The Rise of Humans: Great Scientific Debates

Trying to understand our human origins has always been a fundamental part of who we are. Today, with the help of dramatic archaeological discoveries and groundbreaking advancements in technology and scientific understanding, we are closer than we've ever been to learning the true story. In recent decades, it has been the science of paleoanthropology that has led the investigation, helping us make sense of this controversial subject and providing us with a richer understanding of our origins. It's also sparked continued debate about key issues in human evolution. Did early humans evolve in Africa alone, or in regions throughout the world? Did Neandertals play an important role in our genetic heritage and, if so, how? Why did prehistoric humans form cooperative communities and create art? Now you can complete your own understanding of these issues in a fascinating 24-lecture series from an expert paleoanthropologist, who surveys both the questions that continue to rile the world's greatest minds in anthropology and the cutting-edge science responsible for them. The result is this expert guide to the wide-ranging debates over the most profound questions we can ask. Each lecture focuses on a single one of these questions and the sometimes surprising, sometimes fierce, and always illuminating debates surrounding them, including whether it was Africa or Asia that was more central to human origins, what prehistoric cultural groups were really like, and when humans actually reached the New World.