Evolution Revolution
Film Summary
12:00 mins
Civilizations & History
/ Science & Nature
Worldwide
Brief Summary
For some decades now, most experts have believed that the first humans appeared in Africa nearly two million years ago and remained there. They were small-brained compared to modern-day humans, used only very primitive tools and were classified as Homo habilis. It was believed that only much later did their larger-brained and upright walking cousins, Homo erectus, leave Africa. Now this “certainty” about the early days of our evolution is being overthrown. At a medieval churchyard in Dmanisi, Georgia, archaeologist David Lordkipanidze has made an extraordinary discovery. In amongst an impressive array of fossils from animals such as giant ostriches and sabre-toothed cats, he has found tools and skulls from a very primitive human species. Not only do the tools and skulls match very closely those of Homo habilis found in East Africa, but they have been dated to 1.8 million years ago. This is a time when we believed humans had not left Africa. Join National Geographic Television & Film as we investigate this remarkable addition to our understanding of human origins. What we see in Dmanisi will force us to completely re-think our views of the earliest humans. Primitive they may have been, without hunting skills, scavengers using only sharpened stones as tools. Nonetheless, in what might have been among the earliest examples of human daring and ingenuity, it now seems they managed the journey from Africa to the borders of Eurasia. The Dmanisi find has indeed launched an EVOLUTION REVOLUTION.
Year Filmed: 2003
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