Becoming Human (2009)

Actors:

This three-part, three-hour special investigates explosive new discoveries that are transforming the picture of how we became human.

The first program explores fresh clues about our earliest ancestors in Africa, including the stunningly complete fossil nicknamed Lucy's Child. These three-million-year-old bones from Ethiopia reveal humanity's oldest and most tell-tale trait: upright walking rather than a big brain.

The second program tackles the mysteries of how our ancestors managed to survive in a savannah teeming with vicious predators, and when and why we first left our African cradle to colonize every corner of the Earth. The final program examines the roots of our own species, Homo sapiens, which new evidence pinpoints to southern Africa some 200,000 years ago.

Shot in the trenches as discoveries were unearthed throughout Africa and Europe, each hour of Becoming Human unfolds with a forensic investigation into the life and death of a specific hominid ancestor, such as Lucy's Child.