In this episode we explore Human Evolution and the Middle Earthy world it happened in. Human ancestors began walking upright, practicing monogamy, and hanging out near fires, and all of that was a pretty big deal. Eventually humans got pretty good at playing with fire, making tools, and started building societies across the planet!

We explore some of humanity's cousins, Neanderthals and Denisovans, who are also partially our ancestors, and very interesting. Then we take a look at the potential role of naturally occurring psychedelics in human evolution, and a rough timeline of the spread of humanity across the planet. We learn more all the time about exactly how, when and where humans spread, so nothing is really for certain on that.

An entertaining movie about this time is "A Quest For Fire" from 1981. Worth a watch if this period in ...