NOVA PBS and National Geographic collaborated to give NGC viewers exclusive access to a unique discovery of ancient remains. Located in an almost inaccessible cave deep in the Dinaledi Chamber of the Rising Star Cave system, located in the Cradle of Humankind, South Africa, the site required recruiting a special team of experts slender enough to wriggle down a vertical, pitch-dark, seven-inch-wide passage. Most fossil discoveries of human relatives consist of just a handful of bones. But down in this hidden chamber, the team uncovered an unprecedented trove—so far, over 1500 bones—with the potential to rewrite the story of our origins.
These bones may help fill in a crucial gap in the fossil record and tell us how Homo, the first member of the human family, emerged from ape-like ancestors like the famous Lucy. But how did hundreds of bones end up in the remote chamber? The experts, led by Professor Lee Berger and his team of palaeontologists, consider every mind-boggling possibility. Join them on the treacherous descent into this cave of spectacular and enigmatic finds, and discover their startling implications for the saga of what made us human.
Neil Genzlinger of The New York Times notes that: "Documentaries about prehistory 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 programme ... that brings an aura of breaking news to a field that can often seem musty."