and the nights 94 when she married pop star michael jackson. in early 2, thousands, she released her own rock music albums, lated, his last public appearance was at the gloat golden globe awards just earlier this week. you're watching dw news of next is our doc film, closing the missing links, exploring human evolution with a team of researchers in south africa to find more news on our website. that's d, w dot com. i'm ami and isa. thanks for joining us. we're all set to go beyond the obvious citizenship. a meant we're all in as we take on the we're all about the stories that matter to you.

whatever it takes to leave my following w. fire made for mines. ah ah, south africa. these hills are known as the cradle of humankind. they tell the story of evolution. nowhere else is so many of our ancestors fossils being discovered. but one mystery remains, when exactly did the 1st humans appear. and what with our lives like that's want paleo anthropologist, joe zebra gong wants to find out at the crumb dry archaeological site in south africa. he aims to give a voice to the bones of our ancestors. ah,

ah, paleo anthropologist, josie braga is a wild expert in his field, whether with state of the art laboratory equipment or in the dusty savannah, he is searching for the origin of human kind. and the missing piece of the puzzle in imo sapiens family tree. got also de las i, louisiana. it us was a space allocated to lucy mac trailer. this general consensus that all human beings living on the planet to day have their origin in africa around 100000 years ago in west middle michelson, stuart girls moved from one alt as he thought. if you go further back around 2000000 years, it's a different story. least did you sell, don't pulse. good. humanity results. eat up out and just we still don't know

exactly where the homogeneous emerged and where they was 2 or more like 3000000 years ago. got idea of us to develop units. austin has changed here in chrome dry close to johannesburg. regard aims to solve this mystery. the site is part of the cradle of human kind and the many fossils in this landscape have revealed the story of evolution. it has been listed as a unesco welled heritage site since 1999 humanities. family tree braunsdorf from the great apes. 7000000 years ago we and our ancestors are descended from that new genus. the hominy. one of those ancestors is osteopathic us,

of whom several skeletons have been found. some of them over 3000000 years old. but about 2000000 years ago this species died out. the transition from osteopathic us to human still counts as a blind spot in evolutionary history. no fossil has yet been found from the period between 3 and 2000000 years ago that will give us any clothes regard became site manager of the crumb dry archaeological site in south africa in 2002 to try and solve this mystery. at the time the region was mainly living on its reputation. the last relevant

discovery came from the 19 thirties and at 1st regard to finds nothing new, but he doesn't gave up. he trusts his instincts and modern technology. what have been bothered riches girl? some varies christopher geology got a few channels on top of your for to remedy burger things, chrome dry is much bigger than originally assumed to find new excavations sites. he uses aerial photo grammar tree to carry out 3 d survey. by combining this and chemical soil analysis, he plans to track down undiscovered fossils and

in the end, the new survey shows that this soil lay i really does stretch far into the north. from dry is 5 times as large as originally thought. the search for fossil treasure in the unexplored region begins the teen gathers a large number of samples. nobody has any idea yet how significant the new finds will be to us as humans. again, you gather the cell. jeff gets a piece of i tooth from a prime ada to play metal. i'm already in the jaw here, chilmark cedar. even before

it's taken out of the ground, it's clear that this is an entire jaw back. what is that from a home in any? it's extraordinary. was unix later, after careful cleaning, it becomes clear that this is an almost perfectly preserved lower jaw of a child. it's a small sensation. but does it belong to a human child or an osteopathic us? might it even have originated in the mysterious transition period between the 2 genera? boucher mammals, i know specializes in medical imaging. he makes a computerized model of the jaw to find some answers. don't drill them to go.

the donation was a community domains. if you were using your data to create a model, the jaw of the child of come dry with its tooth bugs. don't tell. so 6 hold, you know, it's extraordinary up. so my thought no. jamie recess. you, i've never seen anything like this in an osteopathic us channel solution up. they never have these long, central or lateral in sizes. hard latan. palazzo not for thank. hi tara, this back soft. my initial impression, scotland question or video? because you look good. let's add some more criteria to make sure this is really a human mandible. detail should promote up wash. tell me to be up off your me. cool . nice. yeah, i'll give you 2 men. the teeth inside the lower jaw have remained unchanged since the death of the child,

their shape and position suggest the genus is houma. but from which precise stage of evolution so vivid upon the eye lug nuts with his trunk, i talked with my digits. what's special about the child of chrome dry is that it combines modern and primitive characteristics in a way we've never seen before. with such old fossils, where the car, you can see very primitive osteopathic is characteristics in this. i tooth to character. look on critic, either goddamn time or down, but then we also have very clear human characteristics. he also, if the child had been at a bit more mature stage of development, we would not have been able to say this and you know, i'd ocoee that we can present. cuz when i pass on the financial records, if it cost us, we're right in the fact that it's a small child gives us some key information. it's also, it's also where we don't yet know what constituted a human from a couple of 1000000 years ago. and i think it was the way they grew up,

but to be able to say that with certainty, we have to find more human infants from this period like this one or not on what makes this fine. so valuable is it's early stage of development. bricker is certain that an immature lower jaw will provide indications of the species. this would not be the case in a fully developed jaw. everything points to the fact that the jaw originated in the transition period between austro lapetrkozi and humans not met, nor have ignored libya. and this is where the problem is started with our chrome dry child people and we enjoy some of them. others not so much. i love this one, but it will still be complicated. so we have to date the fossil, especially whether it's older or younger than $2000000.00 is ships. i'm sudden it's older, but that's not enough. we need proof for all pusan. everything

depends on the fossils age. but neither the dna analysis nor the radio carbon method is able to date such an old fossil there's only one thing left to try to determine the age of the soil in which the fossil was found with to do this for god put together a team of geologists to look for indications of which iraq the soil, and thus the char jaw came from verse the team has to learn about the composition of the soil in the newly dark area. the almost square site is boarded by line stack. do you think that blocks a weathered weight? yes, totally. then you said it all got completely wet and it will be non effort. i miss

ali? yes, definitely water but it's not circulating. you could on top of it. the standing water is a bit of a mystery. and as an entire story behind it, a story from the time this child lived in chrome dry. the secret lies in the stack fontaine, caves close to chrome dry. they found little foot in these limestone caves. the most complete skeleton of an australia pickers ever discovered. it took several years to estimate its age. it was 3700000 years old. la on blue cell headed up the team at the time.

he knew this cave labrenz at its history inside out all night and he can go, he can gal deleting one years left much when i got here. we have small passages that map the creation of the cave to fella. you can see the process sachi to somewhere below ground water level. so everything is under water delivered to a pump. the water drift slowly and gradually dissolves bits of carbonate and magnesium. him was literally the sand and anything that dissolves easily is washed out to little nickie. this is how lab renting guerrero's form medical dozens of kilometers long is shown luther levant, or will fulfill these discoveries from the stark fontaine caves. forced the team in chrome dry to think again. the geologists found the same disintegration process in the rocks of both caves. so the 2 locations seem to be connected on the ground. the opening to the earth's surface has to be

a remnant of collapsed corridors. that means that the citing crumb dry was once an underground cave for burger and his team. this is an important realization they want to understand when and how the cave filled up. is this the key to dating the child of chrome dry to an indication of the origin of human kind. sch

only schnells in the gone cellar de settled then they said cell when one auster contains larger holes in the middle it's about 30 meters long and 20 meters wide and about 30 meters high. that's exactly the same size as chrome dry. eval memphis . why this is interesting because here we have an unfilled cave, we still have a bald separating us from the surface english, a good 10 meters of rock sharika purpose. so we have to imagine that geological changes are making the roof thinner, and at some stage it will open, the stones will fallen soil and also animals that we are finding now as fossils good or shall gradually, a pile of rubble will form the whole talis, like in an hour glass to the some, you know, actually the opening of the trap, but over thousands of years catches what used to be on the surface when it's a time capsule of what was happening outside at the time in the need. let me walk dispossess at least tell you that tireless rises until the opening is clogged again. perhaps due to a collapse. once the whole closes,

everything below it becomes fossilized. at the same time style it might grow slowly in the cave. as soon as the whole reopens a 2nd pile of scree forms on top of the fast in chrome try to form a cave roof was completely eroded. so the screed at the fossils were embedded in was exposed. look on the launch here. we have a snapshot of what com dry must have looked like 45 or 6000000 years ago. it was before the cave open to the surface of english office. at 1st sight, everything seems to come from one source, but electro magnetic measurements show that there are actually different layers, each from a different epoch. the geologists try to date the layer in which the human jaw was found. regard hopes to then be able to estimate the age of the chrome tri child

that has a different ha . i'm on the inside of a bovine gene. battista for vale specializes in animal fossils. he identifies that type and evolutionary stage of the fragments of the bone fragments help date the animal species. this is a fema from what above it. yes. for val thinks this was a small antelope from the same period as the child of chrome dry. but what does that tell us? it's either what i'm trying to put the puzzled together piece by piece not from the

death of this animal to to day. these fines help us understand the ecosystem, the hominy developed within me. the bose. it fossils suggest open all, would it savannah? but that says little about the age of the lions, since today's antelopes are too similar to their ancestors. 2000000 years ago. to determine the age of the teams, need to find animals whose anatomy has changed more. after a few hours, they find a solid block containing fossilized bones of an unknown animal. for, val carefully exposes the sample with a dentist's carter. he has to be very careful not to damage the fossil

pacifica fin army fairly bus route one. i thought it might be a feline predator. 100 of after cleaning it. i have the complete gums and saber teeth of a 2000000 year old feline predator. i am again terry, only younger ian. it's the breakthrough. they were hoping for. this sabre tooth tiger appeared about 3000000 years ago in africa and died out about 2000000 years ago. the layer, the animal gums and the child's jaw were found in is in fact, from the transition period between australopithecines, us, and human. but the team has to date it even more precisely. the geologists get to work again. they use a standard might from the former cave to measure the time while alada less telling me, look on lice. if this is these to lag might from from dry,

the cradle of human kind is the only one we know we're still in place and it can be backdated and the dice of all the pico allayed to for me. stanley mites at formed from drops containing tiny amounts of uranium over time, the uranium turns to let the ratio of the 2 elements reveals the age of this down. this taluk might, must be between 2 and 2300000 years out. the talis under the style at night must be older. this proves that the fossils from the thomas below the style might, are also more than 2000000 years out. further indications that the child's jaw comes from the transition period from austro lapetrkozi to human minimal sca knocking off the call.

i say rom drive gives us exactly what we were missing and struck fontaine. are you the connecting piece between australopithecines, earth, and how many instruct fontaine these layers had been mass due to erosion in chrome . dr. they are still there. here we can bring together the links between all the stories from the cradle of human kind de la, sold a new restaurant even if it's a spectacular discovery. the child of chrome dry is the oldest human child ever excavated. an examination of the lower jaw disclose is the age of the 1st humans. it also shows us what differentiated them from osteopathic us on her, do it on your journey. truly for silly mar not on his bosom. we can count on the fingers of one hand, the number of fines we have from the period before 2 to 3000000 years ago and never a child awful. but in chrome dry, we have this infant who is showing as what humans were like 2000000 years ago and

could pereta and humor, yamil denny on a c o. similar what it he knew gum id or offered up until the linux user phony local boy. we made a 3 d image from the data to compare the lower jaw of a 2 year old to day with the chrome dry child, an baton child, an awful new. com i hear of a come on the original from tongue. the iconic estrella pacific as child clinic, the tong child was discovered in 1924 in south africa at the time. it was the 1st and only osteopathic us and it didn't generate much interest since it was thought the parcels of children did not provide much information. it's hugely important for regard however, as it helps to differentiate modern day humans from earlier jenner sir louie estrada pacific as child in red with chrome dry and blue be actual. that's what it looks like today. we met no procedure perform popular clamp of it said he tell me,

john, jehovah cooper, we can get into about half of the jar here. he won't all super 2 or 8. the tongue child really has no chin. it's slanted with more beacon of m. a receding chin to aliyah be being mother da. com are you there? chrome dry child has quite a vertical profile. very different to this here. when you do the song, not and mosquito, the chin does not receive as strongly as the tongue. 1 may remember luxury, although said this symphony, this area is also less broader. so the are so huddled here and there is the morphology of the tooth, one dish, which dip is the light from the australia, whitaker's. i feel like he permitted up your bottle or would we have a series of characteristics here that suggested is closer to a modern day child than to an australia pickers. something where he changes everything. it's much more modern than we thought he was gonna have her oper, sampras his enemies bassetti on the other. so the criteria that defined what humans are, and now our dated marya began walking upright using tools, the large brain routes she, lou,

now we know that the australopithecines also use tools and walked up right. also, gucci settles holipeter. the large brand didn't develop until after the 1st humans appeared, laid upon you. luke was open to day, the belief is more that the criteria for becoming human have to do with development . see by our vision yelling, and with the fossil of this infant. we're able to answer that for the 1st time, foresee the b, b, or boo. upon a point of what i promise it gets to the paleo anthropologists realised that this find will revolutionize their research at prom dry. they hope to find out what originally made humans human. while the 3 d images are being analyzed, the search for more information continues that the chrome dry site. geology provides the researchers with new details. the cave

filled up until the tireless reached the ceiling. it's possible that predators then moved in the fossils from the talis, will probably their prey and they tell us about the lives of the 1st humans finance agenda. mean underneath 2000000 years ago we were primarily scavengers, benefiting from others, left overs. hm. it was at the same time we were breaking. it was easy to eat or it i didn't know so it's exciting to find the remains of our ancestors who were pray. it brings up new questions around how we continue to develop them and changed from one avery. to find out more about the 1st humans, the researchers look for new fossils. a comparison of the 3 jones of the austro le pisec us to chrome dry, child, and modern day humans alone is not enough to rewrite human history. a comparison is

also needed with parent purpose. another home, an ingenious paratroopers means alongside humans and is considered our close relative. it appears around the same time as the homo genus. there is disagreement about whether it is an australia pickers or descends from the 1st branch, troopers was discovered in 1938 close to chrome dry punishment. he reported bald hope so conquered marshall. the 1st humans and 1st representatives of the genus are very different from one another, but the paratroopers has spectacular facial features settled with an over developed domestic atory apparatus. there it was vegetarian and specialized in consuming hard plants. contrary to the 1st, humans over budgeting study suggest that they ate both plants and meat chrissy for

his humour. it is, are so much made, in fact that traces of it can be found as a geo chemical signature inside their tables in class, in senior care solutions guarantee or they don't have permission. recall wants to unravel the origins of human kind. to do this, he would have to compare how human children and parents were up as children developed over 2000000 years ago. the problem is that no parent purpose child has yet been discovered. regard hopes to find one in chrome try he brings a specialist on board to find out where to dig. man tom b in july, we'll use the latest technology to lead him to the right place. she can predict

where the largest number of fossils are to be found. my specific area studies is on the 3 the reconstruction of the site and understanding spatial patterning using 3 d digitization methods. that actually the fossils whose coordinates they've collected. you've seen the total station in red, you have the buffets and in green you have the hominids and in yellow we have carnivores. so what we found from 3 d facial analysis as that we actually have 4 main classes. cluster $1.00 and $2.00 contained the most fossil so this is the most dense region of the site archeologist. very destructive process, and part of the discovery is destruction. but my focus within my ph. d is to ensure that we can actually preserve data in such

a way that future generations can have an image of what it looked like before it was removed compared to the fight 8 times. i think now there's a lot more knowledge and awareness of this. and a lot more representation as well. so me, for example, being a black woman studying this. that's very rare. but we pioneering and opening spaces for us to know our history and disseminated as well. regard. dang swear, enjoy locates the highest probability of finding hominy in fossil says, you also follow most of the false congress mor, this is a part of a task completely disintegrated on brazil, the muffled walkie won't,

with alterations the ivory goes in all directions. a typical fine that tells us absolutely nothing for super boot demoya feel mozilla until it only shows as the inclination angle of the layout intervals. angie, come over here of waterloo. i think we have an inside the here that's in the opposite direction to the layer with the parents are bas. we go only a toni bolcom so we, we, they did it. yes. that's clearly north to south. it fits the hypothesis that we have another entrance as well, and another source of material to have a don't not wholly, he'd be mother, even older, more people. yes, older that indicates a much longer, more complex history. the elephant task is important after all its position at right angles to the other. fines reveals that it belongs to a different thomas, presumably from another opening in the cave roof.

this thomas is partially covered by the one that contains the 1st humans and parentheses. soak. it's colder, but how old? exactly? the excitement grows as when you push this layer is very rich, he had loose the yellow pods or bones. i don't know what they are. you have to take them out even for already, but it's too hard for the tool. we'll need other tools for that. natalie home leanne. recovering the fossil from the solid ground takes time. but too much air exposure can damage the bones. to avoid this large block said cut up and taken

to the stern, fontaine, lebron train. there the fossils are extracted. the stern fontaine lab belongs to ron clark, the discoverer of little foot. he rarely opens his lab, but beggars find awakens his curiosity from you. wow. now is this, these corresponds to do, right? maxine of that's busy. so it's still need some preparation. you certainly don't, but wow, this is you. this is all ready picking my interest. this

doesn't look like a parameter between you, me. yeah. and at the moment in the matrix you all to that is huge tell we talked about, but if you look at the pre, if you look at the prima silva, doesn't magog. hm. yeah. i mean with long comparison and also to 50 two's to okay. roof, the more i look at this, the more i feel is it's one of these to the 1st time now chrome dry. you have no strong with because she signal, i'm sure that i'm so pleased for you and on your least i'm pleased for science because this, this had so much to me knowledge of the way these whole manage were developing. and

the, and the different species does exist. to do any one time. so well done. the last parcel brings the real sensation from dry is the only site in the well, that preserves the transition from auster la pickers towards parents of us and man . these are the 3 crucial pieces of the puzzle. to unravel the origin of humankind, settle settles deck la, you did typically push dude us if this australopithecines specimen is very close to the fork in the family tree. also, it may be one of the last before paratroopers separated from humans. and what's interesting in from dry is that in the lay with the skull, we found both the oldest parentheses and the oldest humans. so it really records the moment when the transition happened. twice to find in estrella,

pithy kids that lived well before the split up or harass for bas long after that is quite interesting. you're more presented more skulls, you have the better. but i'm more interested in the blank page in the history books . and because the moment when the species separated lubo moles, as cbo, c, sacrament, brigade knows he's witnessing an historical moment. one that many of his colleagues will envy him fall north. i believe you said we are touching our ancestors here. and their descendants crumb dry is the time machine but burger is missing one essential element. what exactly was the difference between human and parents repairs children 2000000 years ago? he's convinced that this is the key to understanding how humans came to be finding another parents propos baby towards the end of the dig seems unlikely.

well, crumb dry reveal it last secret. after all. look, i have the bottom teeth. another row of tank heater was in the program. so those and yes, i have the in sizes loo, appalonia for the 1st time we are coming face to face with the paratroopers baby. almost a shock washing every time. i'm here with hope to find either a human baby or a paratroopers baby hole, cinnamon and the, the ball hopefully big enough. he thought up of. mm. welcome. little parents for person was up on local choice. well, on a lot from this child, when we compare it to which human baby,

whose joy we also found emily rid of the piece of joy, is the pinnacle of brick ars whack. at last he can compare a parent purpose baby with the human baby that he found at the beginning. what can the parent trip his baby tell us about becoming human? welfare this child is the new star of south african paleo anthropology is the 1st parents purpose child. skull ever discovered world wide. all of them at no cost was mostly southward from halter la toyota. rather, using a particle accelerator called a synchrotron, we are creating a 3 dimensional x ray image of the inside of the to how you give us with the policy . she's on the ball. hope she's avima on these 5 micro meters. thick structures

correspond to the enamel that is deposited in a baby in 24 hours. dip was element got how similar to the annual rings of trees from the thick of the deposit that the foster, the tooth has grown. the football top. we found that the teeth of the small parents purposes grew significantly faster than the teeth of small human. the financials. it as a general solution, you just feel like we also saw differences in geochemistry. those are short, took the ratio of calcium isotopes and the human and parent therapist teeth well gave us information about nutrition as the to the former. you who are due to form a stronger said this is important because the isotope ratio changes during the transition from lactation. to solid food intake or so did it go up, always looking back well fed scrolling, degrass tooth analysis showed that the parentheses were weaned very early, so nothing more was i don't order any salt, probably shortly, or a few months after birth liquids 0 who humans on the other hand were waned much

later than i was not until about age 3. our side is on because we have them all this had implications for social life. since raising a child that was waned, much later required much more effort from the parents and a group than a child waned early us. modern above all, being not a model about develop a correlation between the duration of childhood and social structure can already be observed in great tapes. a connection that may be transferable to the 1st humans sabrina tree and studied the behavior of different primates in the jungle. and supports for gar, in his analysis. for legal. yeah. of highly guerrillas are weaned much earlier than chimpanzee elsie longer. i've wonderful women in the metabolism that focuses on brain development to develop and

cognitive skills, or do you have acre also develop in any capacity? couldn't they learn to walk and climb later already from shore? lucas with his wife, is also very of what had younger the young chimpanzee clings to its mother's belly and is completely dependent on her era intercept, foreclosure. they have on the home or the community helps to defend the youngest on his own. junior, peculiar, hardly a complete young guerrillas on the other hand, could become independent, much earlier than chimpanzees, et cetera, within any pre prego country. to what you might think that this shortens the learning period to early is under you so busy portia. in washington d. c. chimpanzees, starting to use tools during a longer learning phase. this takes time in this sport. if the big wireless route

was actually cause i'd say when i watch chimpanzees, i feel very close to them why each went back to their like part of my family. so i could go to and if you imagine the 1st humans how they lived together, when i said it was like this, you also, she did, you feel probably more like lag on. the big difference with humans is that the chimpanzees to was remain the same to this day. i guess they pass on the knowledge to the next generation. i say probably more, but there was no progress, no further development of the totally mankey song commute. and that's probably the difference which human mistakes uni our culture grew steadily high. we perfected our tools bit identity during a hash roaring, asher. so primitive humans childhood was much longer than that of the parent therapists. the analogy to today's great apes allows conclusions to be drawn about how hominy

organized their societies. 2000000 years ago. the 1st groups of people seemed to be united by one main goal to protect their offspring. this makes the group vulnerable, but apparently favors the passing on of knowledge for burger and his colleagues. this is the long sought after key to being human. mister holmes, up home from pines. upon qu silva's mother, she did. you make a deliberate prom dry? is the proof that humans strategy was the better one was you know, since the paratroopers disappeared 1000000 years ago, humans on the other hand, have evolved in an original way compared to the estrella, pithy ghost and paratroopers. i feel the put, the human reproductive strategy means giving birth to offspring that need a lot of energy and attention to develop their brains. this strategy prevails,

initiated a subsidy. it allowed us species to populate the entire planet army as descendants of a species that i am to vincent from already lived as we do y'all, his best, his hockey, v. v, at least as far as the relationship with their children was concerned. alt girls equal sound. a little hopper via doleful are gone. spectacular fines bring us closer to our ancestors. the fossil molars show that the secret of our species is the long lactation period. this evolutionary step is what made the unique development of humans possible. mm. to the point, strong opinions, clear positions, international perspectives. western countries are accelerating their support for you. great. aman vehicles, too heavy. thanks. the time all veterans doubled seems to have passed on to the

boys via bang for your trade. is the west joining the all to the point with 30 minutes on d. w. ah, me. channels to questions about life, the universe and everything? do you know the answer? well, them, david here for 40 to the answer to almost everything. our documentary series with clever raising and ground breaking questions on the after life. this is not just a dead. are we getting summer?

we haven't exponential growth in bullshit. how can we feed every one doesn't mean we don't want to chase climate change with our food supply questions for the present or future heads filled with ideas. and when we learn something, the hardware and software of our brain changes games. so get ready for the brain update. 40 to the answer to almost everything. starts january 15th on d, w. ah, this is d w. news. these are top stories. the u. s. justice department has appointed a special council to investigate after more classified documents were found at president biden's delaware home. earlier this week, reports emerge that sensitive documents had been.