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How We Became Human

How We Became Human

Paleoanthropologist Rick Potts explains how a rapidly changing climate made humans what we are today.

NOVA scienceNOW

October 29, 20096m 28s

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Show Notes

Today, humans are rapidly changing the world's climate-but some anthropologists think climate may have once changed us. In this podcast, Rick Potts, director of the Human Origins Program at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, explains why a rapidly shifting environment could have shaped early human behavior. Podcast produced by David Levin. Original interview by Graham Townsley. NOVA is produced by WGBH in Boston. Funding for NOVA is provided by ExxonMobil, David H. Koch, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and public television viewers. Major funding for NOVA scienceNOW is provided by the National Science Foundation and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Additional funding is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0229297. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. For more fun science stories, visit our website at pbs.org/nova/sciencenow

Topics

science NOVA PBS Potts Smithsonian evolution adaptation erectus sapiens anthropology archeology