Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe How long have we been human? (featuring Dr. Scott Solomon)
24 snips
Nov 25, 2025 AI Snips
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Episode notes
Chimpanzees Are Our Closest Living Relatives
- Genetic comparisons show chimpanzees are our closest living relatives, closer than gorillas.
- DNA allows building family trees and dating the human-chimpanzee split to ~6–7 million years ago.
Evolution Was A Branching Bush
- Human evolution is not a straight ladder but a branching bush with many contemporaneous lineages.
- Many hominid species existed that did not directly lead to Homo sapiens.
Why Olduvai Gorge Yields So Many Fossils
- Olduvai Gorge preserved fossils because a lake drew animals and volcanic ash buried remains.
- Erosion later exposed those layers so researchers could find abundant fossils on the surface.