Science Friday - What Did It Feel Like To Be An Early Human?

Episode Date: October 23, 2025

Do science documentaries need a refresh? What if the goal wasn’t just teaching you something, but making you feel something? A new series from the BBC, airing on PBS, called “Human” tries to do just that. It tells the tale of our ancient family tree, embracing the complex and dramatic sides of the story. It asks: Who were the different species of humans that lived on this planet before us? What must it have been like to be in their shoes? And how did we become the only ones left standing? Ella Al-Shamahi, a paleoanthropologist and host of “Human,” tells SciFri Host Flora Lichtman about her vision for how to tell this story so that today’s humans lean in. Guest: Ella Al-Shamahi is a paleoanthropologist and the host of “Human” on BBC/PBS.Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Hey, I'm Flora Lickman, and you're listening to Science Friday. Today on the show, a new science doc on early human life leans into the Lord of the Ringsiness of it all. Like, it was a magical, magical kind of, like, it almost sounds like I'm a child and kind of making this stuff up, but I promise this is real science. Do TV science documentaries need a refresh? What if the goal wasn't just teaching you something,

but making you feel something? A new series on PBS called Human tries to do just that. It tells the complicated, dramatic tale of our ancient family tree. Who were the different species of humans that lived on this planet before us, and how did we become the only ones left standing? The show is hosted by paleoanthropologist Ella al-Shemahi, who had a vision for how to tell this story so that today's humans lean in. Ella, welcome to Science Friday.

Thank you for having me. Okay, what did you want to do differently with this series? Were there stylistic tropes you were, you know, working to avoid? So I have to say, I basically turned around kind of very early on and had certain ideas about what I wanted to do, should we say? And I think it's really funny because obviously, you know, I'm sitting there talking to incredibly seasoned filmmakers who made some of the, you know, the biggest science shows out there.

And there's this like, you know, in my mind, I'm still a little girl with pigtails being like, I have ideas. Well, what were the ideas? What did you want to do? Right. So I basically said, look, we need to put the human back into human evolution. My argument for a long time has been that you guys let David Attenborough give more emotion to ungulates than you will let me give to my ancestors and our ancestors.

And it doesn't make sense because by definition, to be human is to be emotional and to have a vast emotional range. And if we strip that when we tell our story, we're doing ourselves a real disservice. Now, obviously, the very next question and the right next question is, okay, but it has to be based in facts and you can't, you know, you don't know what some, you know, a Neanderthal was feeling a particular moment, but we know certain things about the way we behave. And so we can definitely speculate about the past. And so a very, very simple example is usually when we tell the story of us in the Neanderthals, for example, we mentioned that most people are, everybody outside of Sub-Saharan Africa, and even some people within South Saharan Africa, have some

Neanderthal DNA. It's like, wow, that's mind-boggling, it's amazing. And the way we got that was because, you know, our ancestors, some of them had sex with the Neanderthals. And I always joke, you know, there's a scandal in the family tree, so to speak. But here's where it gets really interesting, because usually that's kind of where the conversation ends. And I think it's bonkers to end there. Because actually, I think there should be a follow-up to that saying, what was that like? What was it like to be half Neanderthal and half Homo sapiens?

We have this clip, actually. I pulled this clip exactly to talk about it. So let's hear it. And then I want to get you to deconstruct it for us. What must it have been like to have been a hybrid child? Did these children feel like they belonged or were they teased and ostracized? We'll never know, but what we do know, because I held OASA one in my hands, is that they existed. And so somebody loved them and somebody was raising them to adulthood.

And so we tangibly know that the Neanderthals and the Homo sapiens, they didn't just meet, they joined. I thought this was such an arresting moment in the series because, you know, that narration, made what was moments before on the screen just a skull into a human being, not like a human ancestor, but into a person. And I also felt like, wow, that's a choice, too. Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's a choice. Okay. So, okay, so there's two things that I really need to say about this. One is that I hope that people understand that as an anthropologist, and particularly as an anthropologist who is of many cultures, shall we say, I'm British, but my parents are Arab. It would be weird. Just as an anthropologist, forget my lived experience, but just as an anthropologist

for me to not say, or to not ask the question, what was that like? And also, you know, what would the mother have been feeling? You know, would she be sitting there looking at her child saying, I hope they look more like my people? I hope they, for example, they don't look so Neanderthal so that the child doesn't get teased and ostracized. But you see how bizarre it would be to present a series on human evolution and not to take those moments and to go into the human emotion. But here's the thing that I don't understand. Why do you think this is such a tension in this genre? Like in history, we lean into the idea that these are dramatic emotional tales. Why is science always been sort of pitted against feeling? I don't.

get it. Truly. I do think part of it is that we are neurotic about caveats, you know. It's like, we've got these data points and we're like, okay, but can I tell you the 10 caveats that come with these data points in this conclusion? And I feel like if I don't tell you, you will judge me and I'll be misrepresenting this. And so I think that's part of it. I think a lot of that comes from a really good place. But it's just, I think it's just the way we've done science. And I, you know, look around you. We kind of live in the post-truth era, just stating facts to people. isn't enough. People need to feel moved. People need to feel a connection. But I think, you know, it was it was a real journey and a real risk because we didn't know how people

would respond. And I think I am quite confident in my background, I guess. I have, you know, a slightly unusual background, should we say, coming from a creationist background, and a missionary background. And so for me, I'm like, yo, guys, no, no, we've got to shake this up. We got to shake this up. Wait, tell me how that plays a role here. So I have, I have more or less not told this story until, until this summer. And what it is, is I was actually a missionary. I was a very, very active, a missionary. And I went to, I kind of love this. I went to University College London, which is just a very elite university. And for me, though, it was a real, put it like this, my degree took place in the Darwin building, the place where Charles Darwin himself once lived.

And so I, you know, I do get a kick out of, you know, me kind of turning up as this, I guess, incredibly arrogant, 18 year old, just assuming that I could, you know, destroy this Charles Darwin fellow's theory. And then, yeah, I know, I like, I have to make you go to this. I love it. It just reminds me of youth and, you know, what it was like to be young. Yeah, and natural selection stuff. Okay, all right. Give me a minute with it, guys. Give me a minute.

Almost 150 years of research hasn't done it, but Ella Ashemahi will do it. But I think, you know, I think as much as I really kind of joke about it and laugh about it, I was really concerned in telling this story. We humans are tribal. And that has been actually a huge boon. People don't always realize this because they see tribalism as kind of like, ah, fighting, etc., etc. But actually what it means is you coordinate more.

you cooperate more with your own people, which actually leads to real success by and large. But the thing is, the negative side of that is, we love our people. And if one of my people turns around and has an opinion and it's the opinion of all my tribe and some random person in a lab coat comes over and is just like, yeah, you're wrong on that, X, Y, Z. I'm not just going to, I am not just going to abandon my tribe. for this person in a lab coat. And I think in the way that we talk about the war on science, and I do feel that we can be incredibly derogatory to people who don't believe the science. And I'm like, fine, I get where some of that comes from, but you then need to understand.

And I am telling you, because I have this experience, this brutal period in my 20s, I know what it means to believe the science. And for some people, it means either leaving your tribe or schisming away from the thoughts of your tribe. And both of those are really difficult. The community that I kind of had to leave this missionary world, I left them. And it was what has been really interesting is in the space of 13 years, so many people who are deeply devout Muslims and are absolutely okay with the theory of evolution. And that didn't come about because non-practicing Muslims like me or atheists or agnostics

were sitting there kind of lecturing them. It came about because people within that community, scholars, thinkers, scientists were willing to do the work and willing to be the ambassadors for their own communities. So we have to be really, really careful about the way we talk to ambassadors from all religious, political, you know, etc., etc., persuasions. Because those are our, that they're our gateways. And actually, we need to be bringing them on board,

even if we don't agree with them on everything, because they're the best communicators to their own people. We have to take a quick break, but don't go away because when we come back, out of all the human species that lived, why were we the only ones that survived? We were the underdog. And if you were to have lined us up, even 100,000 years ago, and you were to line us all up and you were to say, right, who is your money on? I don't know it would have been on us. Let's talk about some of what you cover in the series. Let's talk about the story of our family tree.

You know, I feel like for so, I feel like, first of all, this story is changing every day, which makes it very fun as an outsider to follow. You know, I feel like when I started in this business, the story always was told where it started in East Africa, you know? And there was like this very specific rift valley that this is the cradle of civilization. It all began here. Does that idea still stand? No, it doesn't. And so now we think we're at least 300,000 years old. This process was across Africa.

But I think most people look around today and they see that we are clearly the most dominant form of life on Earth. And they just kind of assume that Homo sapiens turn up on the scene and we were always destined for greatness. It was game over for everyone else. And actually what often the public don't realize is that we were born into a world of many, many, many human species. we think there are at least six others wandering the planet at the same time.

Loads of people are familiar with the Neanderthals, but there are other species. There's a species called homo Florisianis, which is we kind of nicknamed the Hobbit because they were basically the size of, they were about metre tall, so that's three and a half feet tall. And they lived on this one island in Indonesia with elephants, elephant-like creatures that were miniature in the size of cows.

Like it was a magical, magical kind of like, it almost sounds like I'm a child and kind of making this stuff up, but I promise this is real science. And so for me, I wanted the public to understand we were born into a world of many. And the really juicy cherry on that cake is that we were the underdog. And if you were to have lined us up, even 100,000 years ago, and you were to line us all up, and you were to say, right, who is your money on? I don't know it would have been on us.

In fact, there's a really interesting example of a cave, two caves on Mount Caramel and Israel, where there was Neanderthals in one cave and there was a Homo sapiens cave so this was a great neighbourhood situation and we think it was kind of around the same time and one of them became locally extinct and it wasn't the Neanderthals it was us, we became locally extinct

so you can see time upon time these other species outpacing us, out-competing us or at being really, really tight and then suddenly we arrive But it's not just that we arrive, it's that we become the only species to survive. And we don't just end there. We kind of go on to build the pyramids and invent writing and build cities and technology, the likes of which nobody has ever seen.

Why were we the underdog? We were the underdog, partly because we were incredibly inexperienced. So these other species had been evolving to their local geographies and landscapes for hundreds of thousands of years. I think the best case that we have of that just because of the amount of data we have on it is the Neanderthals. So the Neanderthals, you know, it's very clear that we kept trying to enter into the Neanderthal territory and it failed for, you know, a long, long time for tens of thousands of years. We would kind of enter into Europe and parts of Central Asia and then

it just wouldn't work out and would become locally extinct. And then we'd do it again. And then, you know, and it was just, it was never working. And the, the best interpretation of that, in my opinion, and some people would disagree is that the Neanderthals were just out-compacing us. And it makes sense. They also had immunities to local diseases that they spent hundreds of thousands of years evolving to. There's a really fascinating mutation that exists in Tibetans that means that they can exist a high altitude. And they realized it came from the Denisovans, who some people might have heard of recently because they also got given the title Dragon Man, which is a brilliant name for a species, by the way, Dragon Man. So we think that they were probably living some of them at high altitude, and they'd already adapted to it. And then we come along and we interbreed with them.

And it's like a cheat. It's like a, you know. Is that the secret to our success, basically getting it on with other. I do think it really, really helped us. It's not the, it's not, I wouldn't say it's the biggest secret, but I think it really helped us. I think probably the biggest thing is that we, it's kind of in some ways a bit boring. I think there was a lot of us. I think there was a lot of us.

And we have a particular kind of brain that seems to be really interested in copying each other. this kind of neural plasticity. And I think when you get those kind of numbers with that kind of brain, what you end up with is this thing called cumulative culture, which is the idea that every generation builds upon the previous generations, art technology, you know, science, etc., etc. And we are the only species, certainly living, that kind of does it. We've always been sold this lie, I would say, of the lone genius.

And actually it's loads and loads and loads of people inventing. and that I think is a huge reason for our success. I know that you study Neanderthals. What do you like about them? Neanderthals are our sister species. There are closest relatives. But the thing as well with the Neanderthals is that they've constantly kind of been given this awful PR. They've been sold as like these knuckle-dragging ape men.

It's a dis. Yeah, yeah. You know, nobody's calling you a Neanderthal out of respect, shall I say. And what you realize is that actually that is an interpretation that partly suited us. It really suited us to portray ourselves as this kind of pinnacle of human evolution. And there were also some wonderful examples of Neanderthals beautifying themselves. You have a number of caves where you find that it looks like the Neanderthals were really after bright, iridescent feathers. and then you take a second and you go, oh my gosh, that is not the impression I had of a Neanderth.

But also, let me just say, telling the story of human evolution over 300,000 years, our species, story kind of across like what, seven continents, is an ambitious undertaking. I mean, I think in some ways the America's episode was a very, very, very complicated one to tell because we were trying to tell it in a slightly different way. When people talk about the invention of agriculture and farming and cities, they always tell it in the Middle East, right? It's always like a Middle Eastern story. So the first time the invention of farming and cities turns up in our series is in the Americas.

And I get such a kick out of that because it means that farming and cities were inventions whose time had come. And if it hadn't happened in the middle. What a profound idea. Isn't that? And I think, again, this is something people don't realize that a lot of, you know, sometimes there's that like, oh, who invented electricity? Who invented the television? It's like, you know what? We know that there's one person,

and then there's always a competing name. But actually, in reality, we could have wiped those two people off the map and somebody else would have invented it because that is just the nature. Once you have cumulative culture, once you have the kind of brains that we have and the number of people that we have,

those inventions are just going to start coming. Congratulations on the series. And thank you for trying to do something different with it. As a viewer, I appreciate it. Thank you so much for it. Thank you. Ella Al-Shimahi is a paleoanthropologist and host of the new documentary series, Human. And you can binge it on the PBS app. And a separate heads up that this year, because Halloween falls on a science Friday, we are holding our first ever spooky science Halloween costume contest. Are you dressing as a P-Fass molecule or AI slop or Marie Curie for the 20th year in a row? If so, this contest is for you, send us a pick of you in your cleverest. science-inspired costume, and you could win some fabulous sci-fry swag. Find out more at ScienceFriday.com slash Halloween. Today's episode was produced by D. Peter Schmidt. I'm Flora

Lickman. Thanks for listening.