The World Before Us—a New Story of Our Human Origins

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Image courtesy of How To Academy.

Tom Higham is an archaeologist at the forefront of the field. In 2012, he led the team that discovered the 90,000-year-old bone of an individual whose parents belonged to two distinct species of humans, Neanderthals and Denisovans—the only first generation ‘hybrid’ ever found.

In this livestream event, he follows the scientific and technological advancements—in radiocarbon dating and ancient DNA, for example—that allowed these discoveries to be made and enabled us to better predict not just how long ago these other humans lived, but how they lived. Could they make art, recall their dreams, or joke? Did they play music, or use medicine? What might Homo sapiens have learned from them?

We interbred and their DNA lives on in us, so we know which human groups today share which ancestors’ genes and the impact this has: from Denisovan genes helping people cope better with living at high altitude to Neanderthal genes increasing the risk of developing severe Covid-19 symptoms. The implications of these—and future—discoveries for us today are profound.

We have always thought of ourselves as unique, but in evolutionary time, our uniqueness did not exist until yesterday—and yet now it is only us. What happened? Was it a given that we’d conquer the world, or might, under different circumstances, a Denisovan or Neanderthal population be the only ones left? This is the story of us, told for the first time with its full cast of characters.

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