NOVA: Becoming Human

PRIMETIME EMMY® winner

Season 1

Nothing is more fascinating to us than, well, us. Where did we come from? What makes us human? NOVA's groundbreaking investigation explores how new discoveries are transforming views of our earliest ancestors. Featuring interviews with world-renowned scientists, footage shot in the trenches as fossils were unearthed, and stunning computer-generated animation, Becoming Human brings early hominids to life, examining how they lived and how we became the creative and adaptable modern humans of today. In the first episode, NOVA encounters Selam, the amazingly complete remains of a 3 million year-old child, packed with clues to why we split from the apes, came down from the trees, and started walking upright. In gripping forensic detail, the second episode investigates the riddle of Turkana Boy -a tantalizing fossil of Homo erectus, the first ancestor to leave Africa and colonize the globe. What led to this first great African exodus? In the final episode, Becoming Human explores the origins of us -where modern humans and our capacities for art, invention, and survival came from, and what happened when we encountered the mysterious Neanderthals. Crucial new evidence comes from the recent decoding of the Neanderthal genome. Did modern humans interbreed with Neanderthals? Exterminate them? Becoming Human examines why we survived while our other ancestral cousins-including Indonesia's bizarre 3 foot-high Hobbit -died out. And NOVA poses the intriguing question: are we still evolving today?

IMDb 8.720093 episodesX-RayTV-PG

Special Interest•Documentary

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S1 E1 - First Steps
November 2, 2009
53min
TV-PG
The first program explores fresh clues about our earliest ancestors in Africa, including stunningly complete fossil nicknamed "Lucy's Child." These three-million-year-old bones from Ethiopia reveal humanity's oldest and most telltale trait -- upright walking rather than a big brain.
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S1 E2 - Birth of Humanity
November 9, 2009
53min
TV-PG
This program tackles the mysteries of how our ancestors managed to survive in a savannah teeming with vicious predators, and when and why we first left our African cradle to colonize every corner of the Earth.
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S1 E3 - Last Human Standing
November 16, 2009
53min
TV-PG
In the final program, NOVA probes a wave of dramatic new evidence, based partly on cutting-edge DNA analysis that reveals new insights into how we became the creative and "behaviorally modern" humans of today, and what really happened to the enigmatic Neanderthals who faded into extinction.
Available to buy