Human Evolution
Dr Alice Roberts
Origins of Us - Bones
The shape of your face, walking on two legs, the way you see the world. What makes you the person you are? The story of each and every one of us can be traced back millions of years to the plains of ancient Africa.
The answers to the question, “What makes us human?” lie buried in the ground in the fossils and other traces of our ancestors, but also lie deep within our bones, flesh and genes.
In the “Origins of Us” Dr Alice Roberts takes us on a fascinating, educational voyage of discovery showing how modern homo sapiens evolved from our primate cousins still alive in Africa today. Subtitled Bones, Guts and Brains we dissect the troubled journey we made in coming down from the trees.
As an anatomist, I’m fascinated by the way our bodies have been sculpted by our ancestors struggle for survival. But, why did we leave behind the other apes in the forest and stride out into the African savannah? How did that change the way we looked give us big muscles in the unlikeliest of places and help us to acquire amazing new skills?
The story of how we became human describes how forest-dwelling apes evolved into us and the story starts millions of years ago, with an ape who stood upright and walked. But why did we leave behind the other apes in the forest to become the only one of our kind left today?
