|
|
Alien From Earth
|
|
|
|
Program Overview
|
|
|
NOVA explores whether fossil finds on the Indonesian island of
Flores represent a new species and investigates what impact the
findings could have on the current human evolutionary time line.
The program:
-
recounts how archeologists found a small female adult that they
categorized as a new species, Homo floresiensis, which
became nicknamed the hobbit.
-
states that scientists used radiocarbon dating to determine that
the remains were between 10,000 and 95,000 years old.
-
chronicles the currently accepted time line of human evolution.
-
presents evidence for and arguments against the hobbit
qualifying as a new species.
-
notes that despite the discovery of hundreds of skulls, multiple
hominin species, and thousand of bone fragments, large gaps
remain in the fossil record.
-
indicates that the hobbit challenges two current assumptions:
that the African savannahs were the sole cradle of humankind and
that evolving a bigger body and brain is what allowed humans to
leave the cradle and migrate throughout the world.
-
explores whether Homo erectus could have been the
hobbit's ancestor or whether the hobbit represents ancestry that
extends further back to the similar-sized
Australopithecus.
-
presents some of the questions that arise if the hobbit were a
descendant of Australopithecus, including the possibility
that humans could have originated outside of Africa.
-
reports on findings of four small-brained adults discovered at a
medieval monastery in Dmanisi, Republic of Georgia.
Taping Rights: Can be used up to one year after program is
recorded off the air.
|
|
