''Dawn of Humanity'' is a 2015 American

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

that was released online on September 10, 2015, and aired nationwide in the United States on September 16, 2015. The

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

NOVA National Geographic film, in one episode of two hours, was directed and produced by Graham Townsley. The film describes the 2013 discovery, and later excavation, of the fossil remains of ''

Homo naledi '' Homo naledi'' is an extinct species of archaic human discovered in 2013 in the Rising Star Cave, Cradle of Humankind, South Africa dating to the Middle Pleistocene 335,000–236,000 years ago. The initial discovery comprises 1,550 specimens ...

'', an

extinct species This page features lists of extinct species, organisms that have become extinct, either in the wild or completely disappeared from Earth. In actual theoretical practice, a species not definitely located in the wild in the last fifty years of cur ...

hominin The Hominini form a taxonomic tribe of the subfamily Homininae ("hominines"). Hominini includes the extant genera ''Homo'' (humans) and '' Pan'' (chimpanzees and bonobos) and in standard usage excludes the genus ''Gorilla'' (gorillas). The ...

assigned to the genus ''

Homo ''Homo'' () is the genus that emerged in the (otherwise extinct) genus '' Australopithecus'' that encompasses the extant species ''Homo sapiens'' ( modern humans), plus several extinct species classified as either ancestral to or closely relat ...

'', found within the Dinaledi Chamber of the

Rising Star Cave The Rising Star cave system (also known as Westminster or Empire cave) is located in the Malmani dolomites, in Bloubank River valley, about southwest of Swartkrans, part of the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site in South Africa. Recreati ...

system, located in the Cradle of Humankind,

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

. Additionally, the

National Geographic Society The National Geographic Society (NGS), headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational organizations in the world. Founded in 1888, its interests include geography, archaeology, an ...

has multiple videos on its website covering different phases of the discovery and excavation of the fossils during a two-year period. , fossils of at least fifteen individuals, amounting to 1550 specimens, have been excavated from the cave.

Participants

The documentary film is narrated by

Jay O. Sanders Jay Olcutt Sanders (born April 16, 1953) is an American film, theatre and television actor and playwright. He frequently appears in plays off-Broadway at The Public Theatre. Early life and education Sanders was born on April 16, 1953 in Austin, ...

and includes the following participants (alphabetized by last name): * Rebecca R. Ackermann (

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) ( af, Universiteit van Kaapstad, xh, Yunibesithi ya yaseKapa) is a public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university statu ...

) *

Zeresenay Alemseged Zeresenay "Zeray" Alemseged (born 4 June 1969) is an Ethiopian paleoanthropologist who was the Chair of the Anthropology Department at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, United States. He recently joined the faculty of the Un ...

(

California Academy of Sciences The California Academy of Sciences is a research institute and natural history museum in San Francisco, California, that is among the largest museums of natural history in the world, housing over 46 million specimens. The Academy began in 1853 ...

) *

Lee R. Berger Lee Rogers Berger (born December 22, 1965) is an American-born South African paleoanthropologist and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence. He is best known for his discovery of the '' Australopithecus sediba'' type site, Malapa; his leade ...

(

University of the Witwatersrand The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), is a multi-campus South African public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University or Wits ( or ). The university ...

) * Pedro Boshoff (

fossil hunter Fossil collecting (sometimes, in a non-scientific sense, fossil hunting) is the Collecting, collection of fossils for scientific study, hobby, or profit. Fossil collecting, as practiced by amateurs, is the predecessor of modern paleontology a ...

) * Steven Churchill ( Duke University) * Viktor Deak ( paleo-artist) *

Marina Elliott Marina Elliott is a Canadian biological anthropologist, who is known for being one of the six Underground Astronauts of the Rising Star Expedition. Eliott has a Master's degree and PhD in biological anthropology from Simon Fraser University in B ...

(

paleontologist Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

) * Elen Feuerriegel (paleoanthropologist) *

Alia Gurtov Alia Gurtov is an American paleoanthropologist who is known for being one of the six Underground Astronauts of the Rising Star Expedition. Education Gurtov attended Wellesley College, majoring in French and anthropology. In 2006, she was g ...

(paleontologist) * William Harcourt-Smith ( American Museum of Natural History) * John D. Hawks (

University of Wisconsin-Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...

) * Amanda Henry ( Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology) * K. Lindsay Hunter (Sepela Field Programs) * Rick Hunter (

caver Caving – also known as spelunking in the United States and Canada and potholing in the United Kingdom and Ireland – is the recreational pastime of exploring wild cave systems (as distinguished from show caves). In contrast, speleology i ...

) *

Donald Johanson Donald Carl Johanson (born June 28, 1943) is an American paleoanthropologist. He is known for discovering, with Yves Coppens and Maurice Taieb, the fossil of a female hominin australopithecine known as "Lucy" in the Afar Triangle region of Hada ...

(

Institute of Human Origins The Institute of Human Origins (IHO) is a non-profit, multidisciplinary research organization dedicated to the recovery and analysis of the fossil evidence for human evolution. It was founded by the team of paleoanthropologists that discovered Luc ...

) * Job Kibii (University of the Witwatersrand) * Ashley Kruger (University of the Witwatersrand) *

Hannah Morris Hannah Morris is an American anthropologist, known for her contribution to the Rising Star Expedition as one of the six women Underground Astronauts. She is currently a Ph.D. student in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources at the ...

(paleoethnobotany) (Chena Consulting Group) *

Becca Peixotto Rebecca (Becca) Peixotto is an American archaeologist who is best known for her contribution to the Rising Star Expedition as one of the six Underground Astronauts, a group of scientists tasked with excavating the Rising Star Cave System. She ha ...

(paleontologist) * Rick Potts (

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

) * Patrick Randolph-Quinney (University of the Witwatersrand) * Brian Richmond (American Museum of Natural History) * Peter Schmid (University of the Witwatersrand) *

Michael Tomasello Michael Tomasello (born January 18, 1950) is an American developmental and comparative psychologist, as well as a linguist. He is professor of psychology at Duke University. Earning many prizes and awards from the end of the 1990s onward, he is c ...

( Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology) * Steven Tucker (caver) * Carol Ward (

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus University of Missouri System. MU was founded in ...

) * Celeste Yates (University of the Witwatersrand)

Critical reception

Neil Genzlinger Neil Genzlinger is an American playwright, editor, book reviewer, and theatre and television critic who frequently writes for ''The New York Times''. Family Genzlinger is a grandson of the late '' The Philadelphia Bulletin'' columnist Don Rose. ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' noted, "Documentaries about

prehistory Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use ...

and paleoanthropology are usually interesting, sometimes even thought-provoking. But you don't often encounter one that's thrilling. Yet that is a fitting adjective for ''Dawn of Humanity'', a program... that brings an aura of

breaking news Breaking news, interchangeably termed late-breaking news and also known as a special report or special coverage or news flash, is a current issue that broadcasters feel warrants the interruption of scheduled programming or current news in orde ...

to a field that can often seem musty." Brooke Cain of ''

The Charlotte Observer ''The Charlotte Observer'' is an American English-language newspaper serving Charlotte, North Carolina, and its metro area. The Observer was founded in 1886. As of 2020, it has the second-largest circulation of any newspaper in the Carolinas. I ...

'' reports that the documentary features "exclusive footage of the hair-raising descent deep into a nearly inaccessible cave to retrieve more than 1,500 hominid fossils." According to archaeologist K. Kris Hirst, ''Dawn of Humanity'' provides "a rich context for the discovery f the fossils of ''Homo naledi'' setting the historical and evolutionary background so that viewers can understand the significance of the discovery.... eeBerger's charming personality and the hordes of other

s in this video make this contextual effort easily and visually accessible to the public." In addition, according to Hirst, the behavior of apes in the "Dawn of Man" sequence of Stanley Kubrick 1968 film '' 2001: A Space Odyssey'', largely influenced by the notions of Raymond Dart and

Robert Ardrey Robert Ardrey (October 16, 1908 – January 14, 1980) was an American playwright, screenwriter and science writer perhaps best known for '' The Territorial Imperative'' (1966). After a Broadway and Hollywood career, he returned to his academi ...

, has been proven false since such violent apes have now been shown to be

vegetarian Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slaughter. Vegetariani ...

s instead.

References

National Museum of Natural History The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021, with 7 ...

(August 2016). *
''Dawn of Humanity''
– video search on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

.
''Dawn of Humanity''
– video search on Dailymotion. {{DEFAULTSORT:Dawn of Humanity 2015 American television episodes 2015 in paleontology 2015 television films 2015 films 2015 documentary films Documentary films about prehistoric life American documentary television films National Geographic Society films Nova (American TV program) episodes PBS original programming Documentary television shows about evolution 2010s American films

Participants

Critical reception

References

External links