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These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated: 1 00:00:18,880 --> 00:00:20,160 For two years, 2 00:00:20,160 --> 00:00:26,400 a team of top scientists have been secretly studying a unique fossil. 3 00:00:26,400 --> 00:00:29,880 This fossil will probably be the one 4 00:00:29,880 --> 00:00:34,120 that will be pictured in all text books for the next 100 years. 5 00:00:34,120 --> 00:00:37,840 They believe it could be one of our earliest primate ancestors. 6 00:00:37,840 --> 00:00:41,560 Well, it's really a kind of Rosetta Stone because it ties together 7 00:00:41,560 --> 00:00:44,320 parts we haven't been able to associate before. 8 00:00:44,320 --> 00:00:49,000 Have they found our oldest, complete, primate ancestor? 9 00:00:51,600 --> 00:00:57,680 The fossil has more information in it then in any fossil I've ever seen. 10 00:00:57,680 --> 00:01:00,360 Their research has stunned the world. 11 00:01:01,440 --> 00:01:06,880 In the moment when the results of our investigations will be 12 00:01:06,880 --> 00:01:11,840 published, this will be just like an asteroid hitting the earth. 13 00:01:20,600 --> 00:01:26,960 47 million years ago the dinosaurs were already long extinct. 14 00:01:26,960 --> 00:01:32,520 It's the time when the blueprints for modern mammals were being established. 15 00:01:36,080 --> 00:01:39,480 Dense, tropical rainforests cover the earth. 16 00:01:39,480 --> 00:01:41,840 They're home to small primates. 17 00:01:41,840 --> 00:01:45,520 Among them is an ancestor to us all. 18 00:01:49,720 --> 00:01:53,440 For almost 200 years, scientists have searched 19 00:01:53,440 --> 00:01:57,280 for links to our prehistoric past. 20 00:01:57,280 --> 00:02:01,480 The search has concentrated in East Africa, 21 00:02:01,480 --> 00:02:04,520 known as the cradle of mankind. 22 00:02:11,400 --> 00:02:16,680 Here in the 1970s, they found the link between apes and man. 23 00:02:16,680 --> 00:02:22,880 It offered conclusive proof that we started walking upright 3.2 million years ago. 24 00:02:22,880 --> 00:02:26,640 A human ancestor, a female, Lucy. 25 00:02:29,800 --> 00:02:34,120 Then in 1984, the remains of a boy were found. 26 00:02:34,120 --> 00:02:40,400 Material evidence that 1.5 million years ago, humans had already 27 00:02:40,400 --> 00:02:44,360 lost their hair and taken their first steps onto the open savannah. 28 00:02:46,440 --> 00:02:50,920 Scientists have long hoped that the earth might eventually yield 29 00:02:50,920 --> 00:02:54,560 an even more ancient fossil that links apes, man 30 00:02:54,560 --> 00:02:58,080 and all the other primates to the earliest mammals on earth. 31 00:03:01,360 --> 00:03:04,080 This could be it. 32 00:03:04,080 --> 00:03:10,760 A fossil so ancient it could shine a light deeper into our history than ever before. 33 00:03:10,760 --> 00:03:16,720 And so detailed it could help science reveal the origins of every person on the planet. 34 00:03:19,680 --> 00:03:22,000 This fossil is so complete. 35 00:03:22,000 --> 00:03:27,400 Everything's there. It's unheard of in the primate fossil record at all. 36 00:03:27,400 --> 00:03:31,640 You have to get to human burial to see something that's this complete. 37 00:03:31,640 --> 00:03:36,920 This is really, really the most complete fossil primate ever. 38 00:03:42,120 --> 00:03:47,000 World-renowned fossil expert Dr Jorn Hurum of Oslo University 39 00:03:47,000 --> 00:03:51,440 has spent his life scouring the earth for important fossils. 40 00:03:53,840 --> 00:03:56,480 But the most incredible specimen of them all, 41 00:03:56,480 --> 00:04:01,680 the one that would change his life, took him totally by surprise. 42 00:04:10,560 --> 00:04:15,440 It was in December 2006 at the annual Hamburg Fossil Fair. 43 00:04:15,440 --> 00:04:19,200 Here the tables were laden with beautiful examples 44 00:04:19,200 --> 00:04:22,720 of fossils and minerals to catch the public eye. 45 00:04:23,840 --> 00:04:28,040 But Jorn didn't expect to find something for his museum on a stall. 46 00:04:32,880 --> 00:04:35,880 The best specimens are never shown on a show. 47 00:04:35,880 --> 00:04:39,240 They are always what we call "under the table". 48 00:04:39,240 --> 00:04:42,440 So you need to know the dealers 49 00:04:42,440 --> 00:04:45,920 to be shown the really, really, really good things. 50 00:04:48,960 --> 00:04:53,640 The dealer, Thomas Perner, promised an extraordinary find. 51 00:05:00,320 --> 00:05:02,720 When the dealer told me in the middle of the day 52 00:05:02,720 --> 00:05:07,040 at a mineral show in Hamburg that I should join him for a drink 53 00:05:07,040 --> 00:05:09,160 because he wanted to show me something, 54 00:05:09,160 --> 00:05:11,920 I knew that it was something special. 55 00:05:11,920 --> 00:05:17,320 Then he showed me some photographs and I was completely stunned. 56 00:05:18,640 --> 00:05:21,880 And I didn't sleep for two nights after that, 57 00:05:21,880 --> 00:05:25,800 because I knew that what I'd seen, it was probably 58 00:05:25,800 --> 00:05:29,880 the most beautiful fossil I was ever going to see in my whole life. 59 00:05:40,480 --> 00:05:44,280 Jorn made a home video of the very first moment 60 00:05:44,280 --> 00:05:47,320 he came face to face with the fossil. 61 00:05:47,320 --> 00:05:50,080 THEY LAUGH 62 00:05:54,640 --> 00:05:56,760 Oh! 63 00:05:56,760 --> 00:06:00,920 This is the best fossil and rarest fossil worldwide. 64 00:06:02,040 --> 00:06:04,320 Wow! 65 00:06:04,320 --> 00:06:07,160 Oh! 66 00:06:07,160 --> 00:06:09,000 It's beautiful. It's beautiful. 67 00:06:09,000 --> 00:06:11,600 Complete foot and two complete hands. 68 00:06:11,600 --> 00:06:13,800 Yeah. 69 00:06:13,800 --> 00:06:16,920 OK. Wow! 70 00:06:18,480 --> 00:06:21,160 Yes! 71 00:06:21,160 --> 00:06:26,760 Jorn believed he had stumbled across a 47-million-year-old treasure - 72 00:06:26,760 --> 00:06:30,120 the perfectly preserved skeleton of a small creature, 73 00:06:30,120 --> 00:06:32,720 more complete than he could ever hope for. 74 00:06:35,520 --> 00:06:38,680 But his joy may be short-lived. 75 00:06:38,680 --> 00:06:41,960 International fossil dealing is a cut-throat business. 76 00:06:41,960 --> 00:06:47,320 Jorn must act swiftly if he wants to save it for science. 77 00:06:49,720 --> 00:06:54,440 The thing about important fossils, there's a big black market and 78 00:06:54,440 --> 00:06:59,160 there's a lot of private collectors, like with art and other things. 79 00:06:59,160 --> 00:07:04,800 So a lot of important specimens are still locked in the basement of some rich guy or something like that. 80 00:07:04,800 --> 00:07:08,160 So it needs to be in a public museum to be studied. 81 00:07:11,400 --> 00:07:14,880 The asking price is over 1 million. 82 00:07:16,400 --> 00:07:21,880 Jorn's got to be certain it's a genuine fossil and not a forgery. 83 00:07:21,880 --> 00:07:24,840 He has it scientifically examined. 84 00:07:27,680 --> 00:07:31,560 You can fake an outer surface of bone that looks really real, 85 00:07:31,560 --> 00:07:34,800 but you cannot fake the inner structure of a bone. 86 00:07:34,800 --> 00:07:36,320 It's impossible. 87 00:07:36,320 --> 00:07:40,640 So getting an X-ray, you can see the inside of the bone. 88 00:07:40,640 --> 00:07:45,480 You can see actually the bone marrow inside. 89 00:07:45,480 --> 00:07:48,400 We know that it's 100% a real fossil. 90 00:07:48,400 --> 00:07:50,560 There is no doubt at all. 91 00:07:52,760 --> 00:07:56,680 The X-rays prove this fossil is genuine. 92 00:07:58,640 --> 00:08:03,040 The necessary funds were secured and Jorn shipped it home. 93 00:08:10,960 --> 00:08:15,160 In Norway's capital city, Oslo, in his museum lab, 94 00:08:15,160 --> 00:08:20,320 Jorn finally gets to properly investigate his new treasure. 95 00:08:23,680 --> 00:08:27,920 This is so complete that you cannot, even in your dreams, 96 00:08:27,920 --> 00:08:31,640 wish for something being 47 million years old and this complete. 97 00:08:31,640 --> 00:08:36,720 Usually, we only find teeth, broken parts of jaws 98 00:08:36,720 --> 00:08:41,240 and small bones from the middle foot, maybe some toes and so on. 99 00:08:41,240 --> 00:08:47,120 Just single, small bones from these animals this long ago. 100 00:08:48,720 --> 00:08:52,280 Astonishingly, this fossil is not just bone. 101 00:08:52,280 --> 00:08:55,360 Its level of preservation is extraordinary. 102 00:08:57,440 --> 00:09:01,400 Here's an imprint of the bacteria that grew on the fur. 103 00:09:01,400 --> 00:09:05,440 So actually we can see how much fur was there. 104 00:09:05,440 --> 00:09:08,160 You cannot see the muscles or anything like that, 105 00:09:08,160 --> 00:09:10,440 but you can see an outline of the body 106 00:09:10,440 --> 00:09:12,440 that's bigger than just a skeleton. 107 00:09:12,440 --> 00:09:16,240 You can actually see where the fur covered the animal 108 00:09:16,240 --> 00:09:17,920 and how thick the fur was. 109 00:09:19,040 --> 00:09:21,800 This unique fossil is so detailed 110 00:09:21,800 --> 00:09:27,000 that it immediately reveals important information to Jorn. 111 00:09:27,000 --> 00:09:31,760 The first thing I recognised was the big toe standing up like this, 112 00:09:31,760 --> 00:09:34,240 90 degrees to the rest of the foot. 113 00:09:34,240 --> 00:09:38,840 And if you look very careful, to both the fingers and the toes, 114 00:09:38,840 --> 00:09:42,400 you can see that there were nails and not claws. 115 00:09:44,120 --> 00:09:47,800 This is a primate, just from seeing that image of that foot. 116 00:09:47,800 --> 00:09:50,400 It was really a wake-up call for me. 117 00:09:51,920 --> 00:09:56,440 Apes, monkeys and us all belong to one particular group of mammals, 118 00:09:56,440 --> 00:09:58,600 the primates. 119 00:09:58,600 --> 00:10:00,640 And the common feature we all share 120 00:10:00,640 --> 00:10:03,560 is four fingers and an opposable thumb - 121 00:10:03,560 --> 00:10:08,120 the characteristic we share with this 47-million-year-old fossil. 122 00:10:08,120 --> 00:10:10,480 Could we be related? 123 00:10:14,480 --> 00:10:18,960 Looking at the hand, you can see that it's got five fingers, of course, 124 00:10:18,960 --> 00:10:24,600 and nails on all the fingers. But also the thumb is opposable like us, 125 00:10:24,600 --> 00:10:29,960 so it can grasp things, it can hold things the same way we do today. 126 00:10:29,960 --> 00:10:33,160 It's already there 47 million years ago. 127 00:10:33,160 --> 00:10:36,680 It's a proper hand to hold around things. 128 00:10:38,200 --> 00:10:42,840 To properly analyse the fossil, Jorn must share his secret. 129 00:10:42,840 --> 00:10:45,440 He handpicks a small team of experts, 130 00:10:45,440 --> 00:10:48,280 each a world leader in their discipline. 131 00:10:50,960 --> 00:10:56,160 I knew immediately that this fossil was too important. 132 00:10:56,160 --> 00:11:01,400 So I started to invite people in to make a dream team 133 00:11:01,400 --> 00:11:05,840 around this fossil, to make the first description really proper. 134 00:11:05,840 --> 00:11:10,240 If I would do it alone, I'm not an expert in primates, 135 00:11:10,240 --> 00:11:12,800 but there are some good people around the world 136 00:11:12,800 --> 00:11:16,760 and I invited the best ones to join me and they all said yes. 137 00:11:17,760 --> 00:11:21,720 Dr Holly Smith is a dental anthropologist. 138 00:11:21,720 --> 00:11:25,360 By studying the fossil's teeth, she will be able to determine 139 00:11:25,360 --> 00:11:30,280 what the creature ate, its age and how it compares to other primates. 140 00:11:30,280 --> 00:11:34,760 The fossil could be the ancestor 141 00:11:34,760 --> 00:11:40,800 of prosimians and apes and monkeys and the lineage leading up to man. 142 00:11:41,880 --> 00:11:46,920 Joining the team is Dr Jens Franzen, a renowned fossil expert 143 00:11:46,920 --> 00:11:50,960 who's been waiting for an opportunity such as this. 144 00:11:50,960 --> 00:11:54,880 This is by far the most complete 145 00:11:54,880 --> 00:12:00,120 fossil primate ever found on the world. 146 00:12:00,120 --> 00:12:03,600 And we have not only the complete skeleton, 147 00:12:03,600 --> 00:12:06,920 but we have also the complete soft body outline 148 00:12:06,920 --> 00:12:11,160 and we have the gut content. So what do you want more, ja? 149 00:12:11,160 --> 00:12:15,880 Hi! It's nice to see you. How was the flight? 150 00:12:15,880 --> 00:12:19,200 Professor Philip Gingerich is the next on board. 151 00:12:19,200 --> 00:12:25,160 He's spent his life searching for links between early and modern mammals. 152 00:12:25,160 --> 00:12:27,320 I suppose one of my initial thoughts was, 153 00:12:27,320 --> 00:12:32,120 "This is a big job. This will be a lot of work." 154 00:12:32,120 --> 00:12:37,040 Partly because there isn't anything else like it 155 00:12:37,040 --> 00:12:41,240 and so it really deserves to be compared carefully 156 00:12:41,240 --> 00:12:44,440 with all the various fragmentary fossils we have 157 00:12:44,440 --> 00:12:47,200 and also with the skeletons of the living ones. 158 00:12:47,200 --> 00:12:50,240 And you put all that together, that's a big work. 159 00:12:51,920 --> 00:12:54,840 They plan a long and thorough study. 160 00:12:54,840 --> 00:12:57,080 They must be certain of their conclusions 161 00:12:57,080 --> 00:13:00,720 before they reveal the fossil to the world. 162 00:13:00,720 --> 00:13:06,400 Until then, they will work in secret on their extraordinary treasure. 163 00:13:09,200 --> 00:13:12,000 As soon as they start their analysis, 164 00:13:12,000 --> 00:13:16,080 the fossil begins to come to life before their eyes. 165 00:13:16,080 --> 00:13:18,880 The pelvic region, of course, 166 00:13:18,880 --> 00:13:22,640 it's possible actually to tell the sex from this area. 167 00:13:22,640 --> 00:13:26,640 In this region, you will expect to see a baculum or not. 168 00:13:26,640 --> 00:13:32,680 All primates at that time possessed a penis bone, known as a baculum. 169 00:13:32,680 --> 00:13:35,280 We now know from looking at the specimen 170 00:13:35,280 --> 00:13:37,440 that there's no baculum present. 171 00:13:37,440 --> 00:13:38,760 So this is a girl, 172 00:13:38,760 --> 00:13:43,200 this is a small female that lived 47 million years ago. 173 00:13:47,400 --> 00:13:51,040 The investigation is gathering pace. 174 00:13:51,040 --> 00:13:54,280 The next question is where does she come from? 175 00:13:55,800 --> 00:13:58,640 And it's the way her delicate body has been preserved, 176 00:13:58,640 --> 00:14:01,760 and not her skeleton, that provides the answers. 177 00:14:08,960 --> 00:14:14,840 There's only one locality in the world where this transfer technique, 178 00:14:14,840 --> 00:14:17,840 that the fossils are put in this kind of polyester, 179 00:14:17,840 --> 00:14:21,880 that all the fossils are prepared like this. This is the only place. 180 00:14:23,760 --> 00:14:29,560 All the major primate fossil finds until now have been made in Africa. 181 00:14:31,560 --> 00:14:34,920 But this one has been prepared using resin, 182 00:14:34,920 --> 00:14:39,680 a technique used, not in Africa, but in Germany. 183 00:14:51,440 --> 00:14:56,680 The fossil was found here, in a place known as the Messel Pit. 184 00:14:58,240 --> 00:15:01,480 There is nowhere in the world like it. 185 00:15:06,440 --> 00:15:10,680 It's an ancient crater filled with an unrivalled collection 186 00:15:10,680 --> 00:15:17,720 of fossils, all dating from the Eocene Period, 47 million years ago. 187 00:15:17,720 --> 00:15:21,800 It's like a peek-hole into a whole community, 188 00:15:21,800 --> 00:15:24,800 a whole ecosystem in the Eocene. 189 00:15:24,800 --> 00:15:27,760 That suddenly you see that everything you find usually 190 00:15:27,760 --> 00:15:31,080 as small pieces of things, you have complete 191 00:15:31,080 --> 00:15:33,680 in this one locality, one place in the world 192 00:15:33,680 --> 00:15:39,120 and that's something that palaeontologists really, really treasure. 193 00:15:39,120 --> 00:15:41,760 So this is like a holy grail for palaeontology. 194 00:15:43,280 --> 00:15:45,560 Dinosaurs were long extinct. 195 00:15:45,560 --> 00:15:49,080 The shales of Messel had already yielded fossil birds, 196 00:15:49,080 --> 00:15:51,120 reptiles and amphibians, 197 00:15:51,120 --> 00:15:54,760 complete with the impression of their feathers, scales and skin. 198 00:15:54,760 --> 00:15:58,080 The biggest ants ever known 199 00:15:58,080 --> 00:16:02,000 and beetles, still with their colour after millions of years. 200 00:16:02,000 --> 00:16:04,560 Preserved in incredible detail are bats, 201 00:16:04,560 --> 00:16:10,280 snakes and even a miniature horse the size of a small dog. 202 00:16:10,280 --> 00:16:16,080 The first glimpses of kinds of creatures that are alive today. 203 00:16:16,080 --> 00:16:21,160 The Eocene Period is really the critical stage for mammal evolution. 204 00:16:21,160 --> 00:16:25,360 It's when all the old-timers, they are still around 205 00:16:25,360 --> 00:16:28,840 and the newcomers are coming strongly into the field. 206 00:16:28,840 --> 00:16:31,440 We have the first horses, the first carnivores, 207 00:16:31,440 --> 00:16:37,160 the first bats, the first whales. All these new mammals are evolving 208 00:16:37,160 --> 00:16:40,520 in the Eocene and, of course, the primates, they are thriving. 209 00:16:42,480 --> 00:16:45,320 But which were our ancestors? 210 00:16:48,360 --> 00:16:54,000 Until now, no complete primate has ever been found in the Messel Pit, 211 00:16:54,000 --> 00:16:57,960 and even this specimen was almost lost forever. 212 00:17:02,760 --> 00:17:08,160 Fossil hunters have dug in the Messel Pit for generations, 213 00:17:08,160 --> 00:17:12,680 collecting and selling the specimens as works of art, 214 00:17:12,680 --> 00:17:17,280 just such a fossil hunter must have dug this primate from the shale. 215 00:17:17,280 --> 00:17:23,080 Who this was is still a mystery, but we do know they took her away, 216 00:17:23,080 --> 00:17:25,160 perfectly preserved her in resin 217 00:17:25,160 --> 00:17:29,800 and locked her away from view for 25 years. 218 00:17:32,720 --> 00:17:35,880 It's like having your unknown Rembrandt, 219 00:17:35,880 --> 00:17:39,040 your unknown Van Gogh, at home. 220 00:17:39,040 --> 00:17:43,160 You can see it every day. The rest of the world don't know about it. 221 00:17:43,160 --> 00:17:47,680 And it makes you kind of feel powerful I think to have something like that. 222 00:17:58,480 --> 00:18:01,440 Fortunately, now she's with Jorn, 223 00:18:01,440 --> 00:18:05,480 her secrets can be revealed to the world and the team in Oslo 224 00:18:05,480 --> 00:18:09,920 are starting to examine and describe her skeleton bone by bone. 225 00:18:11,960 --> 00:18:15,920 By why are fossils from the Messel Pit so well preserved? 226 00:18:27,240 --> 00:18:32,640 It's thanks to the formation of the Messel Pit 50 million years ago. 227 00:18:39,160 --> 00:18:44,240 Deep underground, molten rock, magma, forced its way upwards. 228 00:18:47,000 --> 00:18:51,400 Just below the surface, it meant a layer of ground water. 229 00:18:51,400 --> 00:18:54,960 Superheated steam generated incredible pressure. 230 00:18:54,960 --> 00:18:58,240 The rock was ripped apart. 231 00:18:58,240 --> 00:19:01,160 A series of massive explosions 232 00:19:01,160 --> 00:19:04,000 created a crater a mile wide. 233 00:19:07,200 --> 00:19:11,800 Inside its steep walls, an incredibly deep lake formed. 234 00:19:11,800 --> 00:19:16,960 It was probably at least 100m deep and the waters were still. 235 00:19:20,200 --> 00:19:21,840 When animals fell in, 236 00:19:21,840 --> 00:19:26,440 they drifted down and were soon covered by mud at the bottom. 237 00:19:26,440 --> 00:19:31,000 There was no oxygen and few bacteria to induce decay. 238 00:19:31,000 --> 00:19:33,600 Undisturbed for millions of years, 239 00:19:33,600 --> 00:19:37,880 the bodies, buried under tonnes of mud, were squashed flat. 240 00:19:43,760 --> 00:19:47,440 It is the Messel Pit's extraordinary geological history 241 00:19:47,440 --> 00:19:52,120 that allows Jorn to pinpoint exactly when this fossil lived. 242 00:19:57,840 --> 00:20:02,160 The start of this whole lake, where the fossil was found, 243 00:20:02,160 --> 00:20:07,280 that was a volcanic explosion, and parts of that volcanics 244 00:20:07,280 --> 00:20:11,120 that came out in the explosion, they are like time capsules. 245 00:20:11,120 --> 00:20:16,080 And it's possible to date the radioactive isotopes 246 00:20:16,080 --> 00:20:20,560 in such volcanic rocks very, very precisely. 247 00:20:20,560 --> 00:20:25,240 And this has been done for this volcanics and it's 47 million years. 248 00:20:27,800 --> 00:20:32,440 Despite the millions of years that have passed since these animals were alive, 249 00:20:32,440 --> 00:20:35,000 their bodies have been preserved in such detail 250 00:20:35,000 --> 00:20:37,920 that they give us a full picture of their world. 251 00:20:40,360 --> 00:20:44,560 The preservation at Messel really brings things to life and you can 252 00:20:44,560 --> 00:20:50,000 really get a feel for this as an animal and not just as something... 253 00:20:50,000 --> 00:20:51,840 A pile of bones, long dead. 254 00:20:53,000 --> 00:20:56,840 Eocene Europe was very different than it is today. 255 00:20:56,840 --> 00:21:01,360 Continents have drifted, sea levels changed. 256 00:21:01,360 --> 00:21:06,040 Then the world's climate was more humid and tropical. 257 00:21:08,840 --> 00:21:14,960 The primates' home around the lake was a lush, tropical rainforest, 258 00:21:14,960 --> 00:21:20,120 a green canopy of trees stretched as far as the eye could see. 259 00:21:20,120 --> 00:21:23,720 In the skies were birds and bats. 260 00:21:28,720 --> 00:21:30,960 On the ground, 261 00:21:30,960 --> 00:21:34,840 new kinds of furry, warm-blooded creatures were flourishing, 262 00:21:34,840 --> 00:21:36,480 the early mammals. 263 00:21:36,480 --> 00:21:41,240 This is where our fossil lived out her life as a prehistoric primate. 264 00:21:46,640 --> 00:21:52,120 She lived in a dense jungle of tall trees and vines. 265 00:21:53,640 --> 00:21:56,720 As the team continue to examine her skeleton, 266 00:21:56,720 --> 00:21:59,200 they're able to deduce how she lived. 267 00:22:00,720 --> 00:22:05,080 All through looking at the skeleton, we can be for sure 268 00:22:05,080 --> 00:22:09,840 that it was living on trees because when you are looking at the thumb 269 00:22:09,840 --> 00:22:13,760 and also at the big toe of the feet, 270 00:22:13,760 --> 00:22:19,440 you can see that these were grasping hands and grasping feet. 271 00:22:19,440 --> 00:22:24,920 So these were feet constructed for 272 00:22:24,920 --> 00:22:28,880 an animal living on trees, evidently, ja. No doubt about that. 273 00:22:34,240 --> 00:22:38,280 It's possible to say something about the size of the muscles 274 00:22:38,280 --> 00:22:41,080 from the attachment points on the bones. 275 00:22:41,080 --> 00:22:45,360 What's special about this small skeleton is really that both 276 00:22:45,360 --> 00:22:51,120 the arms and legs are quite short and quite strong for such a small animal. 277 00:22:51,120 --> 00:22:55,120 So probably she had quite a lot of muscles. 278 00:22:59,320 --> 00:23:04,200 This new information adds to the picture the team are building 279 00:23:04,200 --> 00:23:10,840 of a strong, muscular creature living high in the tree tops of the Eocene rainforest. 280 00:23:20,840 --> 00:23:22,600 But what did she eat? 281 00:23:32,560 --> 00:23:35,760 To understand precisely what she ate, 282 00:23:35,760 --> 00:23:38,800 the team look at her teeth. 283 00:23:47,040 --> 00:23:53,560 Dr Holly Smith is an internationally renowned dental anthropologist. 284 00:23:53,560 --> 00:23:57,200 She wants to see inside the fossil's mouth, 285 00:23:57,200 --> 00:24:00,640 but it's been firmly shut for 47 million years. 286 00:24:00,640 --> 00:24:03,680 Only detailed X-rays have enabled her 287 00:24:03,680 --> 00:24:07,400 to examine the shape and structure of the fossil's teeth. 288 00:24:08,400 --> 00:24:13,800 So the Messel primate has a nice, kind of general primate dentition 289 00:24:13,800 --> 00:24:15,960 that could do a little of everything. 290 00:24:15,960 --> 00:24:19,200 She's got a little bit of an incising surface. 291 00:24:19,200 --> 00:24:22,920 She's going to have plenty of piercing teeth. 292 00:24:22,920 --> 00:24:27,000 She has molars that are general but have some kind of slicing edges. 293 00:24:27,000 --> 00:24:31,880 And we would expect that a real primate, a real arboreal primate, 294 00:24:31,880 --> 00:24:34,240 would be eating probably fruit and leaves 295 00:24:34,240 --> 00:24:36,720 and maybe supplementing that with insects. 296 00:24:38,480 --> 00:24:44,200 This extraordinary preservation is not restricted to her teeth. 297 00:24:44,200 --> 00:24:47,480 As well as the fur, there are other delicate details 298 00:24:47,480 --> 00:24:52,800 that provide information which never ceases to astonish them. 299 00:24:52,800 --> 00:24:56,600 What's amazing about this specimen is also that 300 00:24:56,600 --> 00:24:59,000 we can actually see its gut contents. 301 00:24:59,000 --> 00:25:03,280 It's the last meal preserved in this small female. 302 00:25:04,560 --> 00:25:07,760 Even with this nugget of petrified treasure, 303 00:25:07,760 --> 00:25:10,480 decoding the fossil's secrets doesn't come easy. 304 00:25:11,680 --> 00:25:14,160 But Jens manages to puzzle it out. 305 00:25:15,680 --> 00:25:20,320 Before I had seen that several times and I thought all the time, 306 00:25:20,320 --> 00:25:24,040 "Oh, that's a scale of a fish quite common in Messel." 307 00:25:24,040 --> 00:25:27,000 And then I saw the cell structure 308 00:25:27,000 --> 00:25:32,680 and I realised, "Oh, no! This must be the remnant of a plant." 309 00:25:32,680 --> 00:25:38,080 And then looking at the morphometry and at the form of that particle, 310 00:25:38,080 --> 00:25:43,920 it became immediately clear that this can only be a seed, ja. 311 00:25:47,600 --> 00:25:50,600 So it seems that just before she died, 312 00:25:50,600 --> 00:25:55,440 this tree-dwelling primate fed on fruits, seeds and leaves. 313 00:25:57,240 --> 00:26:00,800 As the team examined the X-rays in more detail, 314 00:26:00,800 --> 00:26:04,120 something just isn't adding up. 315 00:26:04,120 --> 00:26:06,680 They've realised that her jaw held 316 00:26:06,680 --> 00:26:10,240 an extraordinarily large number of teeth. 317 00:26:14,680 --> 00:26:18,800 This is the radiograph from this side and you see 318 00:26:18,800 --> 00:26:21,760 the drawing of the teeth matches pretty well. 319 00:26:22,640 --> 00:26:26,280 The team have a real puzzle on their hands. 320 00:26:26,280 --> 00:26:30,520 They're going to need more than a standard X-ray to solve it. 321 00:26:32,200 --> 00:26:34,880 The Senckenberg Institute in Germany 322 00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:39,400 specialises in high-end computer tomography, CT scanning. 323 00:26:39,400 --> 00:26:43,440 Images of the rotating fossil are recorded and manipulated 324 00:26:43,440 --> 00:26:48,920 by powerful computers, which, just like a CAT scan in a hospital, 325 00:26:48,920 --> 00:26:52,560 create an image of the fossil's jaw in 3-D. 326 00:26:52,560 --> 00:26:55,760 Then we've taken X-rays and so you can get 327 00:26:55,760 --> 00:26:58,720 the shadows of what's behind what you can see. 328 00:26:58,720 --> 00:27:02,760 And then in the last year, we've done computerised tomography, 329 00:27:02,760 --> 00:27:05,640 where you literally... you project X-rays 330 00:27:05,640 --> 00:27:10,880 in a way that literally slices the fossil into many, many, many slices 331 00:27:10,880 --> 00:27:13,200 and made into a three-dimensional image, 332 00:27:13,200 --> 00:27:17,600 so you can literally step through from the front to the back. 333 00:27:17,600 --> 00:27:21,280 You can even manipulate the CT scan so that you see 334 00:27:21,280 --> 00:27:24,720 what you're looking at, not from the front, but from the back. 335 00:27:24,720 --> 00:27:27,440 It's as if there are no secrets. 336 00:27:28,440 --> 00:27:32,040 The best person to help analyse such phenomenally detailed 337 00:27:32,040 --> 00:27:35,640 three-dimensional images is the scanner supervisor 338 00:27:35,640 --> 00:27:37,440 Dr Jorg Habersetzer. 339 00:27:39,840 --> 00:27:42,640 Here is the region of the molars. 340 00:27:42,640 --> 00:27:48,080 And if we zoom in, which is not possible on normal CTs, 341 00:27:48,080 --> 00:27:52,120 we see all the details preserved in three dimensions. 342 00:27:52,120 --> 00:27:54,920 So we can follow up all ridges 343 00:27:54,920 --> 00:27:59,480 and the cusp of the teeth in a three-dimensional way. 344 00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:06,400 This computer tomography has revealed something extraordinary. 345 00:28:08,760 --> 00:28:12,760 You can also see, for example on this assemblage, 346 00:28:12,760 --> 00:28:18,720 that the second molar here has not evolved complete roots, 347 00:28:18,720 --> 00:28:25,760 whereas in the first molar we have here already very solid roots. 348 00:28:25,760 --> 00:28:30,920 Here is the answer to why they found so many teeth in the fossil's mouth. 349 00:28:34,880 --> 00:28:39,520 She has her baby teeth as well as her unerupted adult's teeth 350 00:28:39,520 --> 00:28:42,440 still buried in her jaw. 351 00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:44,920 This primate was a youngster. 352 00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:54,040 So this Messel primate was caught at a really interesting 353 00:28:54,040 --> 00:28:56,200 and very distinctive time in her life. 354 00:28:56,200 --> 00:29:00,480 She's clearly no longer an infant, 355 00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:02,440 but she's not grown up. 356 00:29:02,440 --> 00:29:07,800 She's a juvenile. She might be, let's say, very roughly comparable 357 00:29:07,800 --> 00:29:12,280 to something in a human like a child somewhere between six and 12. 358 00:29:17,560 --> 00:29:23,640 It was a girl, a small girl, which had this tragic end 359 00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:28,760 there in the crater lake of Messel 47 million years ago, ja. 360 00:29:28,760 --> 00:29:32,800 She's in a developmental phase that looks very much like 361 00:29:32,800 --> 00:29:36,040 a six-year-old human in comparison 362 00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:40,000 and I'm so lucky that I have a daughter that's five-years-old 363 00:29:40,000 --> 00:29:43,520 and she's starting to shed her teeth just now. 364 00:29:43,520 --> 00:29:46,880 So we decided, after some discussion, 365 00:29:46,880 --> 00:29:51,840 to name the fossil, to name this wonderful little primate, Ida, 366 00:29:51,840 --> 00:29:54,320 because that's the name of my daughter. 367 00:29:54,320 --> 00:29:55,600 LITTLE GIRL LAUGHS 368 00:29:59,200 --> 00:30:03,320 So Jorn now has two Idas in his life. 369 00:30:03,320 --> 00:30:07,680 One five-years-old and one 47 million. 370 00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:15,120 At this point in the investigation, they've gathered so much information 371 00:30:15,120 --> 00:30:18,960 that it's possible to fully reconstruct her ancient skeleton. 372 00:30:23,520 --> 00:30:27,040 Her 47-million-year-old remains 373 00:30:27,040 --> 00:30:32,960 can be brought to life in the 21st-century virtual world. 374 00:30:36,480 --> 00:30:40,200 Laser scanners, combined with the computerised tomography, 375 00:30:40,200 --> 00:30:43,600 produce a digital code of her body, 376 00:30:43,600 --> 00:30:47,760 which, once processed, creates an accurate 3-D model. 377 00:30:51,160 --> 00:30:56,720 We are able, using these tools, to see Ida as never before. 378 00:31:05,080 --> 00:31:08,480 Ida is a warm-blooded creature covered in thick fur. 379 00:31:08,480 --> 00:31:12,480 She was just under a metre long, including her tail, 380 00:31:12,480 --> 00:31:15,720 which she used for balance as she scampered on all fours 381 00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:17,880 through the rainforest canopy. 382 00:31:17,880 --> 00:31:22,400 Her opposable thumbs and toes gripped the branches. 383 00:31:22,400 --> 00:31:25,280 Ida was probably active at night. 384 00:31:25,280 --> 00:31:28,120 Like us, her two large, forward-facing eyes 385 00:31:28,120 --> 00:31:31,240 gave her excellent stereoscopic vision. 386 00:31:51,080 --> 00:31:55,680 The team's extensive analysis, combined with X-rays and CT scans, 387 00:31:55,680 --> 00:32:00,520 have brought them a long way in understanding Ida. 388 00:32:00,520 --> 00:32:03,040 The investigation is however far from over. 389 00:32:03,040 --> 00:32:05,440 There are still many questions to answer. 390 00:32:08,920 --> 00:32:10,920 Most importantly, 391 00:32:10,920 --> 00:32:15,720 how significant is she to our understanding of our evolution? 392 00:32:15,720 --> 00:32:20,280 Does she belong on the evolutionary branch that leads to us? 393 00:32:30,800 --> 00:32:34,040 The Eocene Period in which she lived 394 00:32:34,040 --> 00:32:38,200 was a crucial time in the history of life. 395 00:32:38,200 --> 00:32:42,800 Without the developments that happened, we would not exist now. 396 00:32:42,800 --> 00:32:45,600 At some point during this new dawn, 397 00:32:45,600 --> 00:32:49,200 the primates split into two major groups. 398 00:32:51,360 --> 00:32:55,480 The prosimians, the non-human branch, 399 00:32:55,480 --> 00:32:59,320 which still survive mainly as modern lemurs. 400 00:33:03,960 --> 00:33:06,360 The other branch, the anthropoids, 401 00:33:06,360 --> 00:33:09,520 developed into monkeys, apes 402 00:33:09,520 --> 00:33:13,840 and, ultimately, us, humans. 403 00:33:20,880 --> 00:33:24,280 Well, the advance of having a skeleton this complete 404 00:33:24,280 --> 00:33:28,280 is hopefully it will let us make the connection to what came later. 405 00:33:28,280 --> 00:33:32,200 In a sense, studying primate evolution is all about 406 00:33:32,200 --> 00:33:38,600 looking at the diversity living today and tracing that back through time. 407 00:33:38,600 --> 00:33:42,040 We're interested here to see how apes and monkeys trace back. 408 00:33:42,040 --> 00:33:43,560 How lemurs trace back. 409 00:33:43,560 --> 00:33:48,920 And which of these, or all of them, can we find in the Eocene. 410 00:33:50,440 --> 00:33:52,440 But what is Ida? 411 00:33:52,440 --> 00:33:57,600 Is she our ancestor or is she on the non-human line, a lemur? 412 00:33:57,600 --> 00:34:01,200 Any partial primate remains discovered at Messel so far 413 00:34:01,200 --> 00:34:04,480 have been described as lemurs. 414 00:34:04,480 --> 00:34:08,280 The first guess, of course, because of the other specimens that's found 415 00:34:08,280 --> 00:34:11,880 from the Messel locality is to say, "OK, this is a primitive lemur." 416 00:34:13,680 --> 00:34:16,360 Most lemurs are the size of monkeys 417 00:34:16,360 --> 00:34:19,680 and have similar habits and lifestyles. 418 00:34:19,680 --> 00:34:22,200 But they are an evolutionary side branch. 419 00:34:22,200 --> 00:34:26,440 They've hardly changed fundamentally in 47 million years. 420 00:34:32,440 --> 00:34:36,040 If Ida is closely related to modern lemurs, 421 00:34:36,040 --> 00:34:39,040 then she cannot be a human ancestor. 422 00:34:39,040 --> 00:34:43,360 It's a critical stage of the investigation. 423 00:34:43,360 --> 00:34:47,600 It's really important to compare this fossil to living lemurs 424 00:34:47,600 --> 00:34:52,600 because living lemurs have many not so advanced traits. 425 00:34:52,600 --> 00:34:55,280 And a lot of the traits that we see in lemurs today 426 00:34:55,280 --> 00:35:00,360 is the same things that we should look for in the Eocene, 427 00:35:00,360 --> 00:35:02,960 when all primates were really primitive. 428 00:35:11,720 --> 00:35:18,320 Dental expert Dr Holly Smith is at Duke Lemur Centre in North Carolina. 429 00:35:20,000 --> 00:35:24,920 This is the world's largest research centre for the non-human line 430 00:35:24,920 --> 00:35:28,800 of primates and here they have a great variety of them, 431 00:35:28,800 --> 00:35:31,560 including tarsiers, loris and lemurs. 432 00:35:35,200 --> 00:35:39,360 Is there one that is particularly similar to Ida? 433 00:35:42,040 --> 00:35:48,120 The Messel primate isn't exactly like anything living 434 00:35:48,120 --> 00:35:53,160 and one of the questions is, is it general enough 435 00:35:53,160 --> 00:35:58,280 to have been a possible ancestor for the higher primates, 436 00:35:58,280 --> 00:36:02,560 the apes and monkeys and perhaps these animals, too? 437 00:36:02,560 --> 00:36:08,400 Or was it already specially off on a line to lemurs? 438 00:36:09,480 --> 00:36:13,160 But if you want to study one of these creatures, there's a problem. 439 00:36:13,160 --> 00:36:15,760 Getting it to keep still. 440 00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:24,440 Fortunately, this loris is being examined under sedation by the centre's vet. 441 00:36:24,440 --> 00:36:31,400 And we're doing a physical exam, his annual physical exam, under sedation. 442 00:36:36,240 --> 00:36:39,400 By having a really close look at this animal, 443 00:36:39,400 --> 00:36:44,200 we can see characteristics that proves it is not our close relative. 444 00:36:50,680 --> 00:36:56,200 Most of their toes have toenails like we would have, 445 00:36:56,200 --> 00:37:01,240 but this second digit has a long grooming claw. 446 00:37:02,760 --> 00:37:07,080 All lower primates have such a grooming claw on the hind foot. 447 00:37:13,800 --> 00:37:17,080 They can use that for grooming their fur 448 00:37:17,080 --> 00:37:21,440 and you can see a primate's got a really lush, thick coat of fur 449 00:37:21,440 --> 00:37:24,560 and keeping that in condition is important. 450 00:37:25,600 --> 00:37:29,000 The vet continues by checking this creature's teeth, 451 00:37:29,000 --> 00:37:31,400 Holly's particular expertise. 452 00:37:31,400 --> 00:37:34,600 He reveals another important characteristic 453 00:37:34,600 --> 00:37:39,040 that places it on the non-human branch of evolution. 454 00:37:39,040 --> 00:37:45,560 So he has the upper incisors here, the canines, and then on the bottom, 455 00:37:45,560 --> 00:37:49,280 his incisors and canines form this tooth comb. 456 00:37:50,880 --> 00:37:55,560 These animals have unusual front teeth in their lower jaw. 457 00:37:55,560 --> 00:38:00,920 Where we and apes and monkeys have separate front teeth, 458 00:38:00,920 --> 00:38:04,160 these creatures have a tooth comb. 459 00:38:05,680 --> 00:38:11,280 Some of the lemur's specialisation is used for getting food, 460 00:38:11,280 --> 00:38:14,920 but it's also used for grooming fur and grooming each other. 461 00:38:16,440 --> 00:38:19,840 The big question for Jorn and the team is, 462 00:38:19,840 --> 00:38:23,400 does Ida belong with them or with us? 463 00:38:23,400 --> 00:38:27,320 Does she have the grooming claw and a tooth comb? 464 00:38:31,000 --> 00:38:34,880 So looking at this toe here, 465 00:38:34,880 --> 00:38:38,520 certainly, it's just as wide as the others. 466 00:38:38,520 --> 00:38:41,440 There's not a pointy toe tip, 467 00:38:41,440 --> 00:38:45,920 like you expect in lemurs when there's a toilet claw present. 468 00:38:45,920 --> 00:38:47,600 There's nothing like this here. 469 00:38:47,600 --> 00:38:49,640 This is also nail-bearing. 470 00:38:49,640 --> 00:38:56,120 One of the other main lemur traits is, of course, a tooth comb. 471 00:38:56,120 --> 00:39:00,000 And we would expect this, of course, in the front of the snout 472 00:39:00,000 --> 00:39:02,000 and there's no tooth comb here at all. 473 00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:05,120 There's nothing like that in this specimen. 474 00:39:06,160 --> 00:39:10,480 Ida's skeleton is over 95% complete, so the team know 475 00:39:10,480 --> 00:39:14,600 that these features haven't been lost in collection or preparation. 476 00:39:16,400 --> 00:39:19,800 Put simply, she never possessed them. 477 00:39:21,640 --> 00:39:26,200 Unlike the other fossils found in the ancient Messel Pit, 478 00:39:26,200 --> 00:39:28,360 she is not a lemur. 479 00:39:28,360 --> 00:39:32,080 She must be a member of another group. 480 00:39:32,080 --> 00:39:36,000 Could she be in a group connected to us? 481 00:39:38,200 --> 00:39:41,080 In the beginning, we all thought 482 00:39:41,080 --> 00:39:46,080 we are just dealing with a certain kind of fossil lemur 483 00:39:46,080 --> 00:39:49,200 and, step by step, our ideas changed 484 00:39:49,200 --> 00:39:53,560 and more and more anthropoid traits 485 00:39:53,560 --> 00:39:58,840 turned up and now we are really thinking of relationships 486 00:39:58,840 --> 00:40:05,560 to anthropoids, to hominoids finally and at the end to man. 487 00:40:07,160 --> 00:40:12,240 The team have shown that Ida is not on the lemur line of evolution. 488 00:40:13,800 --> 00:40:16,080 But is she on the human line? 489 00:40:25,560 --> 00:40:30,000 Jorn and the team want to look to the forests of East Africa 490 00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:33,360 and our closest relative, the chimpanzee. 491 00:40:37,280 --> 00:40:41,720 If we look at the anthropoid primates, we have to go to Africa 492 00:40:41,720 --> 00:40:45,080 to look at chimpanzees to see something that's more advanced, 493 00:40:45,080 --> 00:40:51,000 more specialised, in a way that's a little bit more like human traits. 494 00:40:51,000 --> 00:40:54,680 It's wonderful. You can compare them 495 00:40:54,680 --> 00:40:58,680 and you can compare their skeletal features with Ida. 496 00:41:00,800 --> 00:41:06,320 Ida shares the classic primate characteristics with chimps. 497 00:41:06,320 --> 00:41:07,920 They are quadrupeds, 498 00:41:07,920 --> 00:41:13,120 walking on all fours, as she would have done in the ancient forest. 499 00:41:13,120 --> 00:41:17,160 Strikingly, their hands and feet are almost identical - 500 00:41:17,160 --> 00:41:20,000 five fingers and five toes. 501 00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:25,440 And her opposable big toe, the trait that first identified her to Jorn 502 00:41:25,440 --> 00:41:28,320 as a primate, is mirrored in the chimpanzees. 503 00:41:30,040 --> 00:41:34,880 It enables both of them to grasp tree branches and climb. 504 00:41:36,400 --> 00:41:38,720 Looking at modern-day chimpanzees 505 00:41:38,720 --> 00:41:41,480 and looking at the foot of a chimpanzee 506 00:41:41,480 --> 00:41:44,360 and looking at especially the ankle bones, 507 00:41:44,360 --> 00:41:47,280 they are so much the same as in the fossil. 508 00:41:48,800 --> 00:41:51,240 At this stage of the investigation, 509 00:41:51,240 --> 00:41:56,200 Ida is showing some basic human-like characteristics in her skeleton, 510 00:41:56,200 --> 00:41:59,760 but her body proportions and the length of her fingers 511 00:41:59,760 --> 00:42:02,120 are nonetheless lemur-like. 512 00:42:02,120 --> 00:42:04,600 The picture is still unclear. 513 00:42:04,600 --> 00:42:08,360 It is, broadly speaking, a lemur monkey. 514 00:42:08,360 --> 00:42:13,400 How lemur it is and how monkey it is, is what we're trying to figure out. 515 00:42:13,400 --> 00:42:16,120 And so... 516 00:42:16,120 --> 00:42:19,360 it looks to me like it ties 517 00:42:19,360 --> 00:42:22,120 higher primates, apes and monkeys, 518 00:42:22,120 --> 00:42:26,840 into something in the Eocene that's clearly more primitive. 519 00:42:38,400 --> 00:42:46,400 The team are looking for any clear evidence in Ida's anatomy that links her to us. 520 00:42:46,400 --> 00:42:48,280 This is not an easy task. 521 00:42:48,280 --> 00:42:51,280 Establishing these links has always been a problem 522 00:42:51,280 --> 00:42:54,520 since the theory of evolution was first proposed. 523 00:42:59,800 --> 00:43:05,240 150 years ago, Charles Darwin explained the incredible diversity 524 00:43:05,240 --> 00:43:08,120 of life on earth in a new way. 525 00:43:12,280 --> 00:43:15,360 There are billions of species on the planet, 526 00:43:15,360 --> 00:43:20,000 but each was not individually and uniquely created. 527 00:43:20,000 --> 00:43:24,960 New species appeared as they adapted to a changing environment. 528 00:43:31,040 --> 00:43:34,600 At the time, Darwin's proposal was controversial. 529 00:43:37,640 --> 00:43:43,160 He argued that monkeys, apes and ourselves have a common ancestor. 530 00:43:43,160 --> 00:43:45,560 That ancestor, we now know, 531 00:43:45,560 --> 00:43:49,320 must have lived hundreds of millions of years ago. 532 00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:04,040 Darwin's idea was revolutionary 533 00:44:04,040 --> 00:44:08,280 and he was ridiculed by many in Victorian society. 534 00:44:08,280 --> 00:44:11,520 "Where is the proof?" his critics demanded. 535 00:44:11,520 --> 00:44:14,880 "Where is the half ape, half man fossil 536 00:44:14,880 --> 00:44:18,120 "that links us to ape-like ancestors? 537 00:44:18,120 --> 00:44:21,400 "And where is the even more ancient fossil 538 00:44:21,400 --> 00:44:25,840 "that links apes and ourselves to the rest of the animal kingdom?" 539 00:44:27,400 --> 00:44:30,880 Darwin predicted that such creatures must have existed, 540 00:44:30,880 --> 00:44:33,800 but he never could produce the fossil evidence. 541 00:44:33,800 --> 00:44:35,320 It was missing. 542 00:44:44,920 --> 00:44:49,440 Don Johanson is famous as the man who found 543 00:44:49,440 --> 00:44:54,080 what the world had been waiting for, one of those missing links. 544 00:44:54,080 --> 00:44:58,880 In the Ethiopian desert in 1974, as a young man, 545 00:44:58,880 --> 00:45:02,960 he uncovered the fossilised bones of an astonishing creature. 546 00:45:02,960 --> 00:45:05,440 He nicknamed it Lucy. 547 00:45:05,440 --> 00:45:08,040 Incredible. Just remarkable. 548 00:45:09,760 --> 00:45:13,200 Well, what we're looking at here is about 40% of a single skeleton, 549 00:45:13,200 --> 00:45:16,560 of course, the Lucy skeleton, which I found in 1974. 550 00:45:16,560 --> 00:45:20,080 And what's astonishing about it is we have parts of the upper limbs, 551 00:45:20,080 --> 00:45:22,480 the arms, we have parts of the lower limbs, 552 00:45:22,480 --> 00:45:24,720 both the thigh and the shin bone. 553 00:45:24,720 --> 00:45:28,880 Parts of the vertebral column, the backbone, and even the ribs. 554 00:45:28,880 --> 00:45:33,160 And when we mount her like this, when we make a display like this, 555 00:45:33,160 --> 00:45:35,440 one gets the impression of the body. 556 00:45:43,640 --> 00:45:46,040 Lucy looked like an ape, 557 00:45:46,040 --> 00:45:49,960 but she was beginning to show human characteristics in her skeleton. 558 00:45:49,960 --> 00:45:54,960 She turned out to be an extraordinary link in our own evolution. 559 00:45:58,760 --> 00:46:02,360 Finding Lucy, of course, it's a fantastic fossil 560 00:46:02,360 --> 00:46:05,880 that shows the upright position, the standing position, 561 00:46:05,880 --> 00:46:10,040 the walking of the first human-like ancestors. 562 00:46:10,040 --> 00:46:15,240 So she's a hallmark because she walks like us. 563 00:46:18,360 --> 00:46:20,440 One of the things that Lucy gives us 564 00:46:20,440 --> 00:46:24,840 is a real picture of what her pelvis looked like. 565 00:46:24,840 --> 00:46:27,960 The pelvis is obviously one of the most crucial 566 00:46:27,960 --> 00:46:31,560 anatomical regions in the body for the way animals get around. 567 00:46:31,560 --> 00:46:35,600 For example, if we look at an animal that walks on all fours, 568 00:46:35,600 --> 00:46:38,120 a quadruped, and in this case it's a chimpanzee, 569 00:46:38,120 --> 00:46:42,200 you can see that the hip bones - it's the one we feel just here - 570 00:46:42,200 --> 00:46:44,520 as you can see, are facing forwards. 571 00:46:44,520 --> 00:46:50,640 Whereas in humans, like ourselves, they have been rotated around 572 00:46:50,640 --> 00:46:53,880 so that the muscles on the back are now on the side. 573 00:46:53,880 --> 00:46:56,080 They're no longer facing backwards. 574 00:46:56,080 --> 00:46:57,960 And they stabilise the hip. 575 00:46:57,960 --> 00:47:01,120 So that when we walk, we walk as a striding gait. 576 00:47:01,120 --> 00:47:04,160 If you watch a chimpanzee walk bipedally, 577 00:47:04,160 --> 00:47:07,160 it walks like this, cos it's always collapsing. 578 00:47:07,160 --> 00:47:12,240 So animals that walk on all fours, like chimpanzees and Ida, 579 00:47:12,240 --> 00:47:18,360 have a very different hip bone to animals that walk on two, like us. 580 00:47:18,360 --> 00:47:20,880 But it was the shape of Lucy's bones 581 00:47:20,880 --> 00:47:25,000 that revealed an amazing fact about our own evolution. 582 00:47:25,000 --> 00:47:29,240 If you look at Lucy's pelvis, right here - 583 00:47:29,240 --> 00:47:32,200 we've reconstructed this side for the mirror image - 584 00:47:32,200 --> 00:47:34,840 it's not identical to a modern human. 585 00:47:34,840 --> 00:47:38,160 But clearly, it's shorter, broader 586 00:47:38,160 --> 00:47:42,560 and these blades, the hip bones, have been rotated around. 587 00:47:42,560 --> 00:47:47,080 So this is a clear adaptation to upright walking on the ground. 588 00:47:48,600 --> 00:47:51,120 Lucy had ape characteristics. 589 00:47:51,120 --> 00:47:53,560 She was hairy, like a chimpanzee. 590 00:47:53,560 --> 00:47:56,480 But she also had human characteristics. 591 00:47:56,480 --> 00:47:59,360 She walked on two legs, just as we do. 592 00:47:59,360 --> 00:48:04,280 Lucy was the half ape/half man species that Darwin predicted. 593 00:48:07,040 --> 00:48:10,920 But where was the link millions of years earlier 594 00:48:10,920 --> 00:48:14,600 between us and the rest of the animal kingdom? 595 00:48:14,600 --> 00:48:18,840 At this stage of the investigation, Ida's skeleton is showing 596 00:48:18,840 --> 00:48:24,040 a mixture of characteristics from the non-human and human line. 597 00:48:24,040 --> 00:48:29,360 This unusual combination is bringing Jorn and the team closer 598 00:48:29,360 --> 00:48:32,480 to deciding whether she is related to us. 599 00:48:32,480 --> 00:48:37,360 This jumble of different characters, it's very, very exciting, 600 00:48:37,360 --> 00:48:41,560 because you see things that are more anthropoid like. 601 00:48:41,560 --> 00:48:45,320 You see things that are certainly extremely primitive. 602 00:48:45,320 --> 00:48:49,800 You see things that maybe should be more like a lemur. 603 00:48:49,800 --> 00:48:53,240 And you see all these characters in the same skeleton 604 00:48:53,240 --> 00:48:57,120 and you need to try to explain evolution in a new way, 605 00:48:57,120 --> 00:49:01,040 the early evolution of primates, in a new way, because it's there. 606 00:49:01,040 --> 00:49:02,760 You cannot take them away. 607 00:49:02,760 --> 00:49:06,080 This is really one specimen that's frozen in time 608 00:49:06,080 --> 00:49:08,880 and all these characters are there. 609 00:49:10,640 --> 00:49:13,800 Jorn and the team are getting closer to proving 610 00:49:13,800 --> 00:49:18,400 that Ida is the ancestor of all monkeys, apes and humans. 611 00:49:18,400 --> 00:49:22,120 But they need to find final proof of that in her skeleton. 612 00:49:22,120 --> 00:49:27,040 Lucy's pelvis gave Johanson the proof of an ape/man. 613 00:49:27,040 --> 00:49:32,400 Finding an equivalent bone to link Ida to us is much more difficult. 614 00:49:34,520 --> 00:49:39,720 3.2 million years of evolution separate us from Lucy. 615 00:49:39,720 --> 00:49:43,760 But 47 million separate us from Ida. 616 00:49:43,760 --> 00:49:45,880 That's an immense length of time. 617 00:49:52,000 --> 00:49:57,080 Jorn and the team start scrutinising every inch of Ida's body, 618 00:49:57,080 --> 00:50:01,880 when suddenly they are distracted by something that tells them, 619 00:50:01,880 --> 00:50:07,120 not about OUR evolutionary story, but about HER personal story. 620 00:50:07,120 --> 00:50:12,720 Dr Jens Franzen was analysing Ida's wrist when he noticed something 621 00:50:12,720 --> 00:50:16,600 that suggests she may have suffered an injury in her young life. 622 00:50:19,600 --> 00:50:24,680 Suddenly I saw the small fragments of bone and this 623 00:50:24,680 --> 00:50:29,040 fine structure on the surface, which is typical for a bone. 624 00:50:29,040 --> 00:50:33,720 And so it was like a lightning at that point. "Ah, yes!" 625 00:50:33,720 --> 00:50:36,880 But really here, really it's possible to see it. 626 00:50:36,880 --> 00:50:41,960 Because the bone is in small, small pieces fused together 627 00:50:41,960 --> 00:50:46,960 at the end of the wrist. Yeah. It's not a nodule. 628 00:50:46,960 --> 00:50:51,200 It's not something that was formed after the animal was dead. Right. 629 00:50:51,200 --> 00:50:56,400 This is something that happened to her while she was still alive. 630 00:50:56,400 --> 00:51:02,280 What Jens found in the wrist, it's quite amazing, because 631 00:51:02,280 --> 00:51:08,040 it looks like the wrist here is broken and it's partly healed again. 632 00:51:08,040 --> 00:51:13,520 And when it healed, it was a lot of new bone 633 00:51:13,520 --> 00:51:20,160 forming on top of the joint for the hand. So her right hand 634 00:51:20,160 --> 00:51:23,760 was not functioning very well after this accident. 635 00:51:30,600 --> 00:51:35,760 Research on her bones has thrown up a tragic surprise. 636 00:51:35,760 --> 00:51:41,560 The lump on her right wrist shows that she broke it very badly early in her life. 637 00:51:42,640 --> 00:51:45,880 Maybe she was dropped by her mother. 638 00:51:45,880 --> 00:51:50,800 The wrist continued to grow, but it was badly deformed. 639 00:51:50,800 --> 00:51:52,720 Her hand didn't work well 640 00:51:52,720 --> 00:51:56,520 and the team believe she might not have been able to climb properly. 641 00:51:56,520 --> 00:52:01,080 She was probably forced to forage for food on the ground. 642 00:52:01,080 --> 00:52:03,360 And tragically for the injured Ida, 643 00:52:03,360 --> 00:52:07,720 the volcanic forces that formed the Messel lake were still active. 644 00:52:07,720 --> 00:52:11,480 They played a crucial role in her demise. 645 00:52:11,480 --> 00:52:15,520 The still waters of the lake were often covered 646 00:52:15,520 --> 00:52:19,640 by a low-lying blanket of gas, a poisonous but undetectable 647 00:52:19,640 --> 00:52:24,440 layer of carbon dioxide seeping from the ground. 648 00:52:24,720 --> 00:52:32,560 She was thirsty and so she went to the lake shore and tried 649 00:52:32,560 --> 00:52:38,960 to drink there, not realising that this was a bad day for her, 650 00:52:38,960 --> 00:52:44,360 because at that day such a poisonous gas layer had developed 651 00:52:44,360 --> 00:52:50,360 and so she must have lost immediately consciousness 652 00:52:50,360 --> 00:52:54,800 and then she fell into the water and she drowned. 653 00:52:56,720 --> 00:53:01,400 Sinking quickly through the waters, she slid into the mud, 654 00:53:01,400 --> 00:53:06,200 deep below the surface, where she lay for 47 million years. 655 00:53:14,680 --> 00:53:21,880 The bone in Ida's wrist has given the team an extraordinary personal story to Ida's death. 656 00:53:23,400 --> 00:53:28,160 But they're still looking for a bone to link her with us. 657 00:53:28,160 --> 00:53:31,160 They have exhaustively studied her skeleton 658 00:53:31,160 --> 00:53:33,520 throughout a long investigation. 659 00:53:33,520 --> 00:53:39,280 They're hoping she might be linked to our own ancestral line. 660 00:53:42,960 --> 00:53:45,880 It's been a long journey describing this fossil. 661 00:53:45,880 --> 00:53:50,280 From the start, where we all really believed strongly 662 00:53:50,280 --> 00:53:54,200 that she's a fantastic fossil but she's related to lemurs, 663 00:53:54,200 --> 00:53:59,200 until we now after unwinding one character after the other, 664 00:53:59,200 --> 00:54:03,280 finding that this doesn't fit, this doesn't fit. This is something else. 665 00:54:03,280 --> 00:54:05,120 And looking at it now, 666 00:54:05,120 --> 00:54:10,200 it looks so much more exciting even than a complete lemur. 667 00:54:10,200 --> 00:54:16,440 This is something much more important also for our own evolution. 668 00:54:16,440 --> 00:54:19,720 Jorn and the team still need to find 669 00:54:19,720 --> 00:54:23,520 that one conclusive piece of evidence that will allow them 670 00:54:23,520 --> 00:54:28,840 to be sure that she is our relative. It's only after two years of work 671 00:54:28,840 --> 00:54:31,520 that they make a startling new discovery. 672 00:54:33,360 --> 00:54:35,480 This is even shorter. 673 00:54:35,480 --> 00:54:38,240 There is a bone in Ida's foot 674 00:54:38,240 --> 00:54:41,760 that links her with every person on the planet. 675 00:54:41,760 --> 00:54:45,640 It could be the evidence that the first small adaptations 676 00:54:45,640 --> 00:54:50,520 towards walking upright happened 47 million years ago. 677 00:54:52,280 --> 00:54:56,280 The ankle born, the so-called talus in the Messel primate, 678 00:54:56,280 --> 00:55:01,960 shows exactly the evidence which we see still in ourselves, 679 00:55:01,960 --> 00:55:04,360 in human beings of today. 680 00:55:04,360 --> 00:55:09,240 Except that, of course, our bones are much bigger now. 681 00:55:09,240 --> 00:55:13,280 But they show the same kind of articulation, ja. 682 00:55:15,640 --> 00:55:18,320 A tiny bone in her ankle, the talus, 683 00:55:18,320 --> 00:55:22,240 is shaped like that of a modern human. 684 00:55:22,240 --> 00:55:24,880 It is critical in connecting the leg to the foot 685 00:55:24,880 --> 00:55:27,560 and is key for bearing weight. 686 00:55:27,560 --> 00:55:30,520 This is crucial in making it possible to walk upright. 687 00:55:31,520 --> 00:55:36,640 Its shape is restricted to monkeys, apes and humans. 688 00:55:36,640 --> 00:55:39,040 The lemurs and the other prosimians 689 00:55:39,040 --> 00:55:41,760 have a bone of a completely different shape. 690 00:55:43,280 --> 00:55:48,280 The shape of this bone tells something about the movement of the foot. 691 00:55:48,280 --> 00:55:51,320 And the movement of the foot of primates 692 00:55:51,320 --> 00:55:56,480 is quite different in different groups and this particular shape 693 00:55:56,480 --> 00:56:01,600 on the talus bone, it's very, very much like humans. 694 00:56:01,600 --> 00:56:06,200 This shaped foot bone makes Ida one of us. 695 00:56:06,200 --> 00:56:09,320 Our 47-million-year-old relative. 696 00:56:12,160 --> 00:56:15,400 We are really dealing with 697 00:56:15,400 --> 00:56:20,720 a very, very early root of anthropoids at Messel, ja. 698 00:56:27,240 --> 00:56:31,600 Ida comes from a crucial point in our evolution, 699 00:56:31,600 --> 00:56:37,240 when the early primates split into the human and non-human groups. 700 00:56:37,240 --> 00:56:41,120 She is a fusion of both. 701 00:56:41,120 --> 00:56:47,680 She is a transitional species, a link that is now no longer missing. 702 00:56:47,680 --> 00:56:51,680 It tells a part of our evolution that's been hidden so far. 703 00:56:51,680 --> 00:56:55,400 It's been hidden because all the other specimens are so incomplete. 704 00:56:55,400 --> 00:56:58,600 They're so broken, there's nothing almost to study. 705 00:56:58,600 --> 00:57:02,120 And now this wonderful fossil appears 706 00:57:02,120 --> 00:57:05,760 and it makes the story so much easier to tell. 707 00:57:05,760 --> 00:57:09,040 And so it's really a dream come true. 708 00:57:12,480 --> 00:57:15,440 We could all be descended from Ida. 709 00:57:16,960 --> 00:57:21,920 Jorn and his team believe they have discovered our earliest, complete primate ancestor. 710 00:57:25,240 --> 00:57:27,080 And remarkably, 711 00:57:27,080 --> 00:57:32,360 exactly 150 years after Darwin put forward the proposition 712 00:57:32,360 --> 00:57:36,080 that human beings were part of the rest of animal life, 713 00:57:36,080 --> 00:57:41,120 here at last we have a link which connects us 714 00:57:41,120 --> 00:57:43,760 with, not only the apes and monkeys, 715 00:57:43,760 --> 00:57:46,960 but also with the entire animal kingdom. 716 00:57:55,760 --> 00:58:00,320 This fossil turns out to be really important for us, as humans. 717 00:58:01,840 --> 00:58:05,040 This fossil is really a part of our history. 718 00:58:05,040 --> 00:58:08,160 Truly, a fossil that's a world heritage. 719 00:58:09,680 --> 00:58:13,520 This is the first link to human evolution, 720 00:58:13,520 --> 00:58:19,280 long before we started to divide into different ethnic groups. 721 00:58:19,280 --> 00:58:22,640 A find like this is something for all human kind. 722 00:58:49,800 --> 00:58:52,840 Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd 723 00:58:52,840 --> 00:58:56,360 E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk 65023

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