I have to admit to being a big fan of Discovery Channel, they do produce some of the best documentaries. I had the opportunity to get a sneak peek at Sundays blockbuster Discovering Ardi.
Ardi is the nickname that researchers have given to a 4.3 million year old partial skeleton found in Ethiopia. Ardi predates the well known Lucy find by over a million years. The scientific community has been crying out for earlier hominid examples, and Ardi fits the bill.
Ardi is actually short for the Latin name given to this fossil record of our ancestors, Ardipithecus ramidus. Is Ardi the ‘missing link’, that much sought after key in solving the riddle of where mankind came from? Certainly Lucy was touted with that title for several years, but Lucy was far from being that illusive proof.
Ardi was actually discovered in 1993, it has taken 15 years of study and research to unlock the secrets of this very early Hominid. She does indeed answer many questions. Even though the skeleton is far from complete, the researchers have learned a huge amount.
DISCOVERING ARDI is the result of a ten-year collaboration between the Middle Awash research project and Primary Pictures of Atlanta. Director Rod Paul and his team worked closely with the scientists to develop an unprecedented level of detail, accuracy and coverage of the discovery of Ardipithecus ramidus, much of it as it happened, on location in Ethiopia.
There are few projects that I can think of that a film company will stick with for 1 year, never mind 10 years. This is a two hour program, and I have to say that every minute teaches you something new. Discovering Ardi premiers on Sunday at 9pm PT/ET.
Simon Barrett
7 users commented in " TV Preview: Discovery Channel – Discovering Ardi "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a Trackbackhow do u know that Ardi Isn’t a boy? is it because the bones or that one kind of bone i forgot what its called.
Waz – Because it has breasts and hips wide enough to bear children.
Simon – Thanks for the article. I can’t wait to see this vverySunday. Sounds very interesting!
Ethiopia is the land where the human race started before mankind was categorized into white and colored. It is yet to be confirmed the cradle of civilization where farming began.
History owes the nation a lot as the oldest christiatians on the African continent. The fact that Ethiopia is the poorest and ill-ruled
state in Africa is witness to the countr’s anachronism. Ethiopia needs a radical revolution to enter the 21st century. The revolution should come from within and not from
without. We should not allow ferengis to rule
our life nor to play patron to us. Let us stop
demonstrating at the State Department or other
foreign embassies abroad. Thank you.
Thats goin to be awesome i like to see where we come from
Since when has a theory, become facted. Its amazing previous theories were fact. Now were supposed to believe. A newly discovered ape. Is one of our ancesters. Most of the time it lived in the trees. More like a monkey then man. Science needs say theory. When its just mans theories, not fact. I guess they have make a pay check too.
The show puports some major correlation between bipedallity and being human. But they ignore an obvious analogy between birds (and dinosaurs) which are also bipeds but never developed intelligence.
Discovery Channel seems more sensational than scientific
It’s an ape you goofs.
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