Ardi: the oldest skeleton of a human ancestor
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 11 September 2024
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 1994, a college student called Yohannes Haile Selassie unearthed a 4.4 million-year-old skeleton in Ethiopia.
She was the first near-complete skeleton of a species of human ancestor called Ardipithecus ramidus. The paleoanthropologists who discovered her called her Ardi. The discovery upended how scientists view human evolution.
Yohannes Haile Selassie speaks to Ben Henderson.
Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.
Recent episodes explore everything from football in Brazil, the history of the ‘Indian Titanic’ and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy’s Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: visionary architect Antoni Gaudi and the design of the Sagrada Familia; Michael Jordan and his bespoke Nike trainers; Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal; and Görel Hanser, manager of legendary Swedish pop band Abba on the influence they’ve had on the music industry. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the time an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest of America’s occupation of Iraq; the creation of the Hollywood commercial that changed advertising forever; and the ascent of the first Aboriginal MP.
(Photo: Yohannes Haile Selassie in the Afar desert, Ethiopia. Credit: CMNH/Woranso-Mille Project)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Before this BBC podcast kicks off I'd like to tell you about some others you might enjoy. |
| 0:05.0 | My name's Will Wilkin and I Commission Music Podcast for the BBC. |
| 0:08.0 | It's a really cool job, but every day we get to tell the incredible stories behind songs, moments and movements, |
| 0:14.7 | stories of struggle and success, rises and falls, the funny, the ridiculous. |
| 0:19.2 | And the BBC's position at the heart of British music means we can tell those stories like no one else. |
| 0:24.5 | We were, are and always will be right there at the center of the narrative. |
| 0:28.6 | So whether you want an insightful take on music right now or a nostalgic deep dive into some of the most famous and |
| 0:34.4 | infamous moments in music check out the music podcasts on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:41.6 | Hello and welcome to Witness History from the BBC World Service with me Ben Henderson. |
| 0:50.0 | Today I'm taking you back to Ethiopia in 1994 when a remarkable discovery shook the world of science, changing the way we view human evolution. |
| 1:01.0 | Well we're going back in time now because researchers have found the remains of what may be our |
| 1:05.9 | oldest human ancestor. |
| 1:07.9 | The bones discovered in Ethiopia include a partial skeleton of a female who's more than 4 million years old. |
| 1:14.8 | She was the first near complete skeleton of a species of human ancestor called Ardipithecus Ramidus. |
| 1:21.3 | The paleoanthropologists who discovered her called her Ardi. She was more than a million years older and far more complete than the previous older skeleton called Lucy, who was also found in Ethiopia in 1974. |
| 1:35.0 | This is the story of Ardy's discovery and the controversy she caused. |
| 1:40.0 | I started finding early human ancestor apostles early on and I can see my advisor |
| 1:46.5 | felt really excited like hey this is great I'm like well I must have found something |
| 1:51.8 | important here, right? |
| 1:53.4 | This is Johannes Hyli Salassi. He grew up in Ethiopia, and in the early 1990s, |
| 1:59.8 | he was a fresh-faced college student, spending his summers as any student would, digging for |
| 2:05.7 | fossils. |
... |
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