Neanderthal 1

Long ago, two species of human beings coexisted on Earth until competition drove one of them to extinction. This program, set in the southwest of France 35,000 years ago, reconstructs the life in the Neanderthal world at the time Cro-Magnons first entered the scene. All aspects of Neanderthal clan life are examined, including tool- and weapon-making, hunting and gathering, health and healing, childbirth, rituals, and making fire. Footage of skeletal remains and the scholarly research of eminent paleontologist Chris Stringer and Oxford University’s Paul Pettitt support the documentary.

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Neanderthal 2

 

 

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Dawn Of Humanity (red deer cave people)

Located in an almost inaccessible chamber deep in a South African cave, the site required recruiting a special team of experts slender enough to wriggle down a vertical, pitch-dark, seven-inch-wide passage. Most fossil discoveries of human relatives consist of just a handful of bones. But down in this hidden chamber, the team uncovered an unprecedented trove—so far, over 1,500 bones—with the potential to rewrite the story of our origins”. They may help fill in a crucial gap in the fossil record and tell us how Homo, the first member of the human family, emerged from ape-like ancestors like the famous Lucy. But how did hundreds of bones end up in the remote chamber? The experts are considering every mind-boggling possibility. Join us on the treacherous descent into this cave of spectacular and enigmatic finds, and discover their startling implications for the saga of what made us human.

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Darwin’s Struggle – The Evolution of the Origin of Species

Documentary telling the little-known story of how Darwin came to write his great masterpiece, On the Origin of Species, a book which explains the wonderful variety of the natural world as emerging out of death and the struggle of life. In the twenty years he took to develop a brilliant idea into a revolutionary book, Darwin went through a personal struggle every bit as turbulent as that of the natural world he observed. Fortunately, he left us an extraordinary record of his brilliant insights, observations of nature, and touching expressions of love and affection for those around him. He also wrote frank accounts of family tragedies, physical illnesses and moments of self-doubt, as he laboured towards publication of the book that would change the way we see the world.

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Neanderthal Apocalypse

Neanderthal Apocalypse    2015

40,000 years ago the steppes of Eurasia were home to our closest human relative, the Neanderthals. Recent genetic and archaeological discoveries have proven that they were not the dim-witted cave dwellers we long thought they were. In fact, they were cultured, technologically savvy and more like us than we ever imagined! So why did they disappear? We accompany scientists on an exciting search for an answer to this question and come to a startling conclusion… A climate change due to a cataclysmic event.

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Neanderthal Primitive Evolution Documentary

The Red Headed Neanderthal

Science writer Carl Zimmer speaks at Yale Medical School about how new discoveries about Neanderthals are helping us better understand what it means to be human.

Culture-Gene Interactions in Human Origins

How cultural traditions have shaped, and continue to shape, our genomes with presentations on Genomic Basis for Dietary Shifts during Human Origins (Gregory Wray), Adaptations to Human Adult Milk Intake (Sarah Tishkoff), and A Nutritional Basis for the Spread of Indo-European Languages (Henry Harpending).

 

‘Hobbits’ on Flores, Indonesia | The Smithsonian Institution’s Human Origins Program

Update – March 30, 2016 – new dates for Homo floresiensis!

Digs and geological dating in Liang Bua Cave, Indonesia, show that Homo floresiensis, nicknamed the “hobbit” for its small size, became extinct around 50,000 years ago – tens of thousands of years earlier than originally thought.

The new study dated layers of volcanic ash and calcite directly above and below the fossils. The bones of H. floresiensis range in age from about 100,000 to 60,000 years old. Stone tools in the cave used by the “hobbit” are from 190,000 to 50,000 years old.

Homo floresiensis was one of the last early human species to die out. The new analysis means that this evolutionary relative became extinct around 50,000 years ago – just before or at the time when Homo sapiens arrived in the region.

The new findings were announced by Thomas Sutikna, Smithsonian researcher Matt Tocheri, and others in the journal Science on March 30, 2016.

Source: ‘Hobbits’ on Flores, Indonesia | The Smithsonian Institution’s Human Origins Program

 

Neanderthal: 99.5 Percent Human

Humans and their close Neanderthal relatives began diverging from a common ancestor about 700,000 years ago, and the two groups split permanently some 300,000 years later, according to two of the most detailed analyses of Neanderthal DNA to date.

Using different techniques, two teams of scientists separately sequenced large chunks of DNA extracted from the femur of a 38,000-year-old Neanderthal specimen found in a cave [image] 26 years ago in Croatia. One team sequenced more than one million base pairs and the other 65,000 pairs of the genome.

The achievements could help shed light on the evolution of our own species, and it paves the way for building a complete library of the Neanderthal genome, the scientists say.

No evidence of interbreeding

In popular imagination, Neanderthals are often portrayed as prehistoric brutes who became outsmarted by a more advanced species, humans, emerging from Africa. But excavations and anatomical studies have shown Neanderthals used tools, wore jewelery, buried their dead, cared for their sick, and possibly sang or even spoke in much the same way that we do. Even more humbling, perhaps, their brains were slightly larger than ours.

 

Full Article: http://www.livescience.com/1122-neanderthal-99-5-percent-human.html

Timeline of human origins revised: New synthesis of research links changing environment with Homo’s evolutionary adaptability

Many traits unique to humans were long thought to have originated in the genus Homo between 2.4 and 1.8 million years ago in Africa. Although scientists have recognized these characteristics for decades, they are reconsidering the true evolutionary factors that drove them.

Source: Timeline of human origins revised: New synthesis of research links changing environment with Homo’s evolutionary adaptability