Alien from Earth
Favorite
trailer
magnet
YEAR: 2008 | LENGTH: 1 part (52 minutes) | SOURCE: PBS
description:
An ancient legend on the Indonesian island of Flores tells of an elflike creature similar to the fictional hobbit of novels and film. But a controversial 2003 archeological find not only suggests that there could be some truth behind the legend but promises to rewrite a key chapter in the human evolutionary story. This program investigates the discovery, analysis, and startling implications of the hobbit of Flores.
Known for its strange fauna, Flores may now have offered the world the strangest yet. The hobbit was an adult female no larger than a three-year-old child, with a skull less than one-third the size of a modern human’s. The discovery created a media sensation. But only now, five years later, are researchers beginning to make sense of this archeological oddity, dubbed Homo floresiensis. Definitive proof of its place in the human lineage awaits future finds, especially DNA evidence, but the implications of the work so far are intriguing and quite possibly revolutionary.
Dated at 18,000 years old, the hobbit’s skull was found deep in the sediment of a cave as big as a concert hall. In earlier deposits stretching back as far as 95,000 years ago, the researchers later found bones from a number of other hobbits, as well as stone tools, charcoal, and the butchered remains of pygmy elephants, implying that these tiny cave dwellers had hunted and used fire.
Many experts believe such sophisticated behavior is hard to reconcile with the size of the hobbit’s brain, which is smaller than a chimpanzee’s. Even more astonishing, the hobbit’s anatomy resembles that of some of our earliest extinct ancestors in Africa three million or more years ago, yet it lived relatively recently and may even have survived into historical times.
But is the hobbit an anomaly, a modern human whose small stature and unusual features are the result of disease? Or could its size result from the “island effect” that often causes large creatures to evolve to be small and vice versa—witness Flores’s extinct pygmy elephant and still surviving giant lizard, the Komodo dragon?
Or is the hobbit the sole testament to a previously unrecognized branch of the human family tree? If so, how did it end up in Indonesia with virtually no evidence of comparable early hominids anywhere between there and Africa, the root of the family tree?
This program follows each of the lines of inquiry down some fascinating paths: At the Mallinckrodt Institute in St. Louis, paleoanthropologist Dean Falk produces a cast of the hobbit’s brain with the help of a CAT scan, and then compares it to casts of pathologically diseased brains. Falk argues strongly that the hobbit skull represents a healthy, and so far unique, specimen of ancient humanity.
At the Smithsonian Institution, anthropologist Matt Tocheri finds a resemblance between the distinctive wrist bones of the hobbit and African apes. Even more surprisingly, anthropologist Bill Jungers of the State University of New York at Stony Brook discovers he can fit together bones from the hobbit with those of the most celebrated fossil in the human family tree, “Lucy,” who lived three million years ago in Africa.
In the nation of Georgia, archeologist David Lordkipanidze shows NOVA a skull of a recently excavated early human that has been dated to 1.7 million years ago. Could it belong to the same unsuspected and elusive branch of our family tree, halfway between early African hominids and the hobbit?
Each of these interpretations has specialists who read the evidence differently. But the plot is definitely thickening in the saga of Homo floresiensis.
SIMILAR TITLES:
Walking with Cavemen
The Incredible Human Journey
How Earth Made Us
Dawn of Humanity
Bigger Than T-Rex
Dinosaurs: The Hunt for Life#fossil #Prehistory
How Earth Made Us
Favorite
trailer
https://videos.trom.tf/videos/embed/w4sXb2BDJc8ufSzvdWGcaZ?autoplay=0&title=0&warningTitle=0&peertubeLink=0
magnet
YEAR: 2012 | LENGTH: 5 parts (60 minutes each) | SOURCE: BBCdescription:
Our planet has amazing power, and yet that’s rarely mentioned in our history books. This series tells the story of how the Earth has influenced human history, from the dawn of civilisation to the modern industrial age. It reveals for the first time on television how geology, geography and climate have been a far more powerful influence on the human story than has previously been acknowledged. A combination of epic story telling, visually stunning camerawork, extraordinary locations and passionate presenting combine to form a highly original version of human history.[ps2id id=’magnet’/]
Discover why societies have succeeded or failed, and how the environment has influenced every aspect of our history from art to industry, religion to war, world domination or collapse. Visiting some of the most iconic places on Earth, How Earth Made Us overturns preconceptions about our civilisations and our cultures to offer a new perspective on who we are today.episodes:
01. Deep Earth
Iain Stewart tells the epic story of how the planet has shaped our history. With spectacular images, surprising stories and a compelling narrative, the series discovers the central role played in human history by four different planetary forces.
In this first episode, Iain explores the relationship between the deep Earth and the development of human civilisation. He visits an extraordinary crystal cave in Mexico, drops down a hole in the Iranian desert and crawls through seven-thousand-year-old tunnels in Israel.
His exploration reveals that throughout history, our ancestors were strangely drawn to fault lines, areas which connect the surface with the deep interior of the planet. These fault lines gave access to important resources, but also brought with them great danger.
02. Water
This time he explores our complex relationship with water. Visiting spectacular locations in Iceland, the Middle East and India, Iain shows how control over water has been central to human existence.
He takes a precarious flight in a motorised paraglider to experience the cycle of freshwater that we depend on, discovers how villagers in the foothills of the Himalayas have built a living bridge to cope with the monsoon, and visits Egypt to reveal the secret of the pharaohs’ success.
Throughout history, success has depended on our ability to adapt to and control constantly shifting sources of water.
03. Wind
Iain sets sail on one of the fastest racing boats ever built to explore the story of our turbulent relationship with the wind. Travelling to iconic locations including the Sahara desert, the coast of West Africa and the South Pacific, Iain discovers how people have exploited the power of the wind for thousands of years.
The wind is a force which at first sight appears chaotic. But the patterns that lie within the atmosphere have shaped the destiny of continents, and lie at the heart of some of the greatest turning points in human history.
04. Fire
Professor Iain Stewart continues his epic exploration of how the planet has shaped human history.
Iain explores man’s relationship with fire. He begins by embarking on an extraordinary encounter with this terrifying force of nature – a walk right through the heart of a raging fire.
Fire has long been our main source of energy and Iain shows how this meant that the planet played a crucial role in Britain’s industrial revolution, whilst holding China’s development back.
Along the way he dives in a mysterious lake in Oregon, climbs a glacier of salt, crawls through an extraordinary cave in Iran and takes a therapeutic bath in crude oil.
05. Human Planet
Series in which Professor Iain Stewart looks at how four geological forces have shaped human history.
He explores the most recently established force, humans. It’s easy to think of the human impact on the planet as a negative one, but as Iain discovers, this isn’t always the case. It is clear that humans have unprecedented control over many of the planet’s geological cycles; the question is, how will the human race use this power?SIMILAR TITLES:
Alien from Earth
Prehistoric Planet
#earth #planetEarth
BBC Two - How Earth Made Us
The epic story of how geology, geography and climate have influenced mankindBBC
Alien From Earth — NOVA | PBS
Do the remains of a tiny hobbit-like creature found on the island of Flores belong to a new human species?www.pbs.org
This entry was edited (5 years ago)
