The PBS television series, NOVA, has a great series titled, Becoming Human. Part 1 of 3 aired last Tuesday, Part 2 is this Tuesday, and I'm looking forward to seeing it.
Part 1, "First Steps," examines the factors that caused us to split from the other great apes. The program explores the fossil of "Selam," also known as "Lucy's Child." Paleoanthropologist Zeray Alemseged spent five years carefully excavating the sandstone-embedded fossil. NOVA's cameras are there to capture the unveiling of the face, spine, and shoulder blades of this 3.3 million-year-old fossil child. And NOVA takes viewers "inside the skull" to show how our ancestors' brains had begun to change from those of the apes.
Why did leaps in human evolution take place? "First Steps" explores a provocative "big idea" that sharp swings of climate were a key factor.
The other programs in the "Becoming Human" series are Part 2: "Birth of Humanity," which profiles the earliest species of humans, and Part 3: "Last Human Standing," which examines why, of various human species that once shared the planet, only our kind remains.
I was thinking about human migration the other week, and the thought came to me that my own blood line has circled the globe to meet on this little rock in the North Atlantic. Most of my ancestry is Western European, Scotch and English in particular, but on my Father's side, his Great Great Grandmother was Naskapi Innu.
Roy Zimmerman has a great song about it all entitled, "Rift Valley Drifters" and I highly recommend you check out some of his other songs.
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