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Where do we come from?

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For centuries, the greatest
question in the history of man

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had no scientific answer

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Then, the first evidence
of a human ancestor

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started a scientific revolution

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This is the story of the quest to
find the origins of the human race

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It spanned a century and a half
of obsessive searching

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and would make or break
the careers of some of the greatest
scientists in the field

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For the lucky few,

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chance discoveries opened
a window on the hidden world
of our ancestors

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from the tiniest fragments of the past,

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the full story
was slowly pieced together

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Spanning 300,000 generations,

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over 3 million years¡­

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it is the story
of our progress from ape

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to man

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The search for
the origins of humanity

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is a story of bones
and the tales they tell

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The first chapter began here,

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40,000 years in the future

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at the entrance to this cave

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With the discovery of this man

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The year was 1856,

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and the cave lies in what is now
the Neander Valley, in Germany

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Workmen were digging for limestone

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a vital ingredient in
the local chemical industry,

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it lay under a layer of rock and soil

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The men were paid a few pence a day
to remove the surface layer,

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and everything was thrown away

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But then, a spade hit something
that didn't sound like a rock

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The shape looked like
the top of a skull,

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and thinking it might
be a murder victim,

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they stopped work
to show the foreman

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It was interesting but he'd seen
this kind of thing before,

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and was happy to send it
the way of all the other bits
of bone they found

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to be smashed up with the rocks

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Then something made him
change his mind

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He knew a local school teacher
who might be interested to see it

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and the skull got a reprieve

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What he could never have imagined

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was that the skull
was seeing the light of day

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for the first time in
more than 40,000 years

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In western Europe,
400 centuries before Christ,

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the original owner of the skull
was a living, breathing being

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a hunter, a tribal leader,
a father of children,

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and a member of
the most successful species

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on the European continent
at the time

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Neanderthal man

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40,000 years later,

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a school teacher Johan Fuhlrott

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got the chance to see
the skull for the first time

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A keen amateur geologist
and former anatomy student,

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Fuhlrott had no idea
if he'd come on a wild goose chase

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The moment he saw the skull,

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he knew instinctively that
this was something extraordinary

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It looked fossilised,
which would make it
thousands of years old,

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and it was clearly not an animal

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But neither was it
from a normal, modern human being

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This particular skull
is the skull of Neanderthal,

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and it, it's big

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There, there, the, this individual
lived around 50,000 years ago,

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and by that time, Neanderthals
had developed a brain

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that was as large and in some cases
larger than the modern human brain

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You notice that
it's rather long and low

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and it's almost as if you grab
the front of a human face

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and pull it out

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You also have this big protruding nose,

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and in fact look how large
that nose is

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So they would have looked different
for, from modern humans,

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if you actually saw one
with the flesh on it

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Over 300 Neanderthal remains
have been found

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from Europe to the Middle East

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they all tell the same story
of a short, powerful physique,

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perfectly evolved for
the world they lived in

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a tough place

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Europe was in the early stages
of the last great Ice Age

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Within a few centuries,

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this land was under a glacier
half a mile thick

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At this time, the climate
was fluctuating quite extremely,

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and we do know that they survived
some of the major cold snaps,

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the major glacial advances

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The only way to support
advanced life here

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was with a high-protein meat diet,

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and that meant learning to
be a good hunter - or starve

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What we do know from the skeletons,

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that Neanderthals were very robust,

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they were very strong,
but they also had this huge brain

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The tools found with Neanderthal

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suggest they developed
sophisticated stone technology

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Their weapons were the tools
of their survival,

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and needed to be maintained

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If a spear failed at the critical
moment, the hunt would fail

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Neanderthal males seemed
to have supported loose family
groups of up to a dozen

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this hunting trip
had already taken 3 days,

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and covered ten miles,
with no sign of any prey

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Then, they found animal droppings

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Neanderthal nasal cavities
are unique among hominids,

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suggesting a highly evolved
sense of smell,

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and they recognise
the scent of red deer

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Rubbing the droppings
on their skin helped to
disguise their approach

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if they could catch up
with the deer

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They'd had to range further
in recent months to find a kill

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Red deer numbers had fallen rapidly,
and they had no idea why

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what they didn't know
was that they had competition,

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competition that would one day
drive them to extinction

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Victorian scientist Johan Fuhlrott

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held the evidence of
an unknown ancient species

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It's hard even to guess what
the creature was without more evidence

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And they hadn't got much

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Fulhrott gave the bones to
more qualified scientists

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But even when more pieces
emerged from the same cave,

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they completely failed
to identify them

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Opinions varied widely,

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from a barbarian who'd fought
the Roman legions,

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to a lost Russian Cossack

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Even the victim of some unknown
congenital deformity

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But a new idea began
to take centre stage

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Fulrod himself suggested

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Neanderthal might be
an early ancestor of modern man

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To many Victorians, this seemed
the most absurd notion of all

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Then, in 1859, just three years
after the bones were found,

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the notion suddenly caught on

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Charles Darwin published
his groundbreaking work,

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The Origin of Species

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He suggested that all
living things had descended
from earlier, simpler forms,

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by the process of evolution

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And if it was true
for every living thing on earth,

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then that had to include us

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1859, Darwin publishes
the Origin of Species,

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and a lot of people think that
this book was paid attention to,

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but it wasn't.

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Most people couldn't care
a job about whether a fish
evolved into an amphibian

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no-one cared

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The big question, the question
that everybody wanted to know was,

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where did we come from?

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And it's in the 1850s and 60s

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that science steps to
the plate and says,

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I'm going to give you the answer

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And boy did they give us an answer

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If humans had evolved
from a simpler form,

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the implication
to the scientific mind was obvious

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and disturbing

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Humans could only
have descended from apes

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The impact on the Victorian psyche
was profound

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Many believed the theory of evolution

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made them little more than animals

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Darwin stayed away from that question

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He knew he was going
to get into trouble

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He writes to friends and says

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uh-uh, I'm not going
to talk about that

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far too controversial,

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and it's up to other people,

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new scientists, a younger
generation of scientists

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coming on in the 1850s
and 60s, seeing an opening,

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seeing that they could make a career

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if they were to answer this question,

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where do humans come from

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Inspired by the Neanderthal bones,

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evolution became
the hottest topic of the age

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But it would stay little more than
a theory without more evidence

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scientific attention
turned to an ancestor

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that would link us to the apes

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an ape man, a missing link

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and they would go to the ends
of the earth to find it

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In the late 1800s,

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the world of science had become
obsessed with the idea

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of a missing link between apes and man,

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and German scientist Johann Fuhlrott

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believed Neanderthal man was that link

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Neanderthal seems so promising

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when it's first presented, it seems
like it's going to be the answer,

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but on closer inspection,
it starts to fall apart

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Most importantly,

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the key fossils just seem
to be too much like humans

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Neanderthal at best is a man
with some ape qualities

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Travelling back in time,

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our Neanderthal stood just
3,000 generations behind us,

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at around 40,000 years ago

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To find a true missing link,

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meant going further back in time,

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to something more apelike

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The question was, how much ape,

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and how much man, would it be?

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I think the idea of a missing link
came from a,

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a very simple view of evolution,

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and it's not surprising
it was simple,

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because of course these ideas
were in their infancy,

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but people had this idea of fixed types

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There were humans, and there were apes,

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and an evolutionary transition
between those two types

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would somehow combine
the features of both types

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There was no real conception

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that evolution could operate
over vast periods of time,

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and there could be complex
mixtures of characteristics,

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so people were looking for
something essentially

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that would be halfway between
a living human and a living ape

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But where would the evidence be found?

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By the 1880s,

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it was believed this had to be

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where apes and primitive people
lived side by side

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And so the search moved from
Europe to South East Asia,

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and the Dutch island colony of Sumatra,
home to both man and ape

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In October 1889,

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the monsoon season was beginning,

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and no-one tried to negotiate the dense
rain forest unless they had to

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Two years ago,

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Eugene Dubois had a promising career
as a doctor in Amsterdam,

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but his obsession with human origins

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had led him to take up the challenge
to find the missing link

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after abandoning his career and
his civilised European home,

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the great dream had turned
into a nightmare

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He's invested everything that he had
into finding this missing link

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00:16:15,600 --> 00:16:17,750
Dubois was the worst kind of
person to go out to the field,

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because he had no experience

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He doesn't know
how to teach his crew

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He doesn't know
how to take care of them

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They're out in the field
It's raining

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It's a complete shambles

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He'd found caves,

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which he hoped would produce
the fossils he was looking for

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They hadn't

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His engineer had given up digging,

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and all but a few
of his convict labourers

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had run away, or were sick

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To make matters worse,
Dubois had malaria

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The same deadly disease

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had already claimed the life
of his first engineer,

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and he was about to lose
all patience with the second

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His engineer had just lost his workmate

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and he hadn't been paid for a month

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But this meant nothing to Dubois

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Poor Eugene, he desperately
wants to find something,

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desperately wants to
make a name for himself,

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comes up with absolutely nothing

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After months in the jungle,

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Dubois had just a few
animal fossils to show

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for the time and money he'd spent

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Dubois had many trials
and tribulations,

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and someone who was not as driven,

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not as determined, not as obsessed,

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I'm sure would have given up
and gone home

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Dubois realised his attempt to find
the missing link here had failed,

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and he fired his engineer

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They leave Sumatra
and he goes elsewhere,

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and he frankly doesn't know
where to look,

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other than somewhere
in the East Indies

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Two years later, and Dubois
had started his search again,

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this time on the island of Java

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Finally his luck had started to turn

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He'd fully recovered from malaria,

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and at last had something to look at

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Some fossil teeth, which he
believed were extremely old,

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00:19:25,700 --> 00:19:27,750
and looked vaguely apelike

254
00:19:28,200 --> 00:19:29,950
Dubois had a new dig site,

255
00:19:30,000 --> 00:19:33,450
with a bigger team,
overseen by the Dutch army

256
00:19:38,200 --> 00:19:40,250
Every so often
they brought him material

257
00:19:40,300 --> 00:19:41,850
they thought might be of interest,

258
00:19:41,900 --> 00:19:44,550
and one day, in October 1891,

259
00:19:44,600 --> 00:19:45,950
he got another batch

260
00:20:17,500 --> 00:20:20,450
It contained a fossilised skull

261
00:20:29,000 --> 00:20:31,850
Just like Neanderthal
40 years earlier,

262
00:20:31,900 --> 00:20:33,750
it was only a skullcap,

263
00:20:33,800 --> 00:20:35,150
but like Neanderthal,

264
00:20:35,200 --> 00:20:38,750
it sent its discoverer into
a frenzy of speculation

265
00:20:47,300 --> 00:20:50,550
The surrounding forests were
home to a variety of apes

266
00:20:50,600 --> 00:20:53,750
but he knows that
this was not from any known ape

267
00:20:53,800 --> 00:20:54,950
It was too fine

268
00:20:55,000 --> 00:20:57,550
The brain cavity was clearly large;

269
00:20:57,600 --> 00:21:00,350
yet obviously not a human skull

270
00:21:01,400 --> 00:21:04,750
So, could it be
an early human ancestor,

271
00:21:04,800 --> 00:21:07,450
closer to our apelike origins?

272
00:21:08,000 --> 00:21:12,550
The only thing he could compare it
with in his mind was Neanderthal

273
00:21:25,400 --> 00:21:29,650
The first Neanderthal found
was 40,000 years old

274
00:21:29,800 --> 00:21:34,950
Unknown to Dubois, his find
was roughly 20 times older,

275
00:21:35,000 --> 00:21:37,950
between half a million
and a million years old

276
00:21:38,000 --> 00:21:40,750
much more primitive
than Neanderthal

277
00:21:41,100 --> 00:21:44,350
But was it any closer to
being the missing link?

278
00:21:44,600 --> 00:21:48,450
The key, Dubois believed,
was the size of the brain

279
00:21:48,600 --> 00:21:52,850
He had a precise mathematical model
to determine the missing link

280
00:21:52,900 --> 00:21:56,950
Its brain cavity should be
precisely half the size of a human,

281
00:21:57,000 --> 00:21:59,550
and twice the size of a chimpanzee

282
00:22:16,700 --> 00:22:20,450
But when he calculated
the brain cavity of this skull,

283
00:22:20,500 --> 00:22:22,250
it was the wrong size

284
00:22:22,300 --> 00:22:24,450
too big for the halfway point,

285
00:22:24,500 --> 00:22:28,350
therefore too big to be the apelike
creature he had imagined

286
00:22:28,800 --> 00:22:31,550
And more evidence emerged from the site

287
00:22:31,600 --> 00:22:34,350
which simply added to
the confusion for Dubois

288
00:22:34,700 --> 00:22:37,550
A complete fossilised leg bone

289
00:22:37,800 --> 00:22:40,950
Its shape suggests that
its owner stood upright

290
00:22:41,000 --> 00:22:44,550
and walked on two legs, like a man

291
00:23:00,300 --> 00:23:02,750
Dubois couldn't change his evidence,

292
00:23:02,800 --> 00:23:04,750
so he changed his model

293
00:23:04,800 --> 00:23:06,850
He decided that the missing link

294
00:23:06,900 --> 00:23:10,050
had to have a brain almost
as large as our own;

295
00:23:10,100 --> 00:23:13,150
and he was so convinced
by his meagre evidence

296
00:23:13,200 --> 00:23:15,650
that he wrote to
the Dutch colonial government,

297
00:23:15,700 --> 00:23:18,350
announcing that
he'd found the missing link

298
00:23:22,900 --> 00:23:26,150
He called it pithecanthropus erectus

299
00:23:26,400 --> 00:23:28,650
upright-walking ape man

300
00:23:32,700 --> 00:23:36,650
One of the most successful hominid
species ever to walk the earth

301
00:23:48,200 --> 00:23:51,450
In Africa, 800,000 years ago,

302
00:23:51,500 --> 00:23:56,450
and 10,000 miles from where Dubois
found his upright-walking ape

303
00:23:56,500 --> 00:24:01,450
This is the same species,
today called homo erectus

304
00:24:01,500 --> 00:24:03,550
upright-walking man

305
00:24:03,800 --> 00:24:07,750
They've been able to colonise
Africa, Asia and beyond,

306
00:24:07,800 --> 00:24:12,650
thanks to a unique combination
of physical and mental qualities

307
00:24:20,500 --> 00:24:22,550
Standing at around six feet,

308
00:24:22,600 --> 00:24:25,250
their bodies were similar
in shape to our own,

309
00:24:25,300 --> 00:24:28,750
and their brains were about
two thirds the size of ours

310
00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:32,850
Homo erectus was on the verge
of becoming human

311
00:24:37,800 --> 00:24:40,850
One of the main reasons
for this was diet

312
00:24:40,900 --> 00:24:43,650
Because for the first time
in our evolution,

313
00:24:43,700 --> 00:24:47,750
we had access to
the concentrated protein of meat

314
00:24:48,000 --> 00:24:51,650
Yet there is no evidence that
homo erectus was a true hunter

315
00:24:52,000 --> 00:24:55,650
This antelope was most likely
scavenged from a leopard kill

316
00:24:55,700 --> 00:24:58,850
the spears used
to drive away the predator

317
00:25:14,800 --> 00:25:16,550
It's believed that our bodies

318
00:25:16,600 --> 00:25:19,450
had also been going through
some radical changes

319
00:25:19,700 --> 00:25:21,850
For the first time in our evolution,

320
00:25:21,900 --> 00:25:23,950
body hair was disappearing,

321
00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:26,650
partly because homo erectus' skin

322
00:25:26,700 --> 00:25:29,250
had developed complex sweat glands

323
00:25:29,300 --> 00:25:32,750
This also removed the need
to pant in the heat,

324
00:25:32,800 --> 00:25:34,550
allowing voices to develop,

325
00:25:34,600 --> 00:25:37,550
and paving the way for human speech

326
00:25:47,700 --> 00:25:49,750
But it's their stone tools

327
00:25:49,800 --> 00:25:53,450
that showed how advanced
homo erectus had become

328
00:25:53,500 --> 00:25:55,550
We find the appearance of
a thing called the hand axe,

329
00:25:55,600 --> 00:25:59,250
which has been called the Swiss
army knife of the Palaeolithic

330
00:26:01,500 --> 00:26:03,350
This is a multi-purpose tool

331
00:26:03,800 --> 00:26:06,950
It's shaped very consistently,

332
00:26:07,200 --> 00:26:09,950
worked on both sides,
worked very skilfully,

333
00:26:10,100 --> 00:26:12,550
and erectus developed that

334
00:26:12,700 --> 00:26:15,250
certainly close to
1.5 million years ago,

335
00:26:15,300 --> 00:26:17,750
so this was a big advance
in technology

336
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:23,350
These people were part
of a larger group,

337
00:26:23,400 --> 00:26:25,250
the beginnings of a tribe

338
00:26:25,500 --> 00:26:28,150
But they stayed together
as a tight-knit family,

339
00:26:28,200 --> 00:26:31,350
and there is evidence that they
had learned to care for each other

340
00:26:31,400 --> 00:26:33,250
through sickness and injury

341
00:26:39,500 --> 00:26:43,650
The leg bone which Dubois found
in Java had an unusual scar,

342
00:26:43,700 --> 00:26:47,150
showing clear traces
of damage and repair

343
00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:48,150
It's incredible

344
00:26:48,200 --> 00:26:51,950
It seems to have broken
at one point, and healed,

345
00:26:52,000 --> 00:26:54,850
so whoever it was that owned this leg,

346
00:26:54,900 --> 00:26:56,950
not only was severely injured,

347
00:26:57,000 --> 00:26:59,450
but repaired it in their own lifetime,

348
00:26:59,500 --> 00:27:00,250
and that's important,

349
00:27:00,300 --> 00:27:02,650
because if you broke your leg
out in the wild,

350
00:27:02,700 --> 00:27:03,250
you'd be dead

351
00:27:03,300 --> 00:27:04,950
You'd have no chance of survival,

352
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:07,950
except if you were with a family,

353
00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:10,750
if you were with a village,
if you were in a society

354
00:27:10,800 --> 00:27:13,850
There is a family system
around that individual

355
00:27:18,200 --> 00:27:20,450
There was safety within the family,

356
00:27:20,500 --> 00:27:23,950
but the family itself
was never far from danger

357
00:27:24,000 --> 00:27:27,250
Leopards used the same rock shelters

358
00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:29,550
As darkness approached,

359
00:27:29,600 --> 00:27:33,050
they would become vulnerable,
spears or no spears

360
00:27:33,100 --> 00:27:36,350
And a storm was brewing
in the hot afternoon

361
00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:40,050
that could bring an unwelcome
predator in search of shelter

362
00:27:40,400 --> 00:27:44,050
But this storm might
also bring something else

363
00:27:44,100 --> 00:27:47,250
a new weapon that
shifted the balance of power

364
00:27:47,300 --> 00:27:50,450
between our ancestors
and their competitors

365
00:28:13,900 --> 00:28:17,950
One of the most important pieces
in the human evolutionary puzzle

366
00:28:18,000 --> 00:28:19,950
a gift from nature

367
00:28:20,500 --> 00:28:23,350
Every animal on earth that
ever encountered fire

368
00:28:23,400 --> 00:28:24,850
had run away from it

369
00:28:24,900 --> 00:28:28,750
Homo erectus was at a crossroads
of human evolution

370
00:28:28,800 --> 00:28:31,250
If they could do the unimaginable,

371
00:28:31,300 --> 00:28:33,250
and conquer their instinctive fear,

372
00:28:33,300 --> 00:28:35,850
they would harness a new power

373
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:40,250
They just needed the nerve
to reach into the blaze

374
00:29:05,900 --> 00:29:07,450
When humans tamed fire,

375
00:29:07,500 --> 00:29:09,450
this was obviously
a huge step forward,

376
00:29:09,500 --> 00:29:11,950
and it must have been
a remarkable event

377
00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:14,550
for people to face up to fire

378
00:29:14,600 --> 00:29:16,150
and learn how to control it,

379
00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:17,750
rather than running away from it,

380
00:29:17,800 --> 00:29:19,250
which is the natural instinct,

381
00:29:19,300 --> 00:29:20,950
and once they could do that,

382
00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:22,550
once they could capture fire

383
00:29:22,600 --> 00:29:25,050
and eventually even
make it at will,

384
00:29:25,100 --> 00:29:26,850
this was a huge advance

385
00:29:28,800 --> 00:29:31,750
The impact of fire was
enormous on human evolution

386
00:29:40,600 --> 00:29:45,150
The technology of fire gave
homo erectus heat, light

387
00:29:45,200 --> 00:29:47,050
and protection on their travels,

388
00:29:47,100 --> 00:29:49,250
helping them to migrate
across the world

389
00:29:49,300 --> 00:29:52,550
from Africa to Asia and beyond

390
00:29:58,000 --> 00:30:02,350
This is how Eugene Dubois came across
their fossil remains in Java

391
00:30:03,900 --> 00:30:06,050
But this nearly human species

392
00:30:06,100 --> 00:30:10,450
was very different from Dubois' idea
of an upright-walking ape man

393
00:30:15,700 --> 00:30:16,850
In his mind,

394
00:30:16,900 --> 00:30:21,150
he'd found the perfect mix of
ape and human characteristics

395
00:30:21,200 --> 00:30:22,650
for a missing link

396
00:30:27,800 --> 00:30:31,550
All he had to do was convince
the rest of the world

397
00:30:35,800 --> 00:30:37,850
And it wasn't going to be easy

398
00:30:37,900 --> 00:30:40,550
I think he must have thought that
the world was ready for this,

399
00:30:40,600 --> 00:30:41,750
and when he announced it,

400
00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:43,650
the world of science
would be at his feet,

401
00:30:43,700 --> 00:30:45,450
for making this great discovery

402
00:30:45,500 --> 00:30:46,950
that the world had been waiting for,

403
00:30:47,300 --> 00:30:49,050
and of course
it didn't work out like that

404
00:30:49,100 --> 00:30:52,950
because when Dubois actually
tried to publish the material

405
00:30:53,000 --> 00:30:54,250
and show people the material,

406
00:30:54,300 --> 00:30:57,650
their view was that it was
too apelike to be a missing link

407
00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:07,550
Dubois was convinced to the end

408
00:31:07,600 --> 00:31:10,350
that his fossils
represented a missing link,

409
00:31:10,600 --> 00:31:13,050
but the scientific world
did not agree,

410
00:31:13,100 --> 00:31:14,950
and rejected his claim

411
00:31:18,900 --> 00:31:21,450
Because he never attended
his own dig,

412
00:31:21,500 --> 00:31:25,050
he couldn't even prove his pieces
belonged to the same creature

413
00:31:25,300 --> 00:31:28,950
The verdict of most experts
was that the leg was human,

414
00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:32,550
but the skull looked like
an unknown species of ape

415
00:31:35,500 --> 00:31:38,450
He leaves the Dutch East Indies,
he goes back home,

416
00:31:38,700 --> 00:31:41,350
and no-one's paying
any attention to his work,

417
00:31:41,400 --> 00:31:43,750
no-one's paying attention
to his fossils,

418
00:31:43,800 --> 00:31:46,050
and it must have just broken his heart

419
00:31:46,100 --> 00:31:50,450
He ended up basically assembling
his fossils, and said right,

420
00:31:50,500 --> 00:31:52,550
if you're not going to pay
any attention to me,

421
00:31:52,600 --> 00:31:54,750
you're not going to
get access to my material

422
00:31:54,800 --> 00:31:57,750
Must have been one of the greatest
sulks in scientific history

423
00:31:57,800 --> 00:32:00,450
If you don't believe me,
you can't look at my stuff

424
00:32:05,600 --> 00:32:10,750
The scientific world ultimately
recognise the true value
of Dubois' discovery,

425
00:32:10,800 --> 00:32:12,750
but not for several decades

426
00:32:12,900 --> 00:32:16,750
In the meantime, the search
for the missing link continued

427
00:32:17,600 --> 00:32:19,850
And at the start of the 20th century,

428
00:32:19,900 --> 00:32:23,250
the focus turned
from Asia back to Europe.

429
00:32:23,300 --> 00:32:24,550
because in Britain,

430
00:32:24,600 --> 00:32:28,450
a discovery was made
that amazed the world

431
00:32:29,500 --> 00:32:34,250
And created one of the biggest
scandals in scientific history

432
00:32:42,300 --> 00:32:43,450
Arthur

433
00:32:43,500 --> 00:32:45,050
Look, look!

434
00:32:45,700 --> 00:32:47,150
Teeth. What?

435
00:32:47,300 --> 00:32:50,750
Suddenly, a new contender
that fitted the idea

436
00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:52,950
of a missing link perfectly

437
00:32:55,500 --> 00:32:57,550
In fact, it was almost too perfect

438
00:32:57,600 --> 00:32:59,850
Well, Dr Watson? What do you think?

439
00:32:59,900 --> 00:33:02,750
But then, forgeries often are

440
00:33:12,600 --> 00:33:15,250
In December of 1912, in London

441
00:33:15,300 --> 00:33:18,750
A new fossil contender for
the title of missing link

442
00:33:18,800 --> 00:33:20,250
was about to be unveiled

443
00:33:20,300 --> 00:33:23,450
at the very centre of
the scientific establishment

444
00:33:23,700 --> 00:33:27,050
This time, the experts were
ready to be convinced,

445
00:33:27,100 --> 00:33:29,950
because this was the perfect ape man

446
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:32,150
And it was British

447
00:33:35,200 --> 00:33:39,250
There was this tremendous rivalry
between Britain and Germany

448
00:33:39,300 --> 00:33:40,950
building up to the First World War,

449
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:42,950
both nationalistic, artistic and,

450
00:33:43,000 --> 00:33:44,250
and certainly scientific,

451
00:33:44,300 --> 00:33:48,450
and the fact that Britain had nothing
to match the Neanderthal find

452
00:33:48,500 --> 00:33:51,350
I think was a factor in
the success that Piltdown had

453
00:33:51,400 --> 00:33:52,350
once it was delivered,

454
00:33:52,400 --> 00:33:55,750
here was evidence that we could match
anything the Germans had

455
00:33:59,700 --> 00:34:02,950
There was a sense of expectation
among the eminent guests

456
00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:04,850
of the Royal Geographical Society,

457
00:34:04,900 --> 00:34:06,750
and Charles Dawson was about

458
00:34:06,800 --> 00:34:09,250
to become the most celebrated
fossil-finder

459
00:34:09,300 --> 00:34:10,650
in the British Empire

460
00:34:13,000 --> 00:34:14,350
Gentlemen

461
00:34:16,900 --> 00:34:19,250
May I introduce you to...

462
00:34:20,200 --> 00:34:23,150
Piltdown Man

463
00:34:24,700 --> 00:34:29,150
The reconstructed skull showed
the exact combination of features

464
00:34:29,200 --> 00:34:32,050
everyone had expected to find
in the missing link

465
00:34:32,100 --> 00:34:35,450
What they felt at that time,
that the essence of humanity,

466
00:34:35,500 --> 00:34:38,750
the essence of being human,
was the large brain size,

467
00:34:38,800 --> 00:34:43,250
and their concept of the missing link
was a large brain

468
00:34:43,300 --> 00:34:46,050
mixed up with some
apelike characteristics,

469
00:34:46,100 --> 00:34:49,150
and this is of course
what Piltdown Man was

470
00:34:49,400 --> 00:34:54,450
So, is Piltdown Man
just another early man,

471
00:34:54,600 --> 00:34:57,050
on the lines of Neanderthal?

472
00:34:57,200 --> 00:34:59,150
I think not

473
00:34:59,200 --> 00:35:00,850
Why?

474
00:35:01,700 --> 00:35:03,250
The jaw

475
00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:07,850
What Piltdown delivered was what
many British experts were hoping for

476
00:35:07,900 --> 00:35:11,750
something that seemed to have a large
brain in a modern-shaped brain case,

477
00:35:11,800 --> 00:35:13,950
although rather thick and primitive,

478
00:35:14,300 --> 00:35:16,750
and in the jaw bone

479
00:35:16,800 --> 00:35:20,550
we have evidence of a much more
apelike jaw and teeth,

480
00:35:20,600 --> 00:35:22,750
and this weird combination

481
00:35:22,800 --> 00:35:24,950
was what actually some
British experts had predicted

482
00:35:25,000 --> 00:35:28,550
that the brain had grown large
early on in human evolution,

483
00:35:28,600 --> 00:35:30,950
but the teeth and jaws lagged behind,

484
00:35:31,000 --> 00:35:32,250
and Piltdown seemed to show that,

485
00:35:32,300 --> 00:35:34,750
and what was more, it was British

486
00:35:36,800 --> 00:35:38,050
Three years earlier,

487
00:35:38,100 --> 00:35:42,350
the first piece of Piltdown Man
had emerged seemingly by chance

488
00:35:42,400 --> 00:35:46,050
Workmen digging a road had found
what they thought was a coconut,

489
00:35:46,100 --> 00:35:47,650
and casually smashed it

490
00:35:51,300 --> 00:35:53,750
It was Piltdown Man's skull

491
00:35:58,600 --> 00:36:01,150
Charles Dawson was
an amateur fossil-hunter

492
00:36:01,200 --> 00:36:04,950
with a burning ambition to find
something truly earth-shattering

493
00:36:05,200 --> 00:36:07,450
He'd walked past this site regularly,

494
00:36:07,500 --> 00:36:10,550
in the hope that something
significant might emerge

495
00:36:11,000 --> 00:36:12,350
Anything today?

496
00:36:12,700 --> 00:36:15,550
His perseverance was finally rewarded

497
00:36:15,600 --> 00:36:16,750
We've got this

498
00:36:20,500 --> 00:36:22,650
When he examined the first piece,

499
00:36:22,700 --> 00:36:25,850
he instantly recognised it
at a skull fragment

500
00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:27,350
Where's the rest of it?

501
00:36:27,400 --> 00:36:28,350
And there could be more

502
00:36:28,400 --> 00:36:29,650
In there somewhere

503
00:36:30,200 --> 00:36:32,350
Do you think
you could find it for me?

504
00:36:32,700 --> 00:36:34,350
I'll try

505
00:36:35,200 --> 00:36:36,650
Agreed?

506
00:36:37,400 --> 00:36:38,950
Alright?

507
00:36:39,200 --> 00:36:40,950
Good

508
00:36:43,000 --> 00:36:45,650
Dawson knew he was
onto something at last

509
00:36:45,700 --> 00:36:48,150
But to get maximum exposure
for his find,

510
00:36:48,200 --> 00:36:50,850
he knew he'd need
to involve an expert

511
00:36:56,900 --> 00:36:57,850
A year later,

512
00:36:57,900 --> 00:37:01,350
he'd persuaded Sir Arthur Smith
Woodward of the British Museum

513
00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:03,650
to join in the search
for more evidence

514
00:37:03,900 --> 00:37:06,450
The skull fragments looked
vaguely human,

515
00:37:06,500 --> 00:37:08,150
but they hoped to find evidence

516
00:37:08,200 --> 00:37:11,350
that its own could be older
and more primitive

517
00:37:11,400 --> 00:37:13,850
Evidence of something more apelike

518
00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:20,250
And in a surprisingly short time,

519
00:37:20,500 --> 00:37:21,850
they'd found it

520
00:37:23,600 --> 00:37:27,450
This is definitely not a stone

521
00:37:28,000 --> 00:37:29,250
Arthur

522
00:37:29,300 --> 00:37:31,250
Look, look!

523
00:37:31,600 --> 00:37:32,950
Teeth

524
00:37:33,000 --> 00:37:34,250
What? We've got teeth

525
00:37:34,300 --> 00:37:35,950
Goodness me

526
00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:38,650
The evidence seemed conclusive,

527
00:37:38,700 --> 00:37:40,450
and with Smith Woodward's support,

528
00:37:40,500 --> 00:37:43,750
Dawson felt able to
make his boldest claim

529
00:37:43,800 --> 00:37:45,950
It is my conjecture

530
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:51,550
that what I have termed
the anthropus awsonii,
Dawson's Dawn Man,

531
00:37:51,600 --> 00:37:56,550
is nothing less than the missing link
we have searched for so long

532
00:37:57,800 --> 00:37:59,550
Thank you

533
00:38:00,600 --> 00:38:02,950
For the British scientific establishment,

534
00:38:03,000 --> 00:38:05,850
here at least was
what they had long wished for

535
00:38:05,900 --> 00:38:08,050
the perfect missing link

536
00:38:08,100 --> 00:38:11,250
A big-brained British ape man

537
00:38:11,300 --> 00:38:13,750
The fossils are perfect
for a missing link

538
00:38:13,800 --> 00:38:15,650
Some of it seems to be human,

539
00:38:15,700 --> 00:38:17,150
some of it seems to be ape;

540
00:38:17,200 --> 00:38:20,050
it just fits perfectly
right in between

541
00:38:20,100 --> 00:38:22,550
In your search for an ancestor,
that's what you want

542
00:38:22,600 --> 00:38:25,250
You know what,
it was almost too good to be true,

543
00:38:25,300 --> 00:38:28,550
but because everyone was,
was looking for something,

544
00:38:28,600 --> 00:38:32,250
because everyone wanted to
find that first Briton,

545
00:38:32,300 --> 00:38:34,050
nobody dug deeper

546
00:38:35,900 --> 00:38:38,850
Gentlemen, please.
Gather round

547
00:38:39,200 --> 00:38:42,350
It seemed
the missing link had been found

548
00:38:42,500 --> 00:38:45,850
Yet while Dawson savoured
his moment of glory,

549
00:38:45,900 --> 00:38:49,050
his audience was unaware that
they'd all been taken in

550
00:38:49,100 --> 00:38:51,950
by the greatest hoax
in scientific history

551
00:38:52,000 --> 00:38:55,450
And it would take decades
for the truth to be revealed

552
00:39:06,700 --> 00:39:10,450
While the experts in England
contented themselves with fakes,

553
00:39:10,500 --> 00:39:13,950
a real scientific treasure
waited to be discovered

554
00:39:14,200 --> 00:39:15,950
But it was in a part of the world

555
00:39:16,000 --> 00:39:18,750
that no-one at this time
even cared to look

556
00:39:18,900 --> 00:39:20,750
Southern Africa

557
00:39:22,700 --> 00:39:27,250
Charles Darwin believed Africa
might be the cradle of humanity,

558
00:39:27,300 --> 00:39:29,550
because it was the home
of the great apes

559
00:39:29,900 --> 00:39:32,950
If our closest ape relatives
were still there,

560
00:39:33,100 --> 00:39:37,050
then the ancestral link
between us might lie there too

561
00:39:37,200 --> 00:39:41,450
If so, evidence was bound
to turn up sooner or later

562
00:39:41,500 --> 00:39:44,650
It just needed someone to
recognise it when it did

563
00:39:51,300 --> 00:39:55,050
31-year-old Australian
Doctor Raymond Dart

564
00:39:55,100 --> 00:39:58,650
had recently arrived in South Africa
to begin his teaching career

565
00:40:02,200 --> 00:40:04,850
Soon after,
his friend was getting married,

566
00:40:04,900 --> 00:40:07,150
and Dart was the best man

567
00:40:07,200 --> 00:40:08,150
Keep still

568
00:40:08,300 --> 00:40:11,950
He and wife Dora had half an hour
to finish getting ready

569
00:40:16,200 --> 00:40:19,250
Now wait there.
I'll have to put it back on

570
00:40:19,300 --> 00:40:21,550
But Dart's mind was elsewhere

571
00:40:21,600 --> 00:40:24,150
He'd been collecting fossils
for the last few months,

572
00:40:24,200 --> 00:40:26,550
sent to him by students
and colleagues

573
00:40:26,600 --> 00:40:30,150
A week ago, he got news
of a spectacular fossil,

574
00:40:30,200 --> 00:40:32,350
found in a nearby lime quarry,

575
00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:34,850
and it had just arrived by train

576
00:40:45,500 --> 00:40:46,550
Thank you, gentlemen,

577
00:40:46,600 --> 00:40:49,350
just leave it inside
the door there. Thanks

578
00:40:50,100 --> 00:40:52,850
Dart's wedding duties
were just minutes away

579
00:40:52,900 --> 00:40:54,250
but he couldn't wait

580
00:40:54,300 --> 00:40:57,250
The promise of a spectacular find
was too much to ignore

581
00:40:57,300 --> 00:40:59,650
Where are you going?
I'll be one moment

582
00:41:01,800 --> 00:41:04,850
I'll be quick, I just want to
make sure it is what I think it is

583
00:41:06,100 --> 00:41:08,850
You can't go burrowing in boxes
of rubble now, Raymond,

584
00:41:08,900 --> 00:41:10,150
you really, really can't

585
00:41:10,200 --> 00:41:10,950
I won't take long

586
00:41:11,000 --> 00:41:13,350
Raymond. Please, just leave
them alone until tomorrow

587
00:41:13,400 --> 00:41:14,350
I'll be quick

588
00:41:25,300 --> 00:41:26,550
The first thing he saw

589
00:41:26,600 --> 00:41:29,250
was material he'd seen
a dozen times before

590
00:41:31,200 --> 00:41:34,550
But then, something
he could never have dreamed of

591
00:41:34,900 --> 00:41:36,550
A brain

592
00:41:36,600 --> 00:41:40,150
To be precise,
the space once occupied by a brain,

593
00:41:40,200 --> 00:41:42,550
now filled with fossilised sand

594
00:41:49,000 --> 00:41:50,650
I knew at a glance

595
00:41:50,700 --> 00:41:53,750
that what lay in my hands
was no ordinary ape brain

596
00:41:54,500 --> 00:41:58,650
Here was the replica of a brain
3 times the size of any baboon,

597
00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:01,950
and considerably bigger
than an adult chimpanzee

598
00:42:03,400 --> 00:42:06,550
Yet it was not big enough
for a primitive man

599
00:42:09,100 --> 00:42:11,250
But whose brain was it?

600
00:42:19,800 --> 00:42:23,050
Dart looked to see if there
was more of the same creature

601
00:42:26,900 --> 00:42:30,250
He found a piece of rock
with the outline of an upper jaw

602
00:42:31,900 --> 00:42:34,250
Behind it, a hollow space

603
00:42:37,500 --> 00:42:40,250
when he matched the brain
to the hollow¡­

604
00:42:44,100 --> 00:42:46,050
it was a perfect fit

605
00:42:46,300 --> 00:42:52,550
He realised he had both the brain
and skull of an unknown ape man

606
00:42:52,700 --> 00:42:55,850
But the face was buried
in solid rock

607
00:42:59,200 --> 00:43:01,050
Raymond, Christo is here

608
00:43:01,600 --> 00:43:04,550
Yeah, yeah, sorry.
Please, this is getting silly

609
00:43:07,100 --> 00:43:10,250
Powerless to reveal
its identity immediately,

610
00:43:10,300 --> 00:43:13,150
but Dart knew just
a few inches of rock

611
00:43:13,200 --> 00:43:17,050
separated him
from a momentous revelation

612
00:43:23,200 --> 00:43:27,350
Raymond Dart had been sent
the head of a fossilised ape-man,

613
00:43:27,400 --> 00:43:30,550
which he hoped
might be the missing link

614
00:43:31,500 --> 00:43:34,250
But it was buried
in a lump of solid rock

615
00:43:37,000 --> 00:43:41,850
It took him 7 weeks of painstaking
work to reveal its identity

616
00:43:48,200 --> 00:43:51,850
It was the first human ancestor
found in Africa,

617
00:43:52,600 --> 00:43:55,650
and the earliest ancestor
yet discovered

618
00:44:06,600 --> 00:44:10,450
The moment of truth came
on Christmas Eve, 1924

619
00:44:15,900 --> 00:44:18,950
What emerged first were its teeth,

620
00:44:19,000 --> 00:44:22,050
small and fine
like the teeth of a child

621
00:44:25,900 --> 00:44:28,750
But then,
the outlines of its skull,

622
00:44:28,800 --> 00:44:31,150
more apelike than human

623
00:44:31,500 --> 00:44:33,450
When it was finally revealed,

624
00:44:33,500 --> 00:44:37,450
Dart realised he'd uncovered
something extraordinary

625
00:44:45,600 --> 00:44:50,750
A combination of human and ape features
that'd never been seen before

626
00:44:50,900 --> 00:44:53,450
in the face of a child

627
00:45:05,800 --> 00:45:09,250
It's a baby.
It's a baby

628
00:45:13,100 --> 00:45:18,150
The fossil had been found
in a limestone quarry
at a site called Taung

629
00:45:18,200 --> 00:45:21,750
So, Dart called it Taung Child

630
00:45:21,800 --> 00:45:25,950
Its scientific name
is Australopithecus Africanus

631
00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:28,250
the southern ape of Africa

632
00:45:28,900 --> 00:45:34,250
She stood further back in time
than Neanderthal, at 40,000 years

633
00:45:34,300 --> 00:45:37,150
Or homo erectus,
at over half a million

634
00:45:39,700 --> 00:45:42,850
Piltdown was assumed to be
around a million years

635
00:45:46,600 --> 00:45:48,950
But Taung went even further back,

636
00:45:49,000 --> 00:45:51,750
to more than two million years

637
00:45:51,900 --> 00:45:53,650
if she was the missing link,

638
00:45:53,700 --> 00:45:57,650
then that link was more apelike
than anyone'd ever imagined

639
00:45:58,000 --> 00:46:03,750
It also placed our ancestral home
firmly in Africa for the first time

640
00:46:12,900 --> 00:46:15,950
In South Africa,
two million years ago,

641
00:46:16,000 --> 00:46:19,650
the world of Taung Child
just like the Savannah today,

642
00:46:19,700 --> 00:46:21,950
was a place of food scarcity

643
00:46:22,000 --> 00:46:24,050
There were no easy pickings

644
00:46:30,300 --> 00:46:33,250
Taung's mother,
at a little over 3 feet tall

645
00:46:33,300 --> 00:46:36,350
and just over 5 stone
was no hunter,

646
00:46:36,400 --> 00:46:40,950
but supplemented her diet by scavenging
from the scraps left by predators

647
00:46:45,200 --> 00:46:48,750
Like a modern chimp, she used
rocks as a basic implement

648
00:46:48,800 --> 00:46:52,150
to break open bones for
their rich marrow protein

649
00:46:52,400 --> 00:46:56,350
But the predators she owed her
free lunch to were never far away

650
00:46:58,300 --> 00:47:01,750
You've got sabre-tooth cats,
you've got giant hyenas,

651
00:47:01,800 --> 00:47:04,750
you've got hunting hyenas,
a whole plethora of carnivores,

652
00:47:04,800 --> 00:47:07,650
very dangerous carnivores
that we don't have any more,

653
00:47:07,700 --> 00:47:09,850
and they would have all been eating

654
00:47:09,900 --> 00:47:14,450
or going after things like
the Taung Child or even Taung's mother

655
00:47:18,600 --> 00:47:20,750
Absorbed by the remains
of a carcass,

656
00:47:20,800 --> 00:47:23,550
the mother had placed her child
a short distance away

657
00:47:23,600 --> 00:47:24,950
in the shade of a tree

658
00:47:25,200 --> 00:47:29,350
Her 3-year-old was the size
of an 18-month human infant,

659
00:47:29,400 --> 00:47:31,850
and had no protection apart
from its mother

660
00:47:32,100 --> 00:47:33,850
She knew there were threats,

661
00:47:33,900 --> 00:47:37,050
but she'd keep one eye out
for the child, like any parent

662
00:47:47,100 --> 00:47:49,050
They definitely would have cared
for their children,

663
00:47:49,100 --> 00:47:52,250
I mean you see chimpanzees
as the most caring of parents

664
00:47:52,300 --> 00:47:55,050
There's no reason to say
that Taung wasn't careful

665
00:47:55,100 --> 00:47:56,450
The problem with the Taung child was

666
00:47:56,500 --> 00:47:59,150
it was probably just old enough
and rambunctious enough

667
00:47:59,200 --> 00:48:02,450
that it was leaving its mother
for stretches at a time

668
00:48:04,300 --> 00:48:07,450
The mother was unaware that
the baby had wandered away

669
00:48:07,700 --> 00:48:09,450
Until it was too late

670
00:48:11,000 --> 00:48:14,450
There was no sight or smell of
a predator in the undergrowth,

671
00:48:14,500 --> 00:48:18,650
but predators don't just exist
on the ground

672
00:48:23,100 --> 00:48:26,050
You've also got a threat
from eagles

673
00:48:26,700 --> 00:48:30,350
They've been documented to take
human children up in Kenya,

674
00:48:30,400 --> 00:48:32,250
to the age of six years of age

675
00:48:32,300 --> 00:48:35,550
I mean an eagle has a,
these incredibly strong talons,

676
00:48:35,600 --> 00:48:37,150
greater, and it's a lovely quote,

677
00:48:37,200 --> 00:48:40,350
greater lift to weight ratio
than an F15 fighter jet

678
00:48:44,600 --> 00:48:47,450
The child was unaware of
the danger from above

679
00:48:47,500 --> 00:48:50,650
The mother saw the eagle and
the child in the same moment

680
00:48:50,700 --> 00:48:53,150
but couldn't get to her baby
quick enough

681
00:49:06,400 --> 00:49:10,650
Taung's skull was found with
eggshells and other broken skulls

682
00:49:10,700 --> 00:49:14,050
typical of deposits found
in eagles' nests

683
00:49:14,600 --> 00:49:18,550
A lot of the skulls, interestingly,
had these v-shaped impressions

684
00:49:18,600 --> 00:49:22,250
from this eagle's beak
going through,

685
00:49:22,300 --> 00:49:24,450
because preferentially
they eat out the brain,

686
00:49:24,500 --> 00:49:27,150
a very rich,
nutritious source of protein

687
00:49:28,700 --> 00:49:33,850
This small, defenceless creature
was Raymond Dart's missing link

688
00:49:38,000 --> 00:49:40,550
Valentine's Day, 1925,

689
00:49:40,600 --> 00:49:44,850
just two months after Taung Child
had first emerged from the rock

690
00:49:45,200 --> 00:49:48,850
A week earlier, Dart had published
a scientific paper

691
00:49:48,900 --> 00:49:51,150
claiming Taung as the missing link,

692
00:49:51,200 --> 00:49:54,250
and unleashing a storm
of controversy

693
00:50:05,200 --> 00:50:07,650
Dart thinks he's got
the missing link

694
00:50:07,900 --> 00:50:10,350
But there's also
this Piltdown specimen

695
00:50:10,400 --> 00:50:14,650
that matches what the scientific
establishment thinks

696
00:50:17,000 --> 00:50:20,050
Brain growth was thought to
have driven human evolution,

697
00:50:20,100 --> 00:50:24,150
and Piltdown had a large brain,
and apelike teeth

698
00:50:26,900 --> 00:50:28,550
But Taung had the opposite

699
00:50:28,600 --> 00:50:31,650
a small brain, and human-looking teeth

700
00:50:31,700 --> 00:50:35,150
The whole mix of different features
that you find with the Taung Child

701
00:50:35,200 --> 00:50:37,750
really is quite interesting,
it's a whole reversal,

702
00:50:37,800 --> 00:50:40,750
it's more like an,
a man ape than an ape man,

703
00:50:40,800 --> 00:50:42,750
and it's a complete different
mixture of features

704
00:50:42,800 --> 00:50:45,650
that the world hadn't seen and
the world actually wasn't ready for

705
00:50:47,300 --> 00:50:49,250
Have you seen Professor Dart?

706
00:50:52,700 --> 00:50:56,650
The biggest experts in this field
all backed Piltdown

707
00:50:56,800 --> 00:50:59,650
Any sort of voices of doubt
were generally

708
00:50:59,900 --> 00:51:02,950
just overridden by the authority
of these people

709
00:51:06,100 --> 00:51:10,250
Dart's publication directly contradicted
the scientific establishment

710
00:51:10,400 --> 00:51:13,350
Could anybody tell me where
I can find Professor Dart?

711
00:51:16,300 --> 00:51:19,450
He sent it to London to be reviewed
by the world experts

712
00:51:19,500 --> 00:51:22,750
the same experts whose views
he contradicts

713
00:51:23,700 --> 00:51:26,450
And these so-called experts
dismiss it,

714
00:51:26,500 --> 00:51:29,450
because they've got their money
on the other horse

715
00:51:33,000 --> 00:51:35,950
He had one ally in his struggle
for recognition

716
00:51:36,000 --> 00:51:41,150
Dr Robert Broom, like Dart,
an anatomist and fossil collector

717
00:51:41,200 --> 00:51:43,450
Broom had the reviews from London

718
00:51:44,000 --> 00:51:45,950
Raymond

719
00:51:46,000 --> 00:51:49,550
Raymond, I, I thought
you'd be interested in these

720
00:51:49,900 --> 00:51:52,950
Some responses to
your short paper in Nature

721
00:51:53,300 --> 00:51:55,450
There's one there
by Sir Arthur Keith

722
00:51:55,500 --> 00:51:56,750
What does he have to say?

723
00:51:57,400 --> 00:51:59,750
Not very encouraging, I'm afraid

724
00:52:00,800 --> 00:52:04,450
He places Taung in the same
sub family as gorillas

725
00:52:04,700 --> 00:52:05,950
What?

726
00:52:06,100 --> 00:52:07,350
How?

727
00:52:07,600 --> 00:52:08,750
Well he says here,

728
00:52:08,800 --> 00:52:12,650
the brain is clearly too small
to be a human ancestor

729
00:52:12,700 --> 00:52:17,350
The experts lined up to condemn
Dart's description of a fossil

730
00:52:17,400 --> 00:52:18,550
they'd never even seen

731
00:52:18,600 --> 00:52:21,450
How can he know
what's too small? Or too big?

732
00:52:25,400 --> 00:52:29,950
How can he possibly claim
that a human ancestor's brain

733
00:52:30,200 --> 00:52:32,150
had to be a particular size?

734
00:52:32,500 --> 00:52:36,150
What's his yardstick,
a standard-size bowler hat?

735
00:52:37,900 --> 00:52:39,950
It's - what's the matter
with them, Robert?

736
00:52:40,000 --> 00:52:41,950
Do they think I'm making it up?

737
00:52:42,000 --> 00:52:44,350
So what went wrong
for Raymond Dart?

738
00:52:44,500 --> 00:52:47,850
Wrong man, wrong place,
wrong thing

739
00:52:47,900 --> 00:52:49,950
He's the wrong man
- he's an Australian,

740
00:52:50,000 --> 00:52:51,650
he's not part of the establishment

741
00:52:51,700 --> 00:52:54,050
It's the wrong place - Southern Africa?

742
00:52:54,100 --> 00:52:57,150
Everyone's expecting another place,
either Europe or Asia

743
00:52:57,200 --> 00:52:58,350
It's the wrong thing -

744
00:52:58,400 --> 00:53:00,550
he calls it an ape,
everyone thinks it's an ape

745
00:53:00,600 --> 00:53:03,450
Well if it's an ape, where is,
where does it fit in the story?

746
00:53:03,700 --> 00:53:06,650
Taung is showing so many points
of affinity with

747
00:53:06,700 --> 00:53:08,250
the gorilla and the chimpanzee

748
00:53:09,100 --> 00:53:11,550
that there cannot be
a moment's hesitation

749
00:53:11,600 --> 00:53:14,150
in placing the fossil
in this living group

750
00:53:14,600 --> 00:53:17,650
How can he say that?

751
00:53:17,700 --> 00:53:20,150
I don't know

752
00:53:20,800 --> 00:53:24,150
Smith Woodward dismisses
the whole thing out of hand

753
00:53:25,700 --> 00:53:28,650
He says that Taung certainly has¡­

754
00:53:33,400 --> 00:53:35,150
Sorry, old man

755
00:53:35,600 --> 00:53:40,150
Dart has made probably
one of the most remarkable
discoveries of the 20th century,

756
00:53:40,200 --> 00:53:43,250
and the scientific establishment
completely discounts it,

757
00:53:43,300 --> 00:53:44,950
discredits his find,

758
00:53:45,000 --> 00:53:49,150
and literally puts it in a box or
a suspense account for 25 years

759
00:53:58,600 --> 00:54:00,750
In the 1920s and 30s,

760
00:54:00,800 --> 00:54:03,850
the most widely-read textbook
on human origins

761
00:54:03,900 --> 00:54:06,350
did not even mention Dart's find

762
00:54:06,500 --> 00:54:09,350
His work was not
taught in universities

763
00:54:11,700 --> 00:54:13,650
Dart had suffered
an incredible amount,

764
00:54:13,700 --> 00:54:17,850
I mean Dart was really put in
kind of scientific obscurity

765
00:54:20,000 --> 00:54:22,450
And it really is not
until the late 40s

766
00:54:22,500 --> 00:54:26,550
that he starts again, once that
tide of opinion starts to turn

767
00:54:26,600 --> 00:54:28,750
and shows that
he was actually correct

768
00:54:30,300 --> 00:54:35,050
It took a quarter of a century of
digging in South Africa's
limestone caves

769
00:54:35,100 --> 00:54:37,450
to produce the evidence Dart needed

770
00:54:39,100 --> 00:54:40,650
By the late 1940s,

771
00:54:40,700 --> 00:54:45,850
a dozen fossils similar to Taung Child
finally proved he was right

772
00:54:49,100 --> 00:54:53,250
So, what had become of Charles Dawson
and his Piltdown Man?

773
00:54:59,000 --> 00:55:01,150
40 years after it emerged

774
00:55:01,200 --> 00:55:03,750
as the prime contender
for the missing link,

775
00:55:03,800 --> 00:55:08,450
the Piltdown fossils were examined
scientifically for the first time,

776
00:55:08,700 --> 00:55:11,850
and finally revealed for
what they always were

777
00:55:11,900 --> 00:55:13,850
an elaborate hoax

778
00:55:13,900 --> 00:55:17,350
There was embarrassment and
puzzlement, astonishment,

779
00:55:17,400 --> 00:55:20,450
disbelief in some cases,
that this thing was not genuine,

780
00:55:20,600 --> 00:55:23,350
but I think for the greater
world of science,

781
00:55:23,400 --> 00:55:25,750
there was relief,
particularly outside of Britain,

782
00:55:25,800 --> 00:55:28,150
because so many people
by then had decided

783
00:55:28,200 --> 00:55:30,250
there was something peculiar
about Piltdown,

784
00:55:30,300 --> 00:55:32,350
even if they couldn't put
their finger on it

785
00:55:36,600 --> 00:55:38,950
At the Natural History
Museum in London,

786
00:55:39,000 --> 00:55:43,450
scientists decided to apply some
newly-available chemical tests

787
00:55:43,700 --> 00:55:46,650
But as soon as a sample
was drilled from the jawbone,

788
00:55:46,700 --> 00:55:48,950
they noticed something strange

789
00:55:54,300 --> 00:55:57,550
The distinct smell of burnt flesh

790
00:55:57,600 --> 00:56:02,050
This could only come from
organic bone, not fossil

791
00:56:02,200 --> 00:56:05,650
So the jaw couldn't be more than
a few thousand years old,

792
00:56:07,700 --> 00:56:10,950
and clear marks could be seen
on the surface of the teeth

793
00:56:12,100 --> 00:56:13,650
Scratch marks

794
00:56:13,900 --> 00:56:16,150
Originally from a modern ape,

795
00:56:16,200 --> 00:56:19,250
they've been filed down
to look human

796
00:56:20,500 --> 00:56:24,650
The entire assemblage,
stained to look old,

797
00:56:24,800 --> 00:56:26,350
was a forgery

798
00:56:29,000 --> 00:56:32,150
It has never been proved
who the fraudster was

799
00:56:32,400 --> 00:56:34,650
But with the demise of Piltdown,

800
00:56:34,700 --> 00:56:36,950
an old idea died with it

801
00:56:37,000 --> 00:56:41,050
that a big brain was the defining
factor in the missing link

802
00:56:41,100 --> 00:56:45,350
Something else had to come
before the evolution of a big brain,

803
00:56:46,100 --> 00:56:48,850
a new theory replaced the old

804
00:56:49,100 --> 00:56:53,150
What defined the beginning of
humanity was not brain growth

805
00:56:53,200 --> 00:56:55,550
It was using tools

806
00:56:56,700 --> 00:57:00,550
In 1915, a young boy
named Louis Leakey

807
00:57:00,600 --> 00:57:04,050
was looking for stone tools
near his missionary home

808
00:57:04,100 --> 00:57:06,550
the beginning of a lifelong obsession

809
00:57:06,600 --> 00:57:11,250
that led Leakey to revolutionise
the story of human origins

810
00:57:30,500 --> 00:57:35,350
44 years later, Leakey was looking
for the missing link,

811
00:57:35,400 --> 00:57:39,150
and the search had taken him
to what is now Tanzania

812
00:57:42,400 --> 00:57:44,950
Leakey had persuaded
the scientific world

813
00:57:45,000 --> 00:57:49,150
that what defined
the first human ancestor was tools

814
00:57:49,400 --> 00:57:52,850
Now, all he had to do was find one

815
00:57:55,900 --> 00:57:58,850
He was supported by
his second wife, Mary,

816
00:57:59,600 --> 00:58:02,850
and her son Jonathan,
just out of school

817
00:58:04,300 --> 00:58:05,950
Ah, you got something, boy

818
00:58:09,400 --> 00:58:11,350
They'd found plenty
of stone tools,

819
00:58:11,400 --> 00:58:14,350
but no sign of Leakey's toolmaker

820
00:58:14,400 --> 00:58:17,650
he'd been looking here
for 22 years

821
00:58:17,900 --> 00:58:20,250
His luck had to change soon

822
00:58:29,000 --> 00:58:34,850
July 17th, 1959, Louis Leakey
was laid low with the flu

823
00:58:35,100 --> 00:58:38,750
Major work at the dig site
had slowed while he recovered,

824
00:58:38,800 --> 00:58:42,250
but it was a day that
would make his career

825
00:58:42,900 --> 00:58:45,350
In the cool of the early morning,

826
00:58:45,400 --> 00:58:48,150
Mary took the opportunity
to walk her dogs,

827
00:58:48,400 --> 00:58:50,350
and headed away from the camp

828
00:59:02,900 --> 00:59:06,150
She wasn't expecting to find
much in the way of fossils,

829
00:59:06,200 --> 00:59:09,750
but this year's rains had done
them an unexpected favour

830
00:59:10,400 --> 00:59:13,350
As she casually scaned
the broken surface,

831
00:59:13,400 --> 00:59:18,450
her mind suddenly registered
an unmistakable shape
exposed in the dirt

832
00:59:29,800 --> 00:59:31,850
the top of a skull

833
00:59:38,800 --> 00:59:41,250
Mary was convinced
it must be the toolmaker

834
00:59:41,300 --> 00:59:43,050
they had been searching for

835
00:59:45,000 --> 00:59:50,150
Louis. Louis, darling,
please wake up

836
00:59:50,200 --> 00:59:53,150
I've found something
very important

837
00:59:53,200 --> 00:59:55,250
Darling, please, I know
you're not feeling well,

838
00:59:55,300 --> 00:59:56,950
but try and wake up

839
00:59:58,900 --> 01:00:02,350
What have you, what have you found?

840
01:00:02,700 --> 01:00:04,950
I don't know, that's why I want
you to come and have a look

841
01:00:05,000 --> 01:00:06,850
So you're going to,
you're going to have to help me

842
01:00:21,700 --> 01:00:24,350
Louis Leakey had waited 20 years

843
01:00:24,400 --> 01:00:27,550
to find this tool-making human ancestor

844
01:00:29,700 --> 01:00:31,550
Well done, my dear

845
01:00:31,600 --> 01:00:33,850
You've got better eyes than me

846
01:00:34,900 --> 01:00:37,750
But this was not what
he expected to find

847
01:00:37,800 --> 01:00:40,950
The skull was more apelike
than he ever imagined

848
01:00:43,000 --> 01:00:47,050
Well. Certainly not a homo,
my dear, I'm afraid

849
01:00:47,100 --> 01:00:48,750
Have a look at this

850
01:00:49,300 --> 01:00:52,450
But darling, just look at
where he was found

851
01:00:52,500 --> 01:00:54,950
It can't just be a coincidence

852
01:00:55,600 --> 01:00:59,750
Yet it was in the same
geological layer as the tools

853
01:00:59,800 --> 01:01:02,050
The logic was inescapable

854
01:01:02,100 --> 01:01:04,050
This must be the toolmaker,

855
01:01:04,100 --> 01:01:07,850
and therefore the beginning of humanity

856
01:01:11,000 --> 01:01:14,850
Leakey named it zinganthropus boyesii,

857
01:01:14,900 --> 01:01:17,950
after his financial sponsor,
Charles Boysey

858
01:01:18,400 --> 01:01:22,350
It had a small brain
but massive teeth and jaws,

859
01:01:22,400 --> 01:01:24,150
whose muscles were so large

860
01:01:24,200 --> 01:01:27,350
they had to be anchored to
a ridge at the top of the skull

861
01:01:27,800 --> 01:01:30,350
But if zinge was using tools,

862
01:01:30,400 --> 01:01:33,250
why did it need such powerful jaws?

863
01:01:33,300 --> 01:01:35,450
Leakey overlooked the question,

864
01:01:35,500 --> 01:01:38,550
and announced zinge
as the toolmaker

865
01:01:48,000 --> 01:01:51,450
For a year, the scientific world
accepted zinge

866
01:01:51,500 --> 01:01:53,650
as the tool-making missing link

867
01:01:53,700 --> 01:01:58,450
Then, in 1960,
Leakey completely changed his mind

868
01:01:59,300 --> 01:02:02,450
Mary was on her way
from the camp into town one day

869
01:02:02,500 --> 01:02:05,650
when a can was dislodged
in the back of her Land Rover

870
01:02:10,000 --> 01:02:11,850
When she stopped to fix it,

871
01:02:11,900 --> 01:02:14,650
she noticed a familiar shape
in the earth

872
01:02:14,700 --> 01:02:16,650
another piece of skull,

873
01:02:16,800 --> 01:02:20,550
of an entirely new,
more humanlike species

874
01:02:29,100 --> 01:02:34,650
Leakey decided that this, finally,
was his long lost toolmaker

875
01:02:34,800 --> 01:02:39,550
He named it homo habilis
- literally, handy man

876
01:02:40,100 --> 01:02:44,550
Habilis had a larger brain,
and much more human teeth

877
01:02:44,600 --> 01:02:48,250
which made sense if he was getting
meat using stone tools

878
01:02:48,700 --> 01:02:52,650
Though the tools habilis made
were little more than broken rocks,

879
01:02:52,700 --> 01:02:56,450
they marked the very start
of human stone technology

880
01:02:57,000 --> 01:02:59,750
But if habilis is the toolmaker,

881
01:02:59,800 --> 01:03:02,950
why was zinge also found
with the tools?

882
01:03:07,400 --> 01:03:11,350
Leakey has stumbled across
an incredible discovery,

883
01:03:11,400 --> 01:03:15,550
and that discovery is humans
and humanlike organisms

884
01:03:15,600 --> 01:03:19,250
coexisting in Africa at the same time

885
01:03:21,700 --> 01:03:23,550
By the early 1960s,

886
01:03:23,600 --> 01:03:27,450
the whole model of human evolution
was called into question,

887
01:03:27,500 --> 01:03:31,750
and with it, the very idea
of a single missing link

888
01:03:34,000 --> 01:03:35,250
For over a century,

889
01:03:35,300 --> 01:03:38,850
the model of human evolution
had been a simple straight line

890
01:03:40,900 --> 01:03:43,350
It began with
a lower evolutionary form

891
01:03:43,400 --> 01:03:45,650
an ancestral ape

892
01:03:45,800 --> 01:03:49,250
and ended with the most
advanced creature on earth

893
01:03:50,500 --> 01:03:52,350
the modern human being

894
01:03:58,000 --> 01:04:00,050
And somewhere in the middle,

895
01:04:00,100 --> 01:04:02,750
there had to be a missing link
between the two

896
01:04:03,500 --> 01:04:07,850
So, when Leakey found zinge,
it took pride of place

897
01:04:09,600 --> 01:04:12,450
until a new candidate arrived

898
01:04:12,700 --> 01:04:17,650
All of a sudden you have habilis,
this more human-looking animal

899
01:04:18,300 --> 01:04:21,150
Both these fossils date
to the exact same age,

900
01:04:21,200 --> 01:04:23,450
about 1.8 million years of age,

901
01:04:23,500 --> 01:04:24,650
so what do you do?

902
01:04:24,700 --> 01:04:28,150
You have to remove zinge
from the human line,

903
01:04:28,200 --> 01:04:30,950
and you have to place them
in different lines

904
01:04:32,600 --> 01:04:35,650
And what is most amazing thing,
in the same valley,

905
01:04:35,800 --> 01:04:38,150
within metres of each other,

906
01:04:38,200 --> 01:04:41,050
you have two species
living side by side

907
01:04:44,800 --> 01:04:48,350
And that changes, or makes
a whole paradigm shift

908
01:04:48,400 --> 01:04:50,650
in how we view human evolution,

909
01:04:50,700 --> 01:04:53,750
and so this line is
all of a sudden broken apart

910
01:04:57,700 --> 01:05:00,850
Suddenly what had been
a single line of descent

911
01:05:00,900 --> 01:05:03,550
had been replaced
by a series of lines

912
01:05:03,600 --> 01:05:06,650
that connected to
form a giant family tree

913
01:05:07,200 --> 01:05:10,750
In the years between 1925 and 1965,

914
01:05:10,900 --> 01:05:16,250
over 100 hominid fossils were found
and categorised in South Africa alone

915
01:05:16,600 --> 01:05:20,650
And they can all be placed
in relation to each other
by accurate dating

916
01:05:21,700 --> 01:05:24,650
Some species
are evolutionary dead ends,

917
01:05:24,700 --> 01:05:28,550
while others appear to be part
of a line that leads to humans

918
01:05:28,900 --> 01:05:34,350
But a number of humanlike competitors
occupy the earth at the same time,

919
01:05:34,400 --> 01:05:37,050
with several routes to humanity

920
01:05:37,200 --> 01:05:41,550
The only way to cut through
the confusion is to go
further back in time,

921
01:05:41,600 --> 01:05:44,650
to the root of the human family tree

922
01:05:51,000 --> 01:05:53,250
Before we had a big brain

923
01:05:53,500 --> 01:05:56,850
Long before we used
fire and language

924
01:05:57,100 --> 01:05:59,550
Before we even made tools

925
01:06:00,000 --> 01:06:05,550
The creature everyone
was looking for marked
the very beginning of humanity

926
01:06:19,100 --> 01:06:22,350
November 30th, 1974

927
01:06:22,400 --> 01:06:27,350
An American-led team
was searching for the oldest
human ancestor on earth

928
01:06:27,700 --> 01:06:30,150
And the search had a new focus

929
01:06:32,200 --> 01:06:35,950
The Northern end of
the Rift Valley in Ethiopia

930
01:06:36,700 --> 01:06:40,350
It was then possible to date
rocks very accurately,

931
01:06:40,400 --> 01:06:44,950
so it was possible to be more
precise than ever before
about where to dig

932
01:06:52,200 --> 01:06:55,050
Using new radiometric technology,

933
01:06:55,100 --> 01:07:00,150
they'd dated the volcanic layers here
to around 3.5 million years old

934
01:07:00,800 --> 01:07:05,550
Team leader Donald Johanson
was a rising star in
the world of anthropology

935
01:07:07,900 --> 01:07:13,150
He knew Dart's
Australopithecus Africanus
lived over 2 million years ago

936
01:07:16,900 --> 01:07:21,250
And Leakey's homo habilis
at about 1.45 million

937
01:07:21,300 --> 01:07:24,450
But they were on
separate ancestral lines

938
01:07:26,500 --> 01:07:29,250
He believed there
was a common ancestor,

939
01:07:29,300 --> 01:07:31,250
over 3 million years old

940
01:07:31,300 --> 01:07:34,650
The same age as the surrounding rocks

941
01:07:42,800 --> 01:07:47,150
Johanson had been kept away from
any digging by essential paperwork,

942
01:07:47,200 --> 01:07:49,550
a chore he was determined to finish

943
01:07:49,600 --> 01:07:53,850
But his colleague, Tom Gray, returned
from the site with other ideas

944
01:07:53,900 --> 01:07:54,650
How's it going?

945
01:07:54,900 --> 01:07:57,850
Well, actually very boring

946
01:07:57,900 --> 01:08:00,550
There were areas
they hadn't surveyed for a while,

947
01:08:00,600 --> 01:08:02,550
away from the main dig

948
01:08:03,400 --> 01:08:04,950
Do you need a break?

949
01:08:05,600 --> 01:08:08,050
I was thinking of
taking a hike out to bed three

950
01:08:08,100 --> 01:08:09,350
You want to come?

951
01:08:10,700 --> 01:08:14,150
I don't know, I've got to finish this,
I mean these are pretty urgent

952
01:08:16,300 --> 01:08:17,850
I've got to do something

953
01:08:20,300 --> 01:08:25,050
The urge to do what he came here to do
finally got the better of Johanson

954
01:08:29,200 --> 01:08:30,750
Let's go

955
01:08:33,600 --> 01:08:36,850
He made a decision
that changed his life

956
01:08:37,100 --> 01:08:38,850
They headed away from the site,

957
01:08:38,900 --> 01:08:41,950
to explore a couple of
isolated gullies

958
01:08:42,000 --> 01:08:44,750
They had no idea they were
just a few hundred feet

959
01:08:44,800 --> 01:08:47,550
from the greatest fossil
find in history

960
01:09:01,500 --> 01:09:03,450
But as the afternoon wore on,

961
01:09:03,500 --> 01:09:05,750
they had little to show
for their efforts

962
01:09:06,100 --> 01:09:08,450
They surveyed for a couple of hours

963
01:09:09,300 --> 01:09:13,750
By mid afternoon, the temperature
was approaching 40 degrees,

964
01:09:13,800 --> 01:09:17,450
and all they had found were
a few teeth from an extinct horse,

965
01:09:17,500 --> 01:09:19,450
and part of the skull of a pig

966
01:09:27,500 --> 01:09:29,950
They decided to head back to camp

967
01:09:30,900 --> 01:09:35,450
But Johanson had a hunch to
look again in an old gully
on their way back

968
01:09:35,800 --> 01:09:36,850
Hey, Tom

969
01:09:36,900 --> 01:09:38,350
This way

970
01:09:41,500 --> 01:09:44,850
It had been thoroughly checked
before, and produced nothing

971
01:09:49,600 --> 01:09:51,350
Hey man, what's up?

972
01:09:52,900 --> 01:09:56,050
But today, something caught
Johanson's eye

973
01:09:59,100 --> 01:10:00,050
Come here, Tom

974
01:10:00,100 --> 01:10:04,450
A shape in the dirt that just
seemed too regular to be a stone

975
01:10:07,900 --> 01:10:09,450
You see that?

976
01:10:11,000 --> 01:10:13,850
It was a fossilised arm bone

977
01:10:13,900 --> 01:10:15,050
It's an arm

978
01:10:15,200 --> 01:10:16,650
It's a hominid arm

979
01:10:16,700 --> 01:10:17,450
And there was more

980
01:10:17,500 --> 01:10:19,850
And a leg, oh my God

981
01:10:19,900 --> 01:10:22,150
Parts of a small skull

982
01:10:23,400 --> 01:10:24,650
Jaw

983
01:10:25,200 --> 01:10:27,350
Pelvis

984
01:10:27,700 --> 01:10:29,050
Arm

985
01:10:29,100 --> 01:10:30,650
My God, this is...

986
01:10:30,700 --> 01:10:34,250
In all, nearly 50 pieces
of fossilised skeleton

987
01:10:34,300 --> 01:10:35,950
watch your, watch your feet

988
01:10:36,000 --> 01:10:37,550
What do we have here, huh?

989
01:10:37,600 --> 01:10:39,350
What's going on,
I don't know where to stand, man!

990
01:10:39,400 --> 01:10:40,850
I know, Tom!!

991
01:10:45,100 --> 01:10:46,050
This is it!

992
01:10:46,100 --> 01:10:48,850
This is what we've been looking for,
I can't believe it!

993
01:10:52,200 --> 01:10:55,950
One unbelievable thought
went through his mind

994
01:10:57,000 --> 01:10:59,650
What if all the pieces
fitted together?

995
01:10:59,700 --> 01:11:04,350
Could they be parts of a single,
extremely primitive skeleton?

996
01:11:07,700 --> 01:11:09,050
Hey guys

997
01:11:09,200 --> 01:11:12,650
Come on!

998
01:11:14,000 --> 01:11:16,150
If Don Johanson was right,

999
01:11:16,200 --> 01:11:18,950
he was looking at
the most complete skeletal remains

1000
01:11:19,000 --> 01:11:22,050
of the earliest human ancestor
yet discovered

1001
01:11:26,600 --> 01:11:30,050
What makes this individual
an absolutely spectacular find

1002
01:11:30,100 --> 01:11:31,550
is that she's so complete

1003
01:11:31,600 --> 01:11:36,550
For the first time we had more than
the odd broken bone for one specimen

1004
01:11:36,600 --> 01:11:39,050
We had virtually an entire skeleton

1005
01:11:39,100 --> 01:11:42,750
What's missing on one side
is present on the other side

1006
01:11:42,900 --> 01:11:47,850
I mean, it's so rare because
these hominids didn't bury their dead,

1007
01:11:47,900 --> 01:11:51,650
and in normal circumstances
if an individual died,

1008
01:11:51,700 --> 01:11:54,650
the scavengers would come in,
the bones would be dispersed

1009
01:11:54,800 --> 01:11:59,850
the mere probability that something
is fossilised is extremely small

1010
01:11:59,900 --> 01:12:03,950
But to actually go in and
find such a beautiful fossil

1011
01:12:04,000 --> 01:12:06,350
of a complete human ancestor,

1012
01:12:06,400 --> 01:12:09,050
is really a
once in a lifetime occurrence

1013
01:12:12,900 --> 01:12:15,750
In the first few hours
following the discovery,

1014
01:12:15,800 --> 01:12:18,950
the scale of the find was
hard for the team to grasp

1015
01:12:19,400 --> 01:12:20,850
But that night,

1016
01:12:20,900 --> 01:12:24,650
in the wind-blown desert,
outside of Hadar in Ethiopia,

1017
01:12:24,800 --> 01:12:28,650
the realisation of what
they had found began to sink in

1018
01:12:44,000 --> 01:12:46,550
Inspired by a tape
of the Beatles song,

1019
01:12:46,600 --> 01:12:48,550
Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds,

1020
01:12:48,600 --> 01:12:51,650
the new fossil picked up
a name - Lucy

1021
01:12:52,700 --> 01:12:54,750
To Lucy! Alright

1022
01:12:54,800 --> 01:12:57,350
To Lucy. To Lucy

1023
01:13:01,500 --> 01:13:06,150
In Ethiopia. 3.2 million years ago

1024
01:13:06,200 --> 01:13:10,550
lived Australopithecus Afarensis
- Lucy

1025
01:13:15,500 --> 01:13:18,650
She put together the pieces of
what one of our ancestors

1026
01:13:18,700 --> 01:13:20,650
at this point in time
really looked like,

1027
01:13:20,700 --> 01:13:22,450
and it was a huge shock,

1028
01:13:22,500 --> 01:13:26,950
because what she looked like
was basically a chimpanzee

1029
01:13:30,700 --> 01:13:34,250
Lucy would have been a tree-dweller
in a changing land

1030
01:13:34,400 --> 01:13:36,450
For 50 million years,

1031
01:13:36,500 --> 01:13:39,850
her ancestors had inhabited
the trees of Africa

1032
01:13:39,900 --> 01:13:42,950
But the land once covered
with unbroken forest

1033
01:13:43,000 --> 01:13:45,450
gave way to grass
and scattered woodland

1034
01:13:45,700 --> 01:13:49,250
Her diet was mostly
the fruit of trees like this fig

1035
01:13:49,500 --> 01:13:52,450
But one tree would not
support her for long,

1036
01:13:52,500 --> 01:13:56,850
and unlike her ancestors,
she could no longer
swing to the next tree

1037
01:13:57,100 --> 01:13:59,750
She had to find another route

1038
01:14:14,700 --> 01:14:18,750
Lucy did something
no ape had ever done

1039
01:14:19,100 --> 01:14:22,650
She stood up and
walked on two legs

1040
01:14:24,000 --> 01:14:28,550
In her body and behaviour,
Lucy is in most respects an ape,

1041
01:14:28,600 --> 01:14:31,850
from her diet
to her small brain and habitat

1042
01:14:32,100 --> 01:14:35,450
The big difference
is the way she walked

1043
01:14:38,200 --> 01:14:42,650
Walking upright is the first piece
in our evolutionary puzzle

1044
01:14:42,700 --> 01:14:46,250
The first step on the road
to humanity

1045
01:14:50,300 --> 01:14:54,650
The initial ancestral change
that we see in human evolution

1046
01:14:54,700 --> 01:14:56,650
is not brain expansion

1047
01:14:56,700 --> 01:14:59,550
Interestingly,
it's not even stone tools

1048
01:15:00,800 --> 01:15:04,350
The first major innovative change
that you see in evolution

1049
01:15:04,400 --> 01:15:09,550
is none of what you would expect
to find with humans or humanity,

1050
01:15:09,700 --> 01:15:13,250
but it's the ability
to walk on two legs bipedally

1051
01:15:17,800 --> 01:15:21,850
And it made the difference
between Lucy surviving or not

1052
01:15:22,800 --> 01:15:25,150
She was on the constant search
for food,

1053
01:15:25,200 --> 01:15:28,150
and that meant finding
new trees to feed in

1054
01:15:28,500 --> 01:15:31,250
She spent as little time
on the ground as she could,

1055
01:15:31,300 --> 01:15:33,450
because she knew she was vulnerable

1056
01:15:33,800 --> 01:15:37,750
Lucy had no defence against
leopards and sabre-toothed cats,

1057
01:15:37,800 --> 01:15:39,850
except the refuge of the trees

1058
01:15:43,700 --> 01:15:45,250
But standing upright,

1059
01:15:45,300 --> 01:15:48,350
she could see further
than any of her ancestors

1060
01:15:58,700 --> 01:16:01,950
Sensing movement in the grass,
she runs

1061
01:16:18,600 --> 01:16:22,050
Whatever it was,
predator or not, it had gone

1062
01:16:22,400 --> 01:16:23,950
But the balance of power

1063
01:16:24,000 --> 01:16:27,450
between the predator and its prey
had started to shift

1064
01:16:27,500 --> 01:16:29,550
The simple act of walking upright

1065
01:16:29,600 --> 01:16:32,450
has started
an evolutionary chain reaction

1066
01:16:32,800 --> 01:16:36,550
It freed the hand to become
the makers and users of tools

1067
01:16:36,600 --> 01:16:41,050
And it was tool use that would
one day power the brain's growth,

1068
01:16:41,100 --> 01:16:43,950
with protein from
scavenging and hunting

1069
01:16:52,300 --> 01:16:55,350
But it all began here, with Lucy

1070
01:16:55,600 --> 01:16:59,650
So, is Lucy finally the missing link?

1071
01:17:06,400 --> 01:17:08,850
In a sense, Lucy is a missing link

1072
01:17:08,900 --> 01:17:11,150
But they all are missing links,

1073
01:17:11,200 --> 01:17:15,050
because without each step in the record,
without each missing link,

1074
01:17:15,100 --> 01:17:17,450
we wouldn't have ourselves today

1075
01:17:20,400 --> 01:17:25,150
They're all links of how we've gone
from a Lucy to a Taung Child,

1076
01:17:25,200 --> 01:17:28,950
to a habilis, to a homo erectus

1077
01:17:29,000 --> 01:17:33,250
all of these are links
leading towards homo sapiens

1078
01:17:35,200 --> 01:17:38,950
Having travelled back in time
over 3 million years,

1079
01:17:39,000 --> 01:17:42,950
we'd found a creature that
seemed to begin the human line

1080
01:17:43,000 --> 01:17:46,550
Yet Lucy was a long way
from being human

1081
01:17:49,900 --> 01:17:54,250
We've found the common ancestor
of all the things that are human

1082
01:17:54,300 --> 01:17:57,050
but at the end of the day it's,
it's a bit empty

1083
01:17:57,100 --> 01:17:59,550
What we don't, look what
we don't find with Lucy

1084
01:17:59,600 --> 01:18:01,450
We, we, we don't find culture

1085
01:18:01,500 --> 01:18:05,450
We don't find the things
that make us human

1086
01:18:05,500 --> 01:18:07,350
We don't find our humanity

1087
01:18:12,500 --> 01:18:16,550
Science began to look again
at our most recent ancestors

1088
01:18:16,900 --> 01:18:22,850
40,000 years ago
a successful, intelligent
hominid species occupied Europe

1089
01:18:22,900 --> 01:18:24,950
Neanderthal man

1090
01:18:25,000 --> 01:18:29,150
Could he hold the key to
how we finally became human?

1091
01:18:47,800 --> 01:18:49,850
40,000 years ago,

1092
01:18:49,900 --> 01:18:53,050
Neanderthal hunters,
on the scent of red deer

1093
01:18:53,100 --> 01:18:55,150
in the forests of Western Europe

1094
01:19:00,200 --> 01:19:03,150
They've been tracking
the same herd for three days

1095
01:19:05,200 --> 01:19:07,450
But they were opportunist hunters,

1096
01:19:09,300 --> 01:19:12,050
and a wild pig was
too tempting to resist

1097
01:19:14,800 --> 01:19:16,350
But they missed their first attempt,

1098
01:19:16,400 --> 01:19:18,950
and the pig disappeared
into the undergrowth

1099
01:19:29,800 --> 01:19:33,450
The Neanderthals worked out
a plan to corner their prey

1100
01:19:33,800 --> 01:19:38,250
The ability to organise and
communicate, to exercise a plan,

1101
01:19:38,300 --> 01:19:40,750
were all advanced human skills

1102
01:19:40,900 --> 01:19:45,750
The question was, did they
originate here with Neanderthal?

1103
01:19:45,800 --> 01:19:48,250
Exactly how human were they?

1104
01:19:52,800 --> 01:19:58,150
June of 1996, The vaults of
the Rhineland Museum in Germany

1105
01:19:58,200 --> 01:20:02,050
Genetic scientist Matthias Krings
from Munich University

1106
01:20:02,100 --> 01:20:04,850
was about to attempt
to answer that question

1107
01:20:21,500 --> 01:20:24,250
Museum curator Heike Kainitske

1108
01:20:24,300 --> 01:20:30,250
allowed Krings to examine
the original Neanderthal bones
found in 1856

1109
01:20:30,300 --> 01:20:34,050
the evidence that began
the quest for our origins

1110
01:20:34,200 --> 01:20:38,350
They wore full body protection
to avoid genetic contamination,

1111
01:20:38,600 --> 01:20:41,750
Krings isn't interested in
looking at the bones

1112
01:20:41,800 --> 01:20:45,850
He was going to look inside
- at their DNA

1113
01:20:46,000 --> 01:20:48,850
It has been thought
impossible to extract DNA

1114
01:20:48,900 --> 01:20:51,650
from any sample older
than 10,000 years

1115
01:20:51,800 --> 01:20:55,650
they were attempting to go
4 times further back in time

1116
01:20:55,900 --> 01:20:58,150
to the age of Neanderthal

1117
01:20:59,500 --> 01:21:04,150
Scientists had long thought
that Neanderthal was
our most recent ancestor,

1118
01:21:04,200 --> 01:21:09,050
that he became human in one last,
crucial evolutionary leap

1119
01:21:09,200 --> 01:21:13,650
If so, he should have
almost identical DNA to us

1120
01:21:33,200 --> 01:21:38,450
In Munich, Matthias Krings finally
had the two sets of DNA results

1121
01:21:38,500 --> 01:21:41,350
Neanderthal and modern man

1122
01:21:56,000 --> 01:21:58,050
Between any two people,

1123
01:21:58,100 --> 01:22:02,750
there should be
an average of 8 differences
in the same piece of DNA

1124
01:22:04,100 --> 01:22:06,950
But between the human
and Neanderthal samples,

1125
01:22:07,000 --> 01:22:10,550
Krings counted nearly
four times as many differences

1126
01:22:33,700 --> 01:22:38,450
Neanderthal, it seemed,
were not our ancestors after all

1127
01:22:38,600 --> 01:22:44,650
Evolution had produced 2 separate
humanlike species at the same time

1128
01:22:45,500 --> 01:22:49,450
Sooner or later, they were bound
to come face to face

1129
01:22:51,500 --> 01:22:54,550
While the Neanderthal
tried to flush out their pig,

1130
01:22:54,600 --> 01:22:58,250
into the same area
came a new hunting party

1131
01:22:58,500 --> 01:23:03,750
Another human species
were after the same pig

1132
01:23:18,400 --> 01:23:21,250
At the time Neanderthals
went to extinction,

1133
01:23:21,300 --> 01:23:23,950
we know anatomically modern humans

1134
01:23:24,000 --> 01:23:27,350
people like us -
had also moved into Europe,

1135
01:23:27,400 --> 01:23:30,750
and were competing with them
perhaps for those areas

1136
01:23:30,800 --> 01:23:34,050
where it was slightly easier
to catch the game

1137
01:23:36,100 --> 01:23:39,750
Modern humans that
have larger group sizes,

1138
01:23:39,800 --> 01:23:41,950
more efficient tools, maybe

1139
01:23:42,000 --> 01:23:44,350
They might be just that
better at hunting

1140
01:23:46,400 --> 01:23:50,250
The Neanderthals' plan
to corner the pig had failed

1141
01:23:51,900 --> 01:23:54,550
They'd lost sight of it
in the undergrowth

1142
01:23:57,900 --> 01:24:01,650
then it seemed to break cover,
further down the hill

1143
01:24:05,300 --> 01:24:09,350
In fact, the modern humans
had got there first

1144
01:24:21,000 --> 01:24:26,050
The first encounter between
2 almost identical humanlike species

1145
01:24:26,100 --> 01:24:28,650
must have been a profound shock

1146
01:24:29,400 --> 01:24:33,850
in this tough Ice Age world,
there was only room for one of them

1147
01:24:48,000 --> 01:24:50,550
500,000 years ago,

1148
01:24:50,600 --> 01:24:56,050
they shared a remote common ancestor,
a descendant of homo erectus

1149
01:24:56,100 --> 01:24:58,050
From their African homeland,

1150
01:24:58,100 --> 01:25:01,150
their ancestors migrated
across half the world,

1151
01:25:01,200 --> 01:25:04,950
spreading as far as South East Asia
and into Northern Europe

1152
01:25:07,700 --> 01:25:10,850
Here, they would emerge
as Neanderthal man

1153
01:25:15,900 --> 01:25:19,950
But the ones who stayed behind
in Africa evolved too,

1154
01:25:21,300 --> 01:25:24,050
and just under 200,000 years ago,

1155
01:25:24,100 --> 01:25:26,650
a new species first appeared

1156
01:25:27,600 --> 01:25:30,750
homo sapiens, modern man

1157
01:25:33,700 --> 01:25:35,050
They too were hunters,

1158
01:25:35,100 --> 01:25:39,650
but some scientists have suggested
they supplemented their diet with fish

1159
01:25:39,700 --> 01:25:41,750
spurring their brain development

1160
01:25:47,700 --> 01:25:51,050
The evidence suggests
their culture developed faster;

1161
01:25:52,800 --> 01:25:56,250
that their social groups became
bigger and more complex;

1162
01:25:57,900 --> 01:26:01,450
and driven by population pressure
and climate change,

1163
01:26:02,400 --> 01:26:04,250
they too migrated

1164
01:26:08,800 --> 01:26:13,450
It took 150,000 years to
spread from Africa to Europe,

1165
01:26:13,600 --> 01:26:16,250
and as they moved further
and further north,

1166
01:26:16,300 --> 01:26:18,350
their appearance changed

1167
01:26:25,200 --> 01:26:30,650
eventually they caught up with their
long-lost cousins, the Neanderthals

1168
01:26:40,000 --> 01:26:45,350
The European continent
was losing one of its oldest,
most successful species

1169
01:27:00,800 --> 01:27:05,350
Within a few dozen generations,
the last Neanderthal was gone

1170
01:27:05,400 --> 01:27:09,150
and the world overrun by
a species with better weapons,

1171
01:27:09,200 --> 01:27:12,450
better organisation,
and greater numbers

1172
01:27:17,900 --> 01:27:20,050
Modern man

1173
01:27:25,200 --> 01:27:28,850
For the first time
in our evolutionary history,

1174
01:27:28,900 --> 01:27:30,950
we were totally alone

1175
01:27:31,000 --> 01:27:34,650
The last surviving
hominid species on earth

1176
01:27:40,800 --> 01:27:42,750
Within 40,000 years,

1177
01:27:42,800 --> 01:27:46,050
homo sapiens had colonised
the whole world,

1178
01:27:46,100 --> 01:27:48,050
free of any competition

1179
01:27:52,600 --> 01:27:54,550
This is finally us

1180
01:27:54,700 --> 01:27:59,450
Physically, are the result of
3 million years of change, since Lucy

1181
01:28:00,300 --> 01:28:03,650
But we are also fully human in our mind,

1182
01:28:03,700 --> 01:28:06,150
and it's that which
has given us the critical edge

1183
01:28:06,200 --> 01:28:08,950
The one thing that
Neanderthals didn't do

1184
01:28:09,000 --> 01:28:11,550
that we know that
early modern humans did,

1185
01:28:11,600 --> 01:28:14,450
was express themselves artistically

1186
01:28:15,300 --> 01:28:17,050
The social systems that humans have,

1187
01:28:17,100 --> 01:28:19,650
the richness of communication
between humans,

1188
01:28:19,700 --> 01:28:22,150
not just speaking but symbolically,

1189
01:28:22,200 --> 01:28:24,450
must be part of the success
of modern humans,

1190
01:28:24,500 --> 01:28:26,850
and it may well have given us
the edge over Neanderthals,

1191
01:28:26,900 --> 01:28:29,950
and the other species that
were here, 50,000 years ago

1192
01:28:32,000 --> 01:28:35,450
That same mind that gave us
victory over our rivals,

1193
01:28:35,500 --> 01:28:38,250
one day ask the obvious question

1194
01:28:38,500 --> 01:28:40,450
where did I come from?

1195
01:28:43,000 --> 01:28:47,750
For over 150 years
we have been searching for
the answer to that question,

1196
01:28:47,800 --> 01:28:52,650
and each piece of evidence
has brought us a clearer and
clearer picture of our past

1197
01:28:52,800 --> 01:28:54,950
but the search hasn't stopped

1198
01:28:57,200 --> 01:29:00,550
Many people say the more you find,
the more there is to find,

1199
01:29:00,600 --> 01:29:02,850
but I've been in the field long enough

1200
01:29:02,900 --> 01:29:06,850
to know that almost every year,
an important discovery is made

1201
01:29:06,900 --> 01:29:10,150
I keep telling my students,
I never give the same lectures twice,

1202
01:29:10,200 --> 01:29:12,950
I mean it's a hugely dynamic field

1203
01:29:14,200 --> 01:29:18,250
Uncovering our evolution so far
has been a remarkable adventure

1204
01:29:18,300 --> 01:29:20,350
but it's one that is still not over

1205
01:29:20,400 --> 01:29:23,350
It leads us to, to wonder,
what else is out there?

1206
01:29:23,400 --> 01:29:24,850
What else are we going to find?

1207
01:29:24,900 --> 01:29:27,050
In the next 10, 20 years,

1208
01:29:27,100 --> 01:29:30,250
as palaeontologists
explore parts of the world

1209
01:29:30,300 --> 01:29:31,750
that we haven't gotten to yet,

1210
01:29:31,800 --> 01:29:33,850
who knows what we're going to find

1211
01:29:34,700 --> 01:29:52,750
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