How hunting animals made us human with Bill Von Hippel

Bill von Hippel is Professor and Head of Psychology at the University of Queensland, in Brisbane, Australia. Bill received his BA in Psychology from Yale University and his PhD in Social Psychology from the University of Michigan. He then taught at Ohio State University for a dozen years (where he received the Alumni Distinguished Teaching Award) before moving to Australia. Bill had the good fortune to be a student on Semester at Sea on the Spring, ‘84 voyage and a faculty member on the Fall, ‘97 voyage. Bill has published over eighty articles and chapters on stereotyping and prejudice, social cognitive changes with aging, and evolutionary psychology.

Time stamps: 

6:36 Start of the Podcast
7:11 Bill’s Background/human origin story
9:16 Dating the start of human evolution.
10:48 What happened 6.5 million years ago that caused a schism in our lineage
13:21 Is Austrolopithecus our oldest ancestor?
15:31 ‘’Lucy’’ the first human ancestor.
17:11 Was there a dietary change that aided in our evolution?
20:06 When did we see our ancestors use tools to hunt animals?
22:46 Correlation between brain size and hunting/consumption of animals
27:44 Expensive tissue hypothesis.
32:54 Did eating animals make us human?
33:11 Peters’ elephantnose fish.
33:46 Fire and its role in our evolution.
37:06 How cooking affects meat.
43:16 When did humans first domesticate dogs?
44:36 The whites of our eyes.
47:15 Humans as cooperative species (The Social Leap).
51:15 Homo Sapiens/migration of homo sapiens
55:29 Stable Nitrogen Isotopes studies (Northern Europe).
58:20 How does this information shape Bill’s dietary choices?
1:00:15 What is the most radical thing Bill has done recently?
1:01:11 Where to find Bill’s work.


Studies mentioned:
https://www.pnas.org/content/116/11/4928
https://www.pnas.org/content/106/38/16034