The Origins of Homo Sapiens
The Ancients
History Hit
4.7 • 4.5K Ratings
🗓️ 15 May 2022
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What do we know about the earliest hominins to exist? With a story spanning one million years and counting, we're discovering more about how we came to be every day.
In this episode of The Ancients, we're on location in the Natural History Museum in London as Tristan covers a huge topic; the history of human evolution! Today's guest, Professor Chris Stringer, joins us as we delve into the origins of modern humans. As a leading expert in the creation of our species, Chris takes us through his research on the origins of Homo Sapiens. From Neanderthals, fossil evidence, and Mitochondrial Eve, to his findings on our genetic relationship with Africa.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes your host and in today's podcast |
| 0:16.2 | well we've covered some big topics on the ancients in the past and today I'm delighted |
| 0:20.2 | to say we're covering another huge topic in the history of humanity in the history of |
| 0:26.9 | human evolution because we're talking all about the origins of modern humans, the origins of |
| 0:33.0 | homo sapiens and for this I was delighted a few days ago to head over to the Natural History |
| 0:39.3 | Museum in London to interview the legendary professor Chris Stringer. Chris has been working on |
| 0:47.1 | the story of human evolution for decades. He is a legend in this field. He knows so much |
| 0:54.8 | and it was a pleasure to interview him in person all about this huge topic, the origins of |
| 1:00.6 | homo sapiens. You're going to absolutely love this one. Chris was an absolute joy to speak to. |
| 1:05.0 | He even brought out a few replica skulls of various homo species including a Neanderthal skull replica. |
| 1:13.5 | So without further ado to talk all about the origins of homo sapiens, the origins of our species. |
| 1:19.3 | Chris, it's great to have you on history here today. It's a pleasure to be with you. Now on the |
| 1:30.2 | ancients on history here we've covered some huge topics in the past but there are many topics |
| 1:34.8 | that get bigger than this one. Is it the origins of modern humans, the origins of our species? |
| 1:40.1 | That's right, yes it is a big topic and it's one where we've had so many discoveries in the |
| 1:44.8 | last few years. Well you've got a few of these replicas out for us today which we will no doubt |
| 1:49.0 | talk about in due course. We are at the Natural History Museum today and Chris, I mean first of all |
| 1:54.8 | the past era for research into looking at early humans and early modern humans, early hominins |
| 2:01.2 | more generally. It's been a really exciting era for discoveries hasn't it? Yes it has so we've |
| 2:06.5 | had obviously wonderful new discoveries, actual fossils. We've had better dating of some of the |
| 2:11.7 | fossils that already existed and of course really excitingly. At least for the later part of the |
| 2:16.5 | record we've got DNA added to the story for people like the Neanderthals and these people we |
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