BBC to mark major TV first with new show's 'mind-boggling' historical discovery
'Mind-boggling' evidence which proves Homo sapiens have roamed the earth for 300,000 years - rather than the previously believed 200,000 - is to be shown on TV for the first time. The bombshell news is delivered by paleoanthropologist presenter Ella Al-Shamahi, who travels to a dig in Morocco for her upcoming BBC2 series Human.
In the show, she explains how breakthroughs in DNA technology have helped expert to date the remarkable new fossil evidence. 'With each new find the evidence grew - these were not some other species but Homo sapiens, with hints of an earlier ancestor. It wasn't until archaeologists were able to more accurately date the remains that the final piece of the puzzle fell into place.
'That is mind-boggling, because we thought our species was only about 200,000 years old. What these fossils tell us is that our species, Homo sapiens, is 100,000 years older than we thought. We are a third older than we realised.'
In the show Ella is shown holding a skull, to explain: 'This fossil went from being enigmatic to being one of the most important fossils in our whole field.'
Speaking at a BBC Science event this week, she said the finds had come after 'a revolution in ancient DNA' in the past decade or so. 'There's been lots of breakthroughs - we think we've found a second hobbit species - and this fantastical world hasn't really been put on television in that time.'
The series, which airs later this summer, also pushes back on the idea that humanity started in east Africa. 'This is in Morocco. They date it and realise it's on the journey to become Homo sapien - when you look at it, its face looks Homo sapien but it's brain-case doesn't. So what it suggests is that it wasn't east Africa that was the cradle of civilisation, it was the whole of Africa that was the mothership - and that these populations were interacting.
"They call it the pan-Africa theory and it's absolutely fascinating and very new, so it felt like just the right time to be doing this series.'
BBC factual boss Jack Bootle agreed: 'To a general viewer that is all new - we've certainly never put it in a British science show before.'
The five-parter looks at how we are the only remaining human species left, despite remains of many more having been discovered. Using a combination of archaeology, travelogue and reconstruction to tell the story of modern humans, Ella questions what happened to the ones which no longer exist - leaving us to become the most dominant species on the planet.
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The million dollar question: are diamonds losing their sparkle?
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Our ancestors were CANNIBALS: Scientists discover grisly evidence ancient human species ate children 850,000 years ago
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'This case is particularly striking, not only because of the child's age, but also due to the precision of the cut marks,' Dr Palmira Saladié, co-director of the Gran Dolina excavation. 'The vertebra presents clear incisions at key anatomical points for disarticulating the head. It is direct evidence that the child was processed like any other prey.' Experts say it is unusual to find evidence of a child being eaten and - if their theory is true - the discovery marks the earliest evidence of the practice to date. Homo antecessor lived between 1.2 million and 800,000 years ago and were stockier and shorter on average than modern humans. Their brain sizes were roughly between 1,000 and 1,150 cm³, which is smaller than the average 1,350 cm³ brains of people today. The species is believed to have been right-handed, making it different from other apes, and may have used a symbolic language, according to archaeologists. The site of the marks on the recently-discovered neck bone suggests the youngster was decapitated, the researchers said. Other adult bones recovered from the site show evidence of de-fleshing marks and intentional fractures, similar to those found on animal bones consumed by humans. 'The preservation of the fossil surfaces is extraordinary,' Dr Saladié told Live Science. 'The cut marks on the bones do not appear in isolation. Human bite marks have been identified on the bones — this is the most reliable evidence that the bodies found at the site were indeed consumed.' The new findings strengthen the idea that these early humans exploited their peers as a food resource, the team said. It could also have been a means of territorial control. The most recent Homo antecessor remains were discovered at 'Level TD6' of the excavation site, at least 4 metres (13 feet) below the surface. 'Every year we uncover new evidence that forces us to rethink how they lived, how they died, and how the dead were treated nearly a million years ago,' Dr Saladié said. Earlier evidence of cannibalism among early human relatives dates to 1.45 million years ago in Kenya. Some archaeologists suggest that before formal burials, human populations would eat the dead as part of a funerary ritual. 'What we are documenting now is the continuity of that behaviour: the treatment of the dead was not exceptional, but repeated,' Dr Saladié added. Previous examinations of skulls found at Cheddar Gorge, in Somerset, reveal early Britons were also cannibals and enjoyed drinking out of cups made form their victims' heads. The cups, which date back 14,700 years, were likely used to drink water or even blood. They may have been fashioned from the heads of vanquished enemies and used as trophies. It is also possible that they were by-products of 'crisis cannibalism' - the resorting to human flesh when little or no other food was available, the study, published in Plos One, said. To make the skull cups, the flesh and features were carefully stripped from the head, and the skulls fashioned into containers using flint 'razors' and cobble 'hammers'. WHO WERE THE HOMO ANTECESSORS? Homo antecessor is one of the earliest known varieties of human discovered in Europe, dating as far back as one million years ago. Believed to have weighed around 14 stone, Homo antecessor was said to have been between 5.5 and 6ft tall. Their brain sizes were roughly between 1,000 and 1,150 cm³, which is smaller than the average 1,350 cm³ brains of modern humans. The species is believed to have been right-handed, making it different from other apes, and may have used a symbolic language, according to archaeologists who found remains in Burgos, Spain in 1994. How Homo antecessor may be related to other Homo species in Europe has a subject of fierce debate. Many anthropologists believe there was an evolutionary link between Homo ergaster and Homo heidelbergensis. Archaeologist Richard Klein claims Homo antecessor was a separate species completely, that evolved from Homo ergaster. However, others claim Homo antecessor is actually the same species as Homo heidelbergensis, who lived in Europe between 600,000 and 250,000 years ago in the Pleistocene era. In 2010 stone tools were found at the same site in Happisburgh, Norfolk, believed to have been used by Homo antecessor. Scientists believe that these early human species would breed with one another on a regular basis. Dr Matthias Meyer, a palaeogeneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, in Leipzig, Germany said: 'The evolutionary history of archaic humans in the Middle Pleistocene was quite complex. 'It could be that both the ancestors of the Sima people and Denisovans interbred with another archaic group like Homo antecessor or Homo erectus.
