Nova (Television program) Surviving in Africa [videorecording] The creative revolution [videorecording] The story of Lucy [videorecording]
Notes:
Closed captioned for the hearing impaired. Originally produced as a segment for the television series Nova. Don Johanson.
Contents:
Episode one: The story of Lucy -- Episode two: Surviving in Africa -- Episode three: The creative revolution.
Summary:
Episode 1: The story of Lucy. In 1974, Johanson unearthed Lucy, at almost 3 million years of age, our oldest human ancestor. Lucy's tiny three-and-a-half-foot skeleton set the world of paleoanthropology on its ear. Lucy walked upright and it was proven that a larger brain was the key difference between early man and the ape. Episode 2: Surviving in Africa. Johanson sets out to disprove the long-cherished view that early man's larger brain and reliance on technology are the by-products of the ability to hunt. He embarks on a journey across the Serengeti savanna of East Africa in search of food. He finds it- not by hunting but by scavenging off the leftovers of lions and leopards. Episode 3: The creative revolution. Fifty thousand years ago, a dramatic change swept through the hunter-gatherers then living in Africa. They began to paint, carve, talk, bury their dead, travel and trade. What accounts for this sudden transformation? This question continues to be at the heart of heated debates.
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