- six million years ago, these fragments I was talking about earlier. So, they had- their research agenda is just broad, it's just like what can we find about human evolution? But anyway, one of the bur- big burning research questions at the time was what came before Lucy? Now you've probably heard about Lucy. Lucy was discovered in Ethiopia in 1974. Um, uh, it was discovered by, uh, a guy named Don Johanson, an American guy, with his assistant, uh, a guy named Tom Gray. Um, they find this thing, it turns out to be a skeleton, it's 3.2 million years old. Um, it's probably s- I think probably the be- it's fair to say it's the best known human ancestor. I mean, people who know nothing else about human origins will at least recognize the name Lucy. Uh, and there's a lot of reasons for that. Uh, you know, in terms of how it's publicized and- and et cetera, et cetera. But, um, same-

   12. JRJoe Rogan16:51

       Wasn't, I'm sorry to bother you for a s- pause for a second.

   13. KPKermit Pattison16:53

       Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan16:53

       Wasn't Lucy also controversial?

   15. KPKermit Pattison16:57

       Yeah. It- it- it- it's- it's (laughs) any discovery in this field is controversial. (laughs) .

   16. JRJoe Rogan17:02

       Yeah.

   17. KPKermit Pattison17:02

       So these are, uh, these are, yeah, these are- are people all, you know, having the great, um, uh, the- the- the- the identity politics, the paleo-identity politics of humanity.

   18. JRJoe Rogan17:13

       Hm.

   19. KPKermit Pattison17:13

       So there is no- there is no easy consensus in- in this field. Um, so anyway, so Lucy is discovered, she's 3.2 million years old. I mean, this- this is a huge revelation at the time because she was, um, uh, y- you know, like- like Ardi, a skeleton, um, and, uh, you know, it took, you know, the- the old- I think the oldest skeleton at that point was a Neanderthal which was less than a million years old, so this was like a big, big deal when they find something this old. So anyway, the- the, you know, that thing is studied, um, there's popular books written about it, et cetera, et cetera, uh, from like the 1970s into the early '80s. That's the time when Lucy was sort of being intensely studied and revealed to the world. Okay. So, um, meanwhile Ethiopia is, uh, going into this period of turmoil. So this- this one, one of the big elements in this story is the difficulty of doing this kind of work in a place like Ethiopia. So right around the time that Lucy was discovered, uh-The ancient monarchy of Ethiopia, headed by the last emperor, Haile Selassie, fell. It's like a 2,000-year-old monarchy. You know, it, like, traces its roots to biblical times, you know, and, uh, you know, claims to be the descendants of King Solomon and Queen Sheba, you know. I mean, it's an ancient, ancient monarchy, but it hadn't really modernized and then it was toppled by, you know, student activists, the military, this whole kind of coalition that wanted to modernize Ethiopia. Well, what happens is a- the power is seized by, um, the military. Becomes a Marxist dictatorship. Ethiopia, this longtime ally of the Americans in the Cold War shifts to the Soviet bloc, and now it's like a frontier of the Cold War. Suddenly, like, you know, the Americans, the Europeans who were kind of welcomed as foreign researchers before are now viewed with hostility. People are thinking, you know, "Are you a CIA agent?" You know. Research kind of s- shuts down for a number of years because it just becomes too dangerous. Meanwhile there's like this tribal warfare happening in the desert where they're doing this stuff. So it's, it's real- Um, but finally in 1981, things have calmed down enough that, uh, this research team is able to go back. And, uh, they go back, and they have acquired a new project area. It's big; it's like the size of Rhode Island, you know. And in, in that project area there's all kinds of, um, uh ... Like the layer cake of time, you know? It, it, I mean, so, um, anthropology depends on geology, okay? So there's like this layer cake of time, you know, where you have, you know, things that are, you know, one million, two million years old. I'm maybe giving a really simple model here.

   20. JRJoe Rogan20:02

       Right.

   21. KPKermit Pattison20:02

       And this project area's really valuable because it's a sprawling area, but they have all these different time periods exposed. So in other words there's rocks from, you know, a million years old. There's rocks that are more than, you know, as old as six million and all up and down the timeline of human evolution. So these guys go there and they see this place and they say, "Holy crap. This place is like ... It, it, it, it, it's, it's, it's, uh, it's a gold mine. It's a gold mine like spread out all over all this place." I mean, you, and we can s- we can learn so much about human evolution if we just spend all these years studying it, you know. So then, unfortunately, they sp- spend one season here just doing kind of reconnaissance to see what's there. Then Ethiopia shuts down again. Uh, the government says basically, uh, puts a halt to research, um, says, you know, "We're, we're ... " (laughs) They want to rewrite their antiquities laws so they can better control these foreigners who are coming to look at this stuff, and they say, "Okay, well, hopefully we'll let you back next year." Anyway, it takes, it takes nine years before they can resume research. So, um, finally this team goes back in 1990 and they're starting to, you know, go find things and learn more about this area, you know, uh, that they have in their project area. Um, and finally in 1992, um, they find a first tooth of what becomes the species of Ardipithecus. Uh, at that point- at that point they're not, they're not expecting to find a skeleton because that's just like, that's like hoping you're gonna win the lottery tomorrow, right? You buy your ticket and it's like, "Yeah, right, yeah, I'm gonna win the lottery." Yeah, sure you are. Um, so, uh, they find a tooth and then they, you know, start finding these pieces, um, and, you know, walking kilometers after kilometers, you know, day after day, and then find, you know, a few more elements. And anyway, over, over a couple of years they collect enough to realize that this is a, a new species. Uh, this is something different. But at this point it's just like few teeth, you know, a few bone fragments and stuff. But anyway, then in 1994, um, they find a skeleton and that's kind of an interesting piece, too, because it's kind of against all odds, and I can tell you how that happened if you're interested.

   22. JRJoe Rogan22:16

       Sure. Yeah, I'd love to hear it.

   23. KPKermit Pattison22:18

       Yeah. So anyway, they're, they're, they're walking along, um, and, uh, uh, I should introduce some of the, the characters here. So, um, they-

   24. JRJoe Rogan22:27

       The characters sound like a movie, by the way.

   25. KPKermit Pattison22:29

       (laughs)

   26. JRJoe Rogan22:29

       Really, the way everybody lays out.

   27. KPKermit Pattison22:32

       Yeah. We have- we haven't talked about the, the, the personality of it all. I'll mention, uh, some of them. Okay, so, um, one of the guys who starts in 1981 is a young rep- uh, paleoanthropologist. His name is Tim White. He is, uh, a anthropologist from the University of California Berkeley. He's a guy from the American West. He's very hard-charging, uh, har- um, strong-willed guy. I mean, profane, um, encyclopedic knowledge, and everyone who works with him will tell you that he is probably the most intense fossil hunter who they've ever, ever met. That's, that's Tim.

   28. JRJoe Rogan23:11

       He would be the star of our movie.

   29. KPKermit Pattison23:14

       Well, he, he doesn't-

   30. JRJoe Rogan23:14

       He'd be the Harrison Ford character.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Oh, they're ruthless. They're…

   1. KPKermit Pattison30:00

      like tooth marks in them and, and stuff. So yeah. So say, say something dies, a carcass lands on the ground, you know, boom. And you know, it's probably consumed by, you know, some big cat or whatever. Or I mean, one of the really ravaging things are, uh, hyenas. You know, they come in in packs and they have these really powerful jaws and they can actually chew bones down to splinters, you know. And so-... uh, you know, now, you know, if something dies, I mean after a couple of days there could just be, like, splinters left. So it's not like they just kinda clean off the skeleton for you. So anyway, they, they come in and then there's all ... There's, like, this whole f- kind of, like, chain of, of other scavengers that move in. I mean, there's a lot of ancient pigs. And believe it or not, I mean, you may think of, like, nice little pig as being, you know, this cute barnyard animal, but actually pigs are, uh, surprisingly annihilative scavengers. I mean, you, you sometimes-

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:53

      Oh, they're ruthless. They're ruthless.

   3. KPKermit Pattison30:54

      Yeah. Th- they-

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:55

      We have an answer for you. Um, fossilize, uh, preserve remains become fossils if they reach an age of about 10,000 years.

   5. KPKermit Pattison31:03

      Okay. Well, that, that-

   6. JRJoe Rogan31:03

      So it's 10,000 years, which is not that long at all.

   7. KPKermit Pattison31:06

      It also ... It comes out, it comes off the internet so we know it's, we know it's true. Right, so-

   8. JRJoe Rogan31:09

      Well, what is the, uh, the source? Nationalgeographic.org I went to for that. So National Geographic-

   9. KPKermit Pattison31:14

      Okay.

   10. JRJoe Rogan31:14

       ... is a good source.

   11. KPKermit Pattison31:15

       Okay. Yeah, yeah. So it's, it's, it's, uh, it's, it's a long time. Um-

   12. JRJoe Rogan31:18

       Yeah, so back to wild pigs. Yeah, wild pigs.

   13. KPKermit Pattison31:21

       Yeah. Yeah, one-

   14. JRJoe Rogan31:21

       Well, that was famously a scene in the movie Snatch, right? Do you remember that movie? Um-

   15. KPKermit Pattison31:25

       I, I did see that.

   16. JRJoe Rogan31:25

       ... the Brad, Brad Pitt movie. It's a great, uh, Guy Ritchie, uh, crime movie. The guy keeps pigs because pigs will eat everything. They eat the bones, they eat everything. So when he gets rid of ... When he murders people, he throws them in the pen with the pigs-

   17. KPKermit Pattison31:38

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan31:38

       ... and the pigs eat every part of the body.

   19. KPKermit Pattison31:41

       Yeah. Well exactly. So p- there's pigs and then there's, you know, like, uh, porcupines. Just like, you know, little, little, you know, rodents that come in. Something, you know-

   20. JRJoe Rogan31:49

       Mm-hmm.

   21. KPKermit Pattison31:49

       ... dung beetles. I mean-

   22. JRJoe Rogan31:50

       Right.

   23. KPKermit Pattison31:50

       ... so by the time, you, you know, this is like going down through this whole thing. So, uh, by the time (laughs) there's nothing left to eat, there's not much left of this, the skeleton.

   24. JRJoe Rogan31:59

       Right.

   25. KPKermit Pattison31:59

       And, uh, so anyway, um, so that's, that's just preserving the bones. Now, there's another thing that has to happen for things to fossi- You know, it has to, like, be in a depositional environment that will encourage the bone to fossilize and not just degrade. You know? And, you know, there's different can- places that are conducive to that. I mean, one is, like, a place where there's, like, a lake or something, you know, covering it with sediment. And, uh, this particular place they think was probably an ancient floodplain. So somewhere near a river where there'd be, like, overbank flooding every now and then. It would, like, put on these layers of silt over time and then this stuff would just be buried in the silt and then it would, would fossilize. But anyway, to answer your question, so, you know, you, you could have, like, a herd of antelope or whatever, you know, 100 antelope and, you know, they'd all meet their ends in various ways. But, you know, none of them could actually be f- fossilized in the end.

   26. JRJoe Rogan32:51

       Mm-hmm.

   27. KPKermit Pattison32:51

       You know? So it's pre- it's pretty rare. It's a pretty small minority of things that, um, that have the courtesy to leave their bones for us. And then, so that's, that's one element that makes this thing so hard. And then the other one is just, you know, you have to be ... If, if you are the fossil hunter, you know, the, the paleontologist, you have to come along at the right time when that fossil is, uh, coming out of the ground (laughs) . You know, so basically this stuff gets buried, you know, uh, you know, in our, in our layer cake and, and, you know, it, it, uh, you know, other layers stack up and then fossilize it. But then, you know, they come to the surface again usually by, uh, geological faulting, you know, like the ... Or erosion. And once the stuff comes to the surface, uh, some, some fossils are like rock and they'll last, you know, for long, long, long, long time. But other stuff, like this particular skeleton, are actually really chalky. And, uh, I mean, Tim White, the, the, the, the fellow who was, um, sort of guiding this whole, this whole operation, uh, says that, you know, that it's, you know, it was so brittle it could, like, come apart in your hands if you didn't handle it right.

   28. JRJoe Rogan34:04

       Hm.

   29. KPKermit Pattison34:04

       So they just happened to have the good fortune to kind of show up in this spot when it was coming out of the ground just enough to be found, but it hadn't been on the surface for long enough to sort of be degraded and stomped on by-

   30. JRJoe Rogan34:17

       Wow.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Mm. …

   1. KPKermit Pattison45:00

      that they find, uh, volcanic ashes and lavas that are ... 'Cause th- this is on the edge, uh, in the, in the Great Rift Valley, there's, like, tons of volcanoes all up and down Eastern Africa. And every once in a while, they erupt and they spew out, you know, ashes and lavas, and this stuff settles on the ground. And in some, in some cases, I mean, these, these ash layers are really thick, I mean, like, several feet thick. And you think, "Oh, my God. What a apocalyptic eruction, eruption that must have been when that happened." But anyway, it's great for the geologists because they can take these ashes and they take 'em into the lab, and then they can tell, um, uh, basically by the, uh, it's called isotopic dating. And so basically it's just, there's a, you know, a change in the isotopes of, of, um, of potassium in particular, and argon, which are components here. And, uh, the stuff decays at a constant rate, which is not affected by temperature or pre- pressure if it's in the earth or whatever. It's just a constant rate. So this gives you a yardstick to measure, uh, how old something is. So e- they can't t- uh, figure out the age of the individual bones, but you can figure out the layers of the ashes and lavas that are above it and below it.

   2. JRJoe Rogan46:14

      Mm.

   3. KPKermit Pattison46:14

      And that gives you a bracket. And, uh, you know, and then there's, like, like, literally hundreds of ash and, um, uh, lava layers in this area. And so the ... And all these things are, you know, been dated over the years. That gives you a timeline. So with, with this particular skeleton, there is very conveniently an ash, uh, in the layer above it and another one below it. And when they did the dating, they both were calculated to be 4.4 million years old. So that means, you know, I mean, uh, that, that the area between them was deposited in a pretty short period of time. I mean, the, you know, the, the ... This method of dating doesn't give you down to, like, the year (laughs) or even, you know, tens of years, so no one knows, like, just how long that period of time was. But it's probably on the order of, you know, maybe 800 years, something in the hundreds of years. Not, not long. And, you know, and f- for something of this age, that's actually really precise dating. So, so to answer your question, uh, it's, it's using volcanic ashes and lavas above and below it to figure out the date of things.

   4. JRJoe Rogan47:15

      And what is the, the window of, uh, possibility? Like, uh, how, how tightly can they narrow that down? Within a million years? Like, what-

   5. KPKermit Pattison47:24

      Uh, well, I think it probably depends on the ... Uh, you know, I'm not a geologist, so I don't wanna speak (laughs) beyond my layer of kn- of knowledge here. But, um, with this one, they, they brought it down to 4.4, so I think ... You know, it's, that's pretty, that's pretty tight.

   6. JRJoe Rogan47:38

      Yeah, that's pretty exact.

   7. KPKermit Pattison47:38

      And I'm f- there's, there's certainly a, there's certainly a margin, you know, of, of, of, of uncertainty or margin of error in there that they reported, and it's some long number with a lot of decimal points, which I, I don't remember. But yeah, long, long story short, that 4.4 is a pretty, it's a pretty good, it's a pretty good date. And for, for this, stuff of this age, it's, it's, it's, it's, uh, it's quite solid.

   8. JRJoe Rogan47:59

      Now when you have a, a being like this that's so unusual, it's not like anything they've encountered before with the longer legs and the thumbs on the feet and the, the whole deal. W- when they're piecing this together, like, how do they know exactly where everything go ... How, how are they absolutely sure how to put this together when they're putting it together and they're realizing this is so different than what they expected for something of this age? What ... How much of a freak out is happening here?

   9. KPKermit Pattison48:27

      (laughs) Well, okay. So it's, it's different in some important parts, but, uh, but then again, if you're-... an expert on skeletons like these guys are.

   10. JRJoe Rogan48:36

       Right.

   11. KPKermit Pattison48:37

       It's, it's, it's different than what they've seen, but I mean, they, they know how skeletons-

   12. JRJoe Rogan48:40

       Right.

   13. KPKermit Pattison48:41

       ... go together. And you know, I mean, they can r- you know, tell what's-

   14. JRJoe Rogan48:43

       Femurs and fibulas and... Yeah.

   15. KPKermit Pattison48:45

       Yeah. It, it... You don't get a femur confused with, with like a, you know, a thumb phalanx.

   16. JRJoe Rogan48:50

       Right.

   17. KPKermit Pattison48:50

       You know? It... So, you know, they look at this and, and, and... You know, I don't have this knowledge, but certainly those people do. That they could pick up a tooth and they'll say, "Oh, yeah. This is, you know, upper right side of the mouth." I mean, the, the people that know skeletons-

   18. JRJoe Rogan49:02

       Mm-hmm.

   19. KPKermit Pattison49:02

       ... can do all this mental rotation in their head, and they can often do it from fragments of bone. So it's not the whole tooth, but like-

   20. JRJoe Rogan49:13

       Right.

   21. KPKermit Pattison49:13

       ... a fraction of the tooth or a fraction of, you know, some foot bone. And, you know, to, to me that was actually one of the fascinating things about this, is like how these people that know their skeletons, um, can r- read (laughs) the revelations in, in this, this, in the skeletons, uh-

   22. JRJoe Rogan49:32

       Do you know the story of, uh, Gigantopithecus? How they discovered that?

   23. KPKermit Pattison49:37

       Uh, no.

   24. JRJoe Rogan49:38

       It was an apothecary shop in China. Uh, there was an anthropologist-

   25. KPKermit Pattison49:41

       (laughs)

   26. JRJoe Rogan49:41

       ... who found, uh, I believe he found a tooth and he was like, "What the hell is this?" And he realized it was a primate tooth, but it was much larger than anything they'd ever seen before.

   27. KPKermit Pattison49:50

       Yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan49:50

       And then he asked them to t- I think it was in the... I want to say 1920s or 1930s. And then, uh, they... I mean, I don't think they've gotten anything more than some jaw bones and teeth, and they realize it's a bipedal hominid that was somewhere in the neighborhood of, uh, eight feet tall.

   29. KPKermit Pattison50:06

       Well, it wouldn't, it wouldn't have been a hominid if it was, uh... So how... Uh, uh, hominid, at least in the old meaning, the, the meaning has changed, but means like member of the human family, which was basically after our split from the chimps. Now they, they call them hominins with an I-N at the end.

   30. JRJoe Rogan50:20

       Oh.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   Yeah. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:00:00

      theory, isn't it? Because it-

   2. KPKermit Pattison1:00:02

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:00:02

      There's a lot of, uh, paleontologists that think that w- ... Even with human beings, there's a lot of people that think that human beings weren't really monogamous until they figured out whose kids they were.

   4. KPKermit Pattison1:00:14

      Right. (laughs)

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:00:15

      Right?

   6. KPKermit Pattison1:00:15

      Well, it's, it's, it's, it's ... Yeah. It's hugely controversial for a whole, a whole number of reasons, but one, one thing I should clarify is what, what the biologists mean about monogamy. So it's, it's wrong to kinda understand that in kind of, like, our modern moralistic way. This is not, like, you know, the American Family Council talking here about monogamy. (laughs)

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:00:32

      (laughs)

   8. KPKermit Pattison1:00:32

      This is monogamy in the way that, like ... So-... e- there's a lot of examples of, of creatures that do have ... that are monogamous, like birds. You know, think of, like, you know, mom and dad-

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:00:42

      Penguins.

   10. KPKermit Pattison1:00:43

       ... in, in the nest, uh, or, you know, coy- I think coyotes are. I mean, there's ... E- e- e- or gibbons is another, um, a- another primate that are monogamous. So this is not, um, unusual in-

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:00:54

       Nature.

   12. KPKermit Pattison1:00:55

       ... the world of, of biology. Yeah. So, (clears throat) um, so anyway, so sometimes people say, "Oh, you know, that's, you know, it's, you know, that's gotta, like ..." You know, bringing something ******. It's not that. It's, it's, it's, it's, it is a legitimate, uh, you know, way to describe a-

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:01:13

       Right.

   14. KPKermit Pattison1:01:13

       ... mating strategy that exists in, in many places in, in nature. Okay. So, yeah. And there's, and there's other theories that have, um, uh, you know, ascribed human sexuality to some- you know, to something more like a chimp, you know? That it's-

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:01:29

       Yeah.

   16. KPKermit Pattison1:01:30

       ... pre- promiscuous and, you know, and especially, I mean, th- th- th- as the book mentions that, you know, the, this whole i- uh, model of a chimp-like ancestor has been, you know, prevalent in anthropology for, for, for decades. And, you know, and w- and one subcategory there is mating strategy. Um, and i- you know, (laughs) there's, you know ... Yeah, if you ever, I mean, if you ever want to amuse yourself, read about, you know, just, you know, sort of theories about, you know, human mating strategies. I mean, there's all kinds of, of, of, of, uh, ways that people have explained our, our peculiarities and, and our, uh, yeah, our sexuality and all that stuff.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:02:09

       Now, w- we're looking at Ardi, we're talking about an animal that predates weapons, correct?

   18. KPKermit Pattison1:02:15

       Yeah, as far as we know. So the first stone tools do not appear, uh, until, well, certainly by around two and a half, 2.6 million years ago, there's stone tools. There's some things that have been found in Kenya that are older, um, that are like 3.2 or 3.3, um, that, that one is a little controversial, so we'll see how that all-

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:02:38

       Mm-hmm.

   20. KPKermit Pattison1:02:38

       ... shakes out. But, uh, but anyway, but it, it, in either case, it's s- at least the stone tools are way after Ardi, way after Lucy. Have a-

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:02:47

       So it's possible they used weapons, sticks and things along, along those lines.

   22. KPKermit Pattison1:02:52

       Yeah. So that's, that's the part-

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:02:55

       But, but no evidence.

   24. KPKermit Pattison1:02:55

       ... we may never know.

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:02:56

       Right.

   26. KPKermit Pattison1:02:56

       Because if they're s- something like a stick that biodegrades-

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:02:59

       Right.

   28. KPKermit Pattison1:02:59

       ... then who knows? Or, or throwing a rock.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:03:02

       Right.

   30. KPKermit Pattison1:03:03

       You know? You could, you could, uh, you, you could, um ... You know, h- how, how do we know? We won't catch him.
6. 1:15:00 – 1:19:46

   Uh, because, uh, well,…

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:15:00

      that one of the reasons why it was treated with so much s- skepticism?

   2. KPKermit Pattison1:15:05

      Uh, because, uh, well, well, I, I mean, no one doubts the existence of the skeleton, uh, at least, you know, no, no one who should take seriously-

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:15:13

      What do they doubt?

   4. KPKermit Pattison1:15:15

      Well, they doubt-

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:15:16

      Since it was so-

   6. KPKermit Pattison1:15:16

      Well, there's a couple-

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:15:17

      There's so many-

   8. KPKermit Pattison1:15:18

      Go ahead.

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:15:18

      ... things that are so specific, like the, the carbon dating of the, the l- upper and lower layers. The fact that you have so many bones. The fact that they're not repeating. The fact that it's, uh, clearly some sort of a primate and that you've put all this stuff together and reconstructed the skull and, I mean, what is the controversy?

   10. KPKermit Pattison1:15:38

       Uh, the controversy, uh, well there's a, there's a couple of things. I mean, you could talk for a long time about this. But, uh, I guess one point of controversy is, is it indeed a member of the human family? And, uh, you know, as I said before, you get further back in time and the things that tell you it's a member of the human family become more subtle, like these canine teeth, for example. Uh, uh, the bipedality is- is another one. But, you know, there's, you know, a great deal of skepticism in the field about, you know, there- there's people who, who, uh, I talk to who will tell you, who- who doubt that any of these sp- early sp- species that have been identified as hominins or early members of the human family, they- they doubt that any of them really are, or- or it's just unknowable. So, there's kind of like this, this, um, I don't know, almost in some people, this, this, uh, uh, almost like nihilistic view that you can really ever know. That- that's-

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:16:40

       Hm.

   12. KPKermit Pattison1:16:40

       ... that's one. Uh, um, but I, but I, but I do think that is change- the- the- the, uh, validation of Ardi as a member of the human family, the human lineage is, um, I- I think there is a growing number of people who, uh, who are accepting it. Uh, and there's some people with a lot of out- outside people who have basically endorsed what the research team has, you know, had said. You know, whether it's a direct ancestor or like, you know, one of your extinct aunt, uncle (laughs) you know, whether, maybe it's not your grandfather, but maybe it's like your aunt, uncle, you know, that's, we- we may never know that. But, um, uh, so that, anyway, that's one point of controversy. Is it, is it in our, the- the human lineage? Uh, another one is, um, the arguments that the discovery team has made about what it reveals about the last common ancestor of humans and apes. And, uh, you know, like, for example, we were talking before about, about this model of a chimp-like common ancestor of humans and, and, uh, African apes. And, uh, you know, the- the Ardi team, who spent 15 years studying this thing before they announced it to the world, they, uh, believe and strenuously argued that the skeleton shows you that the common ancestor of humans and the African apes was in fact not like a chimp, not, nowhere near as chimp-like as everyone thought, because there's no vestige of knuckle walking. I mean, there's the whole bunch of- of things that gets into sort of like a, some anatomical, very es- esoteric anatomical stuff. So if you, if you read the book, if you're, if- if interested, 'cause it gets into, to- to- to all that. But, uh, uh, so anyway, so that's- that's part of the controversy. Uh, so, um, so there- there- there is a sort of subset of the critics who have come to accept Ardi as indeed-... a member of the human family. So they say, yeah, they're, they're right, they placed it correctly in the h- in the human family tree, but they are not yet convinced that it, it, it, that it, it, it falsifies this idea of a chimp-like ancestor. You know, their argument would be, "Well, sure in the ways that ar- Ardi may have still descended from this chimp-like ancestor, but, you know, it, uh, uh, evolved these new adaptations that sort of erased those from its anatomy." So that, that's one element of, of controversy. Uh, I mean, there's, there's, uh... You know, the great thing about this skeleton, actually, because it, because it is so complete and because it, um, was released with this huge package of this wh- a whole series of paper about, you know, the hand, the foot, you know, the, the, the pelvis, and the skull, there was, um, (sighs) a lot of fodder there for debate and disagreement, and that's what's been happening for the last 10 years.

Episode duration: 2:05:58