ListenNOVA: Becoming Human: Unearthing Our Earliest Ancestors - Part I
Airs Wednesday, November 25,2009 at 9 p.m. on KPBS TV
Above: This definitive three-part special on human evolution combines interviews with renowned scientists and the most recent, groundbreaking discoveries with vivid images of our earliest ancestors to tell the first comprehensive story of our human past. Pictured: A group of workers digs in the area where earlier searches uncovered one-million-year-old hominid fossils called Homo antecessor in Atapuerca, Spain.
October 30, 2009
Above: Building Faces From Fossils: Paleoartist Viktor Deak works from casts of fossil skulls to put faces to Turkana Boy and other ancient hominids.
Where did we come from? What makes us human? An explosion of recent discoveries sheds light on these questions, and "NOVA's" comprehensive, three-part special, "Becoming Human," examines what the latest scientific research reveals about our hominid relatives.
Part 1, "First Steps," examines the factors that caused us to split from the other great apes. The program explores the fossil of "Selam," also known as "Lucy's Child." Paleoanthropologist Zeray Alemseged spent five years carefully excavating the sandstone-embedded fossil. "NOVA's" cameras are there to capture the unveiling of the face, spine, and shoulder blades of this 3.3 million-year-old fossil child. And "NOVA" takes viewers "inside the skull" to show how our ancestors' brains had begun to change from those of the apes.
Why did leaps in human evolution take place? "First Steps" explores a provocative "big idea" that sharp swings of climate were a key factor.
The other programs in the "Becoming Human" series are Part 2: "Birth of Humanity," which profiles the earliest species of humans, and Part 3: "Last Human Standing," which examines why, of various human species that once shared the planet, only our kind remains. These episodes will air on Wednesday, November 25 directly following the first episode at 10 and 11 p.m.
