Zeresenay Alemseged: Finding the origins of humanity

http://www.ted.com Paleoanthropologist Zeresenay Alemseged looks for the roots of humanity in Ethiopia's badlands. Here he talks about finding the oldest skeleton of a humanoid child -- and how Africa holds the clues to our humanity.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers are invited to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes -- including speakers such as Jill Bolte Taylor, Sir Ken Robinson, Hans Rosling, Al Gore and Arthur Benjamin. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, politics and the arts. Watch the Top 10 TEDTalks on TED.com, at
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/top10

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Zeresenay
• Alemseged
• TED
• TEDTalks
• Talks
• paleoanthropology
• Selam
• humanoid

[djfilitico]

isnt it great to see a man who thoroughly studied his craft and applied it in his field with results and presented them with hard evidence? and to have all that intellect tarnished by a bunch of monkeys on youtube who went on wikipedia (or the bible for that matter to prove their moot agenda?

[thunderbow]

that was nice how he tied our ancestry into a positive wish for the future.

[crudhousefull]

How great is this man. So young and probably had to work to reach the top amidst incredible challenges

[merawi100]

The most successful species in the universe. heh? I like that anyways.

[griskrossaren]

tell us more about the writings of the elephants!

[magick205]

@fdzwes: Considering that no genetic material has been found in any fosillized afarensis remains it's impossible to make that generalization. Please cite what paper or other peer-reviewed research you think supports your view in this (and not the Rak-Ginsberg paper).

[snotverdorie]

Austalopithecus might not be a direct ancestor, we really are not 100% sure about that . What we are sure of is that we share a common ancestor. The fact that Australopithecus was much more humanlike than any ape species living today, shows our close genetic relation. I don't want to be rude, but Jesus was in fact a descendant of a common ancester of both homo sapiens and australopithecus, shaped by natural selection. We all are, and it's nothing to be sad about.

[liyish]

I cannot concentrate on this speech! I find u so hot!

[fdzwes]

It's funny. You were probably one who voted thumbs down on my comment on this subject. You probably thought my comment was religiously based. Now that Lucy is proven to not be a genetic ancestor to us modern humans can't you see how foolish a strictly materialistic worldview can make people appear?

[fdzwes]

Now that Lucy has been proven to not be a genetic ancestor to us modern humans are you willing to amend your response here? Or does your worldview not rely on evidence?