>>SANJAY GUPTA: Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
I am delighted to be here.
It's a great honor for me.
And [? Alan ?] will tell you.
Everyone here will tell you
that I jumped at the opportunity
to be able to be in front
of all of you tonight.
Dr. Richard Leakey
and Donald Johannson
are the two best known
anthropologists alive today.
Just think about that.
Between them, they have
spent nearly 100 years
searching for human
fossils in eastern Africa.
Some of most important fossil
finds of our time, really,
that have placed a real bearing
on human evolution and answer
a lot of questions,
including 3.2 million year
old Lucy, and 1.5 million
year old Turkana boy,
recovered by their teams.
Just a little bit of background.
Tonight is a real treat,
ladies and gentleman.
That's how I feel about it.
It's a discussion
about from where
we came, how exactly it
may have all happened,
and who we are as human beings.
They are big questions.
Tonight is also
about real evidence--
that's going to be a focus--
But also about the spiritual
belief and its role in science.
We think about the
critical events
that have happened in
our human evolution,
such as when we began
to move, to walk,
how our brains developed,
when we developed
the ability to critically think.
These are answers
that we can learn
from from fossil evidence.
And also our roots
of exploration,
how we're actually continuing
to learn, is changing.
What are the big questions
now, and how will
some of those questions change?
How exactly will we answer them?
Are they going to be answered?
Or are some of these
things unknowable?
That's what we're going
to talk about as well.
Backstage, I was just talking
with both Dr. Leakey and Dr.
Johannson.
I said, you know, this
is a very historic night.
And Dr. Johannson
immediately responded,
in fact, it's prehistoric.
Good point.
Please, warmly welcome Dr.
Leakey and Dr. Johannson
to the stage.
[APPLAUSE]
Dr. Donald Johannsen
earned a PhD
from the University of Chicago,
and has led field explorations
in Ethiopia, Tanzania,
and the Middle East.
You may have heard his
voice, seen his face,
as he hosted and narrated
the Emmy nominated PBS NOV
series called In Search
of Human Origins.
He has coauthored nine books.
And he founded, as
Ellen mentioned,
the Institute of Human Origins,
which is a human evolution
think thank.
Dr. Richard Leakey has been
making international headlines
for more than 40 years.
His parents are the famous
fossil hunters themselves,
Lewis and Mary Leakey.
And Dr. Leakey was named as one
of Time Magazine's 100 greatest
minds of the 20th century.
He has authored over
100 books and papers,
and as a professor professor
of anthropology at Stony Brook
University, he also found
the Turkana Basin Institute
in conjunction with
that university.
The way we're going to do things
tonight, tonight's format,
we're going to
have presentations
about 10 minutes each from both
Dr. Leakey and Dr. Johansson.
We'll do a moderated
discussion for about 30 minutes
after that.
But we also want to
hear from all of you.
You may have note cards already.
We'd like to have you
submit your questions
after the moderated discussion.
We'll start taking
questions from the audience.
But first, warmly welcome
Dr. Richard Leakey
to the lectern for
his presentation.
[APPLAUSE]
>>RICHARD LEAKEY: I thought
I'd begin by a reassuring you
that this was the work of
a doctor, not a colleague.
I had some skin surgery.
And unfortunately, they
were unable to remove it--
the patch-- in time.
And this was too.
So bear with me.
I know it's not
pretty to look at,
but it's a lot less
troublesome, I hope,
to you than it has been to me.
The challenge to put a lot of
this into a short space of time
as we've been given,
which is 10 to 15 minutes,
and to recognize that one is
then followed with somebody who
I hope have equal difficulty
in putting his words
into five or 10 or 15
minutes, and to try
to keep them
separate, but clear,
and in concord with what
I believe we both share.
And that is the
fundamental importance
of understanding human
origins, and the role
that this must play in planning
for a better world tomorrow
I think both of us
and increasing numbers
of colleagues around
the world, and ones
that I think we both interact
with are aware that there
is far more importance
to understanding
the biological origin than
has ever been before, given
the mess that the world is
in, and the interconnection
between our future and
the planet's future,
given climate change and
some of the other threats
that we face in
terms of largely--
or larger and larger
human population
and the rapid depletion
of natural resources,
particularly against the
aspirations of 80% to 90%
of the population
of the world who
want more and more
resources to improve
their standard of living.
And I think there needs to be a
lot more effort put into trying
to understand the implications.
Now, we're going to
start out with Africa.
I don't know if the lights are
too bright for you to see that.
But my own work has
been concentrated
within the reef Rift
Valley, particularly
around Lake Turkana.
Much of my original
work was done
at Koobi Fora, which you
see there on the right hand
side of the lake.
We have built the new
Turkana Institute up
at [INAUDIBLE] towards
the top of the lake.
I have worked in the
Irma river in 1967.
And we also have an Institute--
a Turkana Basin Institute--
on the left hand
side of the lake down to
a place called Lodwer.
The reason this is important
is that we have fossil deposits
and fossils strata that span an
incredibly long period of time
within one geographical area.
And I suppose, in some
ways, it's important
because it will enable
research into an area that has,
I think, hitherto
been largely ignored.
And that is not so much
the very early story,
but the last chapters
in the story.
And that is the origin or
the development of us today.
This is just a quick picture
to show you the Turkana Basin
Institute, which is
situated-- this particular set
of buildings is on the
west side of the lake
at a place called
[? Tuckwell. ?] And this is now
a place where
dozens of scientists
can interact studying
geology, archeology,
paleontology, human evolution,
paleoecology, ecology,
and contemporary
land use patterns
in this part of the world.
I think more importantly is
that we have a very, very
high potential of
recovering remains of humans
and human activities that
go back from, if you like,
just pre-- and I never know
what pre-biblical times are--
but let us assume that we
go with the biblical account
of 4,000 or 4,004
years for the creation.
We go to sites like
this, on the east side
of Lake Turkana, which speak
to this migration of humans.
And some of you will have
already had the experience.
Some of you can have the
experience of doing the gene
test, where they take
a swab of your mouth,
and they look at
your genetic makeup.
And most, well, all
people who've done this
can trace their origins more
or less to a point in Africa
which you see in the middle
there on the African continent.
And it is within the
last 65,000 years
that the human
population has spread
across the world in
different waves of migration,
all the way across to
South America, North
America, and the Far East
and indeed Australia.
The curious thing is
that this happened.
We know it's happened.
It is well spoken of within
the understanding of our genome
and genetic records
mitochondrial DNA
and other studies.
But we will know very little
about the people themselves
to which this early
population can be connected.
Recent work has suggested that
the contemporary languages
of the world also
can be traced back
to between 60 and 70,000 years.
And looking at that,
all that evidence,
it also speaks to
an African origin
for contemporary languages,
which pretty well matches
the genetic story itself.
This is not to suggest
that there weren't people
before 65,000 years ago, or
that those people couldn't talk.
But contemporary
people, whether they're
from the southern
tip of South America,
or the heart of Australia,
or the depths of Africa,
or the northernmost area of
human habitation in the Arctic,
all of us share at
this point of origin,
both in terms of
our genetic story
and in terms of our language.
And one of the big
questions for us
to answer in the coming years
is who were these people?
How do they relate to
contemporary people in Africa?
And how do they relate to the
populations that spread out?
What can we tease
out of this record?
At Takarna we can start at
just over 4,000 years ago
with sites such as
this where we have
an archaeological remain
of some of the very early--
or very late, if you like--
archaeological records
of funerary sites,
where numbers of people
were buried in one place.
Enormous blocks of stone
were dug into the sand
to mark these grave sites.
They're associated with,
in some cases, pottery.
And before pottery, you have
very late stone Stone Age
artifacts, such as
this beautiful ivory
harpoon and many others.
These range in age
from 10 to 4,000 years.
It's during that
period that people
move from hunting and
gathering to agriculture.
We have got records
in eastern Africa,
a very early introduction
of domestic animals.
And I think it's fair to
say that the probability now
is that cattle were
first domesticated
in eastern Africa,
Northeastern Africa.
The donkey or the
ass was domesticated
in the same region.
Sheep and goats were brought in.
But there is a remarkable
opportunity in the Lake Turkana
Basin to look at that, and
tie the cultural development,
and some of the other
behavioral activities,
with what we're finding
from the study of DNA
and other lab-based studies.
We have good fossilized
remains of these early people.
This is a skull that I
found many years ago.
And what is of
interest to this is
you'll notice that it's
elongated from front to back.
And this is a skull that
clearly shows it was
bound 4,000 to 5,000 years ago.
And this is reminiscent
of binding skulls
that you see in lower
Egypt in the same period.
And there's some very
interesting links
between Lake Turkana
and the northern part
of Africa and pre
pharaonic Egypt
that links through the Muro
and the southern Sudanese
settlements.
And there does seem to be a
clear link between the north
of Africa down to Lake Turkana.
And many people would ask why?
And the answer is
that Lake Turkana
was the source of the Nile
until 5,000 or 6,000 years ago.
And it was an obvious
waterway in which
people could follow, moving
out of the center of Africa,
probably not once,
but many times.
And Lake Turkana is particular
because it does offer
a continuum of archaeological
and fossil records that goes
not only from the present,
but all the way back
into the pre-human phases,
whichever way you want
to define that-- and Don
we'll talk more to that--
into the origin of the apes
and the origin of the primates.
And we go all the way
back to dinosaurs.
So there's a
remarkable possibility
of understanding this.
Now, I mentioned that that
elongated skull is Homo Sapiens
5,000 or 6,000
years old at most.
But we also found
at Lake Turkana
what turns out to
be one of the oldest
examples of Homo Sapiens.
This was a skull that
I'm looking at here,
which was we found in 1967.
This particular skull was
found by a colleague, Camille,
who found many of the other
discoveries that we found.
And it's dates are between
190 and 200,000 years.
It is anatomically
a modern human,
but it is not of a
population or a time
range that links it to us.
One of the questions is,
if there were Homo Sapiens
about in Africa
190,000 years ago,
and we know that they
would move beyond Africa,
why did this more recent
population of 65,000 years
have such success in driving
them out or driving them
to extinction?
What was it that caused that?
A big question.
Language may have
something to do with that.
But again, one of the questions
we can probably look to answer.
I think this is important stuff.
And I will allude to this
just very briefly here,
given the constraints of time.
I have devoted, as Don has
and many others have done,
to trying to persuade
people of the truth
and the validity of the
story of human evolution.
And we've tended to pick up
or find, if we're fortunate,
bits of bone that are fossilized
2 million years ago, 3
million years ago, some 3
and 1/2 million years ago,
which, even amongst us
we have some argument
as to whether they
fit here or fit there
in this enormous story.
And it's not surprising
that lots of people
don't believe us because
these don't look like people.
They look like something
that isn't a people.
And so I thought, well, maybe
we should turn this around.
And we should start with us.
And we should go back that
things are clearly us.
And the further back we go, the
less like us today they are,
but they're still very similar
to the examples that we found
that came just after them.
And so we unravel
the onion, if you
like, from the outside
inwards, rather than from the
in to the outside.
And I think there's a lot of
merit in doing that because you
can take people along
with persuasive evidence
that we're dealing with
humans and pre-humans.
And it's only when you get
really far back that people
say, well, wait a minute.
This no longer looks like us.
And you say, but
it looked like what
we showed you just before,
which is slightly younger.
And that looks rather
like something that
was a little younger than it.
And something was
a little younger
than it looks quite like it,
until you end up with things
that are clearly us.
And I think the validity of that
approach needs to be tested.
But I think people will
find that much easier
to understand and to
swallow, particularly
when this is linked to
the archaeological story.
And these examples of
195,000 year old Homo
Sapiens that we found in
Ethiopia on the [? Omo ?]
river--
other examples have been
found in Northeastern Ethiopia
under expeditions that
Tim White and other people
have conducted.
It's very clear
that Homo Sapiens
was around much of Africa,
at least on the eastern side,
from a long time ago.
We then find things like this.
This is also a late
kind of discovery.
It's badly damaged
in the frontal area.
The face is gone.
The brow ridges are gone.
But it's got a big skull.
And you look at it and
you say, well, yeah,
but that looks
like a human skull.
And I'd put some other examples
of that sort of time frame
on the left and below it
where they're more complete.
These probably go back
between 2 and 400,000 years.
We haven't got
precise dates on them,
although the one
from Lake Turkana
may well be dated in
the next few weeks
as a result of new techniques
that have been developed.
But it's very clear that
primitive Homo Sapiens
or pre-Sapiens, anatomically
primitive Sapiens,
whatever you want to call them--
and can get into huge arguments
about what you call something.
But there are things around
that look like us, large brains,
but possibly not quite like
us in terms of the finesse
that we see in
fully modern people.
These link-- these examples
on the screen link to us,
but you're now back
350 to 400,000 years.
And I think the
connection between them
and us can be well demonstrated
on anatomical grounds, as well
as archaeological grounds.
If you then go further back--
and this is an example here
that I would show you--
to Homo Erectus,
you say, well, OK,
if the other ones were
us or our ancestors,
this clearly is too, at least
in the cranial features.
And if you look at the
skeleton, then this
is the so-called
Turkana boy, which
is an almost complete skeleton
lacking hands and feet.
But most of the skeleton is
represented by original pieces.
A certain amount of
reconstructions you can do.
But we have the rib cage, the
collarbone, the arms, the head,
the jaw, both limb
bones on both sides.
And you can say, yes, this is--
if it'd come in here
tonight, it probably
would have been
acceptable if he had
been clad in
reasonable clothing,
although whether he would have
understand what Don was going
to tell you or, let
me say, what I'm
going to tell you
is another question.
But that's not a problem
that he would have had alone.
We must accept that.
But the point is this
is not Homo Sapiens,
but this is 1 and 1/2 million
years ago more or less.
Now, if you started with
that, then you'll say,
but he had a smaller
brain than we do.
Yes, he did.
But it's not that
much smaller than what
comes slightly later in time.
And so you can begin to piece
this together, and begin
to see things that are real.
And you can, in fact, go
back to an earlier record
where fossils like these
have been found that go back
to the early part of the 1800s.
And here are some of the
early fossils that were found.
You got the Gibraltar
skull, discovered in 1848.
Some Neanderthal examples
there, the trinil fossils
found in 1891,
which are variously
assigned to either
Homo Erectus, late Homo
Erectus, a primitive Homo.
You can take whatever
name you like.
But they're all
characterized by looking more
like us than anything else.
And the link between
these late Erectus,
sort of primitive Homo Sapiens,
whatever you want to call them,
the ones with the large
brains, the large brow ridges,
is one of the questions
we have to answer.
Are these uniquely non-African?
The skull from Lake
Turkana and other parts
here suggests that
it's not the case.
How do these all link together?
And what is their relationship
with what comes much later on?
And that's the 200,000
anatomically modern humans.
There are some very
important questions
into which you go to insert
other considerations,
like, given that we are what
we are, what is it that we are?
Well, we have speech,
which doesn't fossilize,
although the linguists believe
they can take this back.
If you can take it back
to 65,000 years ago,
as I mentioned
earlier, does this
mean that there was no speech
before 65,000 years ago?
Or is the speech that came
about more or less then, so
much more sophisticated
in terms of syntax
that this gave them the
biological advantage that
would enable them to
out-succeed other populations
as it spread around
the world in the period
prior to 65,000 years ago?
Can we find answers to
those sort of questions?
Can we link, perhaps, what
we're finding in the genome to--
we've now got good evidence
of the DNA of Neanderthal.
Can we find fossils
in Africa that
go back 40, 50,
60,000 years ago,
and find some genetic
material in those?
And if we can, we tie that
into modern populations?
Can we tie that in
to some of the things
that are being found in
other parts of the world?
I think there is an
enormous potential
to unravel over the next
decade or two information
about us that has eluded us,
partly because we weren't
looking for it earlier on.
And many of you will recognize
that anthropology, really,
since the early 1900s, afforded
dealing with modern humans.
And particularly by the
30s, anthropologists
were worried about dealing
with modern human anthropology
because of the use of studies
in terms of race related issues,
the origin of Nazi attitudes,
the superiority of one
race over another
race, the whole issue
that people were
different, and it
could be established on a scale
that went up with the blue eyed
Aryan Caucasian at the top and
everything else sort of falling
way below it.
Absolute nonsense.
Humbug.
But had currency
in the early 1900s
until the end of
Second World War.
I'm afraid there
still seems to be
some of that resurgence today.
And I think we
need to be careful
that we don't get trapped in
an argument that takes us back
to an attitude of
racists, although I
don't think they can use the
fossil record to support them.
They would use more
political arguments.
In addition to Homo Sapiens,
pre-Sapiens, Erectus,
late Erectus, earlier
Erectus, there
are all sorts of other fossils.
There's these things we
call australopithecines,
paranthropines.
There's things that have
different species names.
Some are more
complete than others.
We've got a good
assemblage of skulls.
We've got some partial
skeletons, some remarkably
complete skeletons.
There is really quite
a remarkable record,
and one which we
shouldn't gainsay
in terms of it's
lack of specificity
towards understanding
our condition.
But there is far too much to
deal with in a short period
at this time.
And my brief was to talk
about the excitement
that I feel for looking
at the last 200,000 years,
and particularly looking at
it in a place like Turkana,
where so much can be found.
There is obviously still a hunt
going on for some of the bigger
questions.
When and why did
humans first appear,
or pre-humans first appear?
What is the origin
of bipedalism?
This trail of footprints that
my mother discovered at Laetoli
in Tanzania.
The people who are
thought to have
made them, that were called
Australopithecus afarensis,
artist's reconstruction of
this loving couple walking
across the African plains.
Well, yes, it's
one interpretation.
The footprints are real.
The artist's work is real, but
the facts upon which it's based
may not be as strong as it
suggests, in terms of dark hair
on the pubic area, and pendulous
breasts, and affectionate hugs,
and things like--
there's a lot of room
for interpretation.
But there's a lot of
room for interpretation
in all sorts of things.
And I feel that at this
stage, I will ask my friend
and colleague, Don Johanson to
try and sort that out for you.
And I'm sure he
will do a good job.
And we'll take some
questions later.
Thank you very much.
[APPLAUSE]
>>DONALD JOHANNSON:
I've got to try
to find my PowerPoint
on here, which
seems to have disappeared.
There we go.
And here.
It's a long way from hunt and
gather to point and click,
so sorry that took so long.
Thank you very much, Richard,
for setting the stage for one
of the more
interesting and perhaps
a little more complicated
parts of the human career.
But before I begin,
I want to, on behalf
of Richard and I,
thank the American
Museum of Natural History and
all of the wonderful people
who have come
together to organize
this prehistoric event, to
urge Richard and I to talk
about the state of the
field, what we know,
what we don't know,
where we think we're
going in terms of research.
And I couldn't think of a
nicer, more appropriate place
to have this.
I love coming to New York.
I love speaking in this hall.
I have done that on a
number of occasions.
And Ellen, you and your
team are just number one.
Thank you very much, indeed.
[APPLAUSE]
Now, we didn't entitle
our presentations,
but when I was behind stage,
someone said, "Have you
titled your presentation?"
And I said, no, but I could
have called it "Becoming Human."
And they said, why
"Becoming Human?"
I said, because when
you look at the world,
wouldn't that be a great
idea, to become human?
As you can tell already
from Richard's presentation,
we are both very Afrocentric,
and rightfully so.
Charles Darwin,
Thomas Henry Huxley,
and others in the
19th century, even
before we were born, even before
anybody found a single fossil
in Africa, because of the
similarities between ourselves
and particularly the chimpanzee,
but the great apes in general
in Africa, that
Africa would, indeed,
be the continent where we began.
And we travel around
Africa, and we
find places calling themselves
"The Cradle of Humankind."
It is really Africa that is
the crucible of humankind.
This is where the beginning of
our unique zoological family
occurred.
It's where all of the major
steps in the human career,
if we can say that, made their
premier appearance-- upright
walking, enlargement of brains,
manufacture of stone tools,
perhaps origins of language,
bodies of modern proportions,
and so on.
So that the prognostications
that were made
are certainly correct.
And that was at a time
in the 19th century,
you might remember, when
we were so eurocentric.
We were so eurocentric,
looking for the origins
of humans in Europe, because
everyone believed that Europe--
and these, of course, were
all European scientists--
believed that Europe was
the finishing school.
That's where we finally
made it over that Rubicon
from primitive to
modern peoples.
And the work that all of us
have done over the last 40 years
or so shows us
clearly that it was
Africa that was the
crucible of our origins.
So as Richard said very
clearly, and I will say it
slightly differently,
no matter where
you grasp a branch on
the human family tree,
the roots lead back to Africa.
We are all Africans, and we
owe our origins to Africa.
I thought as I was
putting this together
what it was like when I
landed in Nairobi in 1970
in mid-June on my
first experience
to the Great Rift Valley.
This is what we knew
about human evolution.
It looked pretty easy.
There were about five species
of the genus Homo, the genus
that we belong in.
There were three bonafide
species of Australopithecus.
So it wasn't too
difficult to kind of draw
lines between these
things, and to try
to understand, perhaps, some
of the genetic relationships.
But today, things have
become, as you will
see, a little more complicated.
Because of the work
that we have done
and ongoing work--
in fact, there's
a new species that was just
named recently Australopithecus
sediba, that you'll
be hearing a lot more
about over the next few months.
But as you can see, a number
of new species and surprises
like those little
hobbits from Flores
have been added
to the genus Homo.
There are a group--
actually, a fluorescence or
adaptive radiation you might
say--
of Australopithecus here
in orange and in yellow.
And most importantly, digging
deeper back into the past,
getting closer and closer
to that common ancestor that
gave rise to the African
apes as well as ourselves,
we have a group of what I've
called pre-Australopithecus.
And here we have seen
over the last few years
the naming of not only
a number of new species,
but a number of new genera,
such as Ardipithecus, Orrorin,
and Sahelanthropus.
This is a box, an orange
box, of a few species
and genera that are very
difficult to put into context.
These are creatures that are
much more apelike, much more
primitive-like.
They look less and less like us.
There are certain
Australopithecus fossils
that look more like us.
And when you get to
early Homo, of course,
as Richard was
saying, look much more
like the person sitting
next to you in this room.
Now, when we look at
the origins of homo,
we know that this happened
somewhere between two and three
million years.
But this is one of the
real periods of non-fossils
where we really don't have good
evidence for the earliest Homo.
We can take Homo back to about
2.4 million years, a discovery
that was made at
the site where Lucy
was found in the upper strata
of the Hadar formation.
This is a jaw that clearly
belongs in our genus.
So the last time
Richard and I spoke,
this two to three million year
time range was pretty empty.
But we've now narrowed it
down to about 600,000 years.
Somewhere between 2.4 million
and 3 million years ago or so,
we see the origins
of our own genus.
And very quickly
thereafter, we see,
again, a diversification,
sort of an adaptive radiation
into a number of
different species.
And how we connect
all of these up
is not what we're going
to address tonight,
but to show you
that there really
is a significant
diversity, not only
in Australopithecus,
as we've known,
but also within our own genus.
One of the interesting
things about Australopithecus
that I wanted to
touch on was something
that was in the news this
week that relates specifically
to these megadont forms,
these very large-toothed forms
like Australopithecus boisei,
Australopithecus robustus.
There was a study
published earlier this week
that was based on isotope
studies that suggest that these
were eating-- most
of these creatures
were mostly eating
grass and sedges.
This was a group
of hominids that
lasted from about
2.6 million years ago
to about 1.2 million years ago,
a very successful adaptation.
But it was a
specialized adaptation
to a special kind of herbivory.
And all of these
creatures went extinct.
This is a very important
message for all of us today,
because we know that not
every single species we find
is an ancestor to modern humans.
And we have to
decide and figure out
which species met the
Grim Reaper of evolution--
extinction-- and went nowhere,
and what other species survived
the trials and tribulations of
evolutionary climatic change,
and evolved into ourselves.
But this is an idea that goes
back to the 19th century,
that it was a straight
march from ape to angel.
The ape is always some
lowly African creature.
And of course, the
angel is always
a white European male at the
end of one of those depictions.
Why it's a white European male?
Because white European
males draw those things.
So in fact, what we are finding
is that many more species
went extinct than survived.
And this is an
important lesson for us
when we think of evolution and
the evolution of all animals,
but particularly of ourselves--
that it was not a straight line.
There were many false starts.
There were many side
branches that died out.
Of course, if I didn't say
a few words about my oldest
girlfriend, I'd
be in big trouble.
Here is, of course,
the Lucy skeleton
that was found in 1974.
She continues-- her species
Australopithecus afarensis
continues to be a very
important species,
because now we have more
than 400 specimens spanning
800,000 years of time.
So we can say something
about not just
how males and females differed,
not just how young and old
differed, but how this
species varied over 800,000
years of evolutionary time.
And afarensis becomes an
incredibly important reference
species for interpreting
other discoveries.
Now, I was on an
airplane not long ago,
and somebody asked
me what I did.
And I told them.
And of course they all thought
I was Richard Leakey when
I told them that I found Lucy.
And so at that
point he said, well,
did you ever find anything else?
And I said, yes.
And I actually don't talk about
that a great deal, that we now
have over 400 specimens.
We have complete female skulls.
You see Lucy's skull
wasn't very complete.
We have complete male skulls.
We have bones, literally,
from every single part
of the skeleton.
And afarensis has become
one of the best known,
if not the most completely
known early hominid species
from eastern Africa.
And here again, this
is my reconstruction
of Richard's mother's
discovery, when Mary
found this in the mid-1970s.
This is an
extraordinary-- this is
one of the true wonders of the
very, very, very ancient world.
Two of Lucy's
species were walking
on what is today the Serengeti.
And there was a major
volcanic eruption.
That eruption blanketed the
landscape like a snowfall.
And fortunately, several-- at
least two-- of our ancestors
walked across there,
a large individual
and a small individual.
I don't know if they
were the honeymoon
couple you saw earlier,
or it was mom and a kid,
or mom and dad, or whatever.
But they left footprints.
And what was important
about that was we
were in the middle of one of
the most contentious arguments.
And I know Richard's
sitting there saying,
just about everything
either one of us
has said thus far can be
debated till it's almost dead.
But we were in the middle
of an argument about
whether or not Lucy's species
was capable of walking upright.
And we based those assumptions
on the skeletal material.
And here Mary found a
trail of actual footprints,
3.6 million years old, and bones
of Australopithecus afarensis
in the same stratum.
And we could take a close look
at one of the most important
and diagnostic features of
the entire skeleton, which is
the position of the great toe.
You know when you're out in
Southampton over the summer
or whatever, and you walk
on the beach, look down.
You'll see your great toe as
the propulsive part of your foot
that leaves a
diagnostic impression.
If you were a chimpanzee, it
would be divergent, like that,
and it would be very different.
So this was extraordinary
evidence, unanticipated,
one of the great
surprises, and as I
said, one of the great wonders
of the very ancient world.
Let's take a quick look
at pre-Australopithecus--
Orrorin, Ardipithecus,
and Sahelanthropus.
There are fragments.
They're not very well known.
Fossils get more and
more difficult to find
the deeper we go into the past.
The material from Orrorin
here, the two thigh bones
that are shown, show indications
in the top end of that bone
that they were bipeds.
So it means that bipedalism
probably goes back
to at least six million years.
There's one little toe bone
from this species up here
that looks like it's from a
foot that was capable of walking
like ourselves.
And I haven't shown
it here but Meave,
who couldn't make it
here, Richard's wife,
made some marvelous
discoveries of fossils
at 4.2 million years,
of a shinbone that
shows that these creatures
were clearly bipedal.
There's a great
deal of discussion
about Sahelanthropus, a specimen
from Chad, North Central
Africa, whether or
not it really belongs
on the human family tree,
rather than the ape family tree.
And the most recent which
you've all heard about,
Ardipithecus ramidus, was
found way back in 1992
and only just published
two years ago.
And this is where I'm going
to make a few comments,
and then we're going to
go to question and answer.
But Ardipithecus is an
extraordinary discovery.
It's about 4.4
million years old.
It belongs, as the discoverers
have called it, Ardipithecus
ramidus, in a new species.
It's about 200,000 years
older than that tibia
that Meave found, which
is called Australopithecus
anamensis.
It was a remarkable job of
putting these bones together,
of reconstructing these.
Much of the reconstruction
was done in virtual space.
These were not bones that
were glued together so much.
But they came up with a
beautiful partial skeleton
that you see here.
And a couple of things will
catch your eye immediately.
One is the very
divergent great toe
that you see here, very
different from what you
see in the Laetoli footprints.
But upon more
detailed inspection,
particularly the
lack of a chimpanzee
or an ape-like interlocking of
the upper canine with the lower
jaw, which is more
like us and less like
apes, and some
hints in the pelvis
that perhaps this creature was
quasi or facultatively bipedal.
They have suggested,
Owen Lovejoy and Tim
White, that this is
a direct ancestor
to later australopithecines.
And they have reconstructed,
as you can see,
Ardipithecus upright.
You see the long, very
powerful, grasping hands
and the very divergent
great toe which, as I said,
is even more divergent than what
we see in chimpanzees today.
And the reconstructions that
had been done of Ardipithecus
show this upright posture.
But in reading their papers,
they make a great point
about the fact that
this was in the trees
quite a bit of the time, in
a quadrupedal sort of stance.
And I recently had
a reconstruction
done of Ardi in the trees.
You see the grasping great toe.
You see the large,
powerful hands.
And they suggested that it
was quadrupedal, four-legged,
what they called pronograde--
that it was on tops
of the branches
rather than swinging
below the branches.
There are lots and lots
and lots of questions
about Ardipithecus.
In terms of its
position, should it even
be on the human family tree,
rather than the ape family
tree?
It looks like it has certain
features, like in the dentition
and in the pelvis, that
would make it a hominid.
If it is, does that
necessarily make it
an ancestor to later hominids?
Could it have been one of
those evolutionary experiments
where bipedalism may have
perhaps been experimented
with in an arboreal habitat?
How do you explain
a creature that's
so comfortable
with quadrupedalism
becoming bipedal on the ground?
Lots of interesting questions,
lots of debate, and the debate
certainly has begun.
I'm going to close
with a reconstruction
that we did for my Nova series
of Lucy coming down to the lake
and drinking, and close with
a thought I had earlier today.
What do all these bones
really mean to us?
What do they tell us?
And I think each time we find--
we hear the term "missing
link" all the time.
I like to look at them
as every time we find one
of these bones, it's a link.
But it's a link to
the natural world.
It's a link that reminds
us, Homo sapiens--
who I think probably
should be better
called Homo egocentricus, all
the time we spent thinking
about ourselves-- it
reminds us that we
are part of the natural world.
We are not super-organic.
We are a product of the
same evolutionary change
that all other creatures
on this planet are,
yet we have inherited an
awesome responsibility.
And it is time to take that
responsibility seriously,
to make decisions
that will not just
be good for ourselves, but for
all of our fellow travelers
on this planet, so that
we can leave descendants
ourselves, and look
back on their ancestors.
Thank you very much.
[APPLAUSE]
>>GUPTA: It's wonderful.
I want to get right to
it, because we obviously
have a lot to talk about.
So let me start, Dr.
Leakey, with you,
something that you brought
up during your talk.
I mean this is in sort of
the most overarching sense
possible.
But why does it matter
to people living
in the world today, people
in this audience, where
we came from?
>>LEAKEY: I think
partly my answer
would be that we are curious.
We have a mind that thinks.
We want always to know why.
If you ask why, you want
to know more than why.
And I think with an
intelligent mind,
we need facts about the
world that we're part of.
And I think that in many ways,
the origin of all religion
was an attempt to answer
that question before there
was a scientific basis
for finding answers
to that question.
And I think we do
need to know why.
I think perhaps more
importantly than that
is with the prehistoric
record we have,
not only of us and our
immediate and early ancestors,
there is a record of many
other species as well.
And what is very clear is that
extinction is, if you like,
a more frequent
event as we look back
from today then speciation.
And the vast majority
of forms of life
that have lived on this planet
are now long since gone.
And there is absolutely
no reason for us
to believe that we are
not equally available
as a candidate for extinction.
Now the question is when.
And the question
is, perhaps, why.
But I think we
need to understand
that we are a biological entity
more than we are anything else.
And by looking at the
prehistoric record
and looking at the biological
record of evolution that
is now, I think, manifestly
richer than it has been
at any time before, I think we
can put ourselves in a position
where extinction and our
actions on this planet,
as Don said in his
concluding remarks,
are very significant as
to where we're going,
and if not where we're going
as a large-bodied primate,
what we're doing to
other organisms that
could cause our extinction,
even if nothing else does.
And you know as a medical man
the misuse of antibiotics,
the misuse of biological
agents could seriously
affect the future of mankind
in terms of the species
that we now know and its
population size on the planet.
>>GUPTA: It's incredible
to think about.
And Dr. Johanson, you
mentioned during your speech
the Grim Reaper of
human evolution.
So building on what Dr.
Leakey said, I mean,
are there certain things that we
have learned from our past that
give us some idea of where
we're headed in terms
of our future in evolution?
>>JOHANNSON: Well,
the one thing,
we keep returning to the
same idea of extinction.
We learn.
We're humbled by the fact that
there were so many beginnings,
and yet only one lineage
that did survive.
And we should treasure that.
We should really
treasure that, and do
everything we can to reward the
natural world that created us.
I think that what
this does is it firmly
puts us in the center of--
people ask who is our creator?
How were we created?
We as scientists, Richard
and I, have come up
with scientific
explanations that
rely on traditional natural
selection evolutionary change.
And it means that
we are so closely
tied to the natural world.
She is our creator.
And we should be more
humble about our position
in the universe.
And we should be
making decisions
that will protect our
creator, rather than disturb
our creator.
Because ultimately in this great
web of interconnected life,
where you do
something someplace,
you will always feel a
reverberation somewhere else.
I was in Omaha last week,
and someone came up.
And her first question
was, what do you
think about the
millions of dollars
that are being spent on
preserving this one bug that's
facing extinction
out in our farmland?
Should we be spending millions
of dollars doing this?
And I said, yes.
Because we don't
know how important
that bug is going
to be in the future.
We don't know if it's
an important fertilizer
of a particular prairie
grass or whatever.
So while we can, as
evolutionary biologists
with a very historical
science, look to the past
and learn some lessons.
We should be able to
use those to understand
how we fit into
the natural world,
how important our impact is, and
what the consequences are when
we begin to rapidly degrade the
very natural world that created
us.
>>LEAKEY: Let me just put
another turn on that, because I
think it's a very important
question that we both feel
should be addressed tonight.
And that is, there
are a lot of people
in this country, a lot of
people around the world, who
find it much easier to live
with a faith-based explanation
of who they are.
I have no problem if
that's what you want to do.
If that's the way you want to
live your life, no problem.
Where I take exception,
and I take exception
as a citizen of the world, is
that faith-based explanations
should not be forced
to the exclusion
of biological-based
explanations.
And I'm seeing in the
developing world, in Africa--
I think it's true in many
parts of the developing world--
we're seeing science get edged
out because some people don't
believe in human evolution.
And I think the
teaching of science
is fundamentally important
to the future of our species.
And I would go so
far as to suggest
that had Charles Darwin not
suggested that we had evolved,
but that only pigs and
elephants had evolved,
this problem would
never have arisen.
But it's because he tampered
with the image of man,
suggesting that it had changed.
And if you go back to the
Judeo-Christian concept
that God created us in His
image, and us being this image,
you've got a little problem.
[APPLAUSE]
>>GUPTA: I think I know.
Let me tell you about a
Gallup poll from 2010,
sort of building on this point.
2010, December, 40%
of people polled
believe that God created
Man, created humans
in their current form.
38% believed that God
guided that creation, 16%
believed that God
had no role, and 6%
apparently were asleep
during the poll.
I think I know the answer.
Which category do you fall in?
>>JOHANNSON: Pardon me?
>>GUPTA: I think I know
the answer to this,
but which category
do you fall in?
>>LEAKEY: Yes.
gt;gt;JOHANNSON: I don't believe
in evolution any more than I
believe in gravity.
Evolution is a fact.
It is the best explanation
for the diversity
of life on this planet.
It does not take belief,
because it can be investigated
through the scientific method.
Observations can be repeated.
It is as much, as
powerful a theory
as is the theory of
gravity for explaining,
in this case, the
diversity of life.
>>GUPTA: Over the last 40 years,
almost since you discovered
Lucy-- your team
discovered Lucy--
the numbers that I
just cited you really
have not changed that much.
Does that surprise you?
Why do you think that is?
>>LEAKEY: The figures have
not changed that much?
>>GUPTA: That's correct, in
terms of that polling data,
in terms of the percentage--
>>JOHANNSON: That's
true, and I think
that it is our
duty as educators,
and people like
Richard and I who
lecture widely, to go
out and educate people,
and to help them
over this problem
that they have with
evolution and religion.
You can be a very
religious person,
like Francis
Collins, who was head
of the National Institutes of
Health, a good friend of mine,
and who is a
born-again Christian.
And he is as good a
scientist as anyone.
And believing in a
creator, whatever,
whoever that creator
is, he, she, whatever,
does not really influence
the way you do science.
And Francis has
shown this clearly.
And there are scientists who
are evolutionary biologists who
have other kinds of
religious beliefs,
and religious people who
are not scientists who say,
this is the
naturalistic explanation
for how we came to be.
And I think, in fact, it
does have something to do,
as Richard said, with the lack
of education in our country
and in many other
countries, that it is not
taught in schools.
Today in 1925, this
is the anniversary
of John Scopes being arrested,
today, for teaching evolution
in Tennessee.
We've come beyond that, but we
still have a long way to go.
And I think that it's incumbent
on our educational system
to teach this, and to teach
this at a very young level.
Young children in what I
called grammar school when
I went to school, but
elementary school,
think that evolution
is a fascinating idea.
They love to understand
the interconnectedness.
So I think that it's really
incumbent on all of us
to do whatever we can to
educate people about evolution.
>>LEAKEY: Let me
just add one point.
And I'm going to be a little
naughty, because I generally
like to be a little naughty
once or twice in an evening.
But the poll numbers you
suggest relate to a poll
taken in the United States.
And as great a
country as you are,
it represents at most
300 million people.
The world is about 7 billion.
So the species isn't
doomed by your poll.
>>GUPTA: But fair enough.
Besides education, though,
what other cultural factors
are at play here, though?
Because I think it seems easy
enough to suggest that more
education needs to be done.
Some of the talks that
have been presented here
over the last couple of days
have been streamed to schools,
for example.
What other cultural factors
do you think are at play here
that has made these
numbers hardly budge
over the last 30 to 40 years?
>>LEAKEY: It's very
difficult to be sure,
but I think truly, the
standards of education
in developed countries are not
as good as they may have been.
And I think we're seeing
a similar sort of problem,
not just in the
biological sciences,
but I think in many
of the sciences.
And I have experience
recently of working,
as a result of my connections,
with a university in the United
States, at Stony
Brook University.
I mean, basically, more and more
young people are being shown
how they can access, through
the web, information.
But because it's there,
they don't learn it.
And because it's there,
they don't interconnect it.
They don't-- we're not
teaching people to think.
We're teaching people to push
buttons to get information
to answer questions in
school, questions in college.
[APPLAUSE]
This, to me, is wrong.
And we need to recognize
that unless young minds can
be encouraged to think,
how can they think later?
And if they can't think later--
and don't worry about us--
but we as a species
of seven billion
are dependent to a
very large extent--
90% of the population
of the world
is dependent on
basically three crops--
corn, rice, and the cereal
wheat in one form or the other.
The genetic base of those
highly productive yielding crops
has been narrowed down
by the clearance of areas
to grow them, with very
little of the natural base
from which they were genetically
derived in the breeding
programs.
What happens if a pathogen
develops in corn, or in wheat,
or in rice, as has begun to
show up, where you can eliminate
in a few years the entire
production of cereals
around the world because
of wind-blown disease
or treatment-resistant
disease that affects them?
What sort of starvation
are we looking at?
And we need young
people in India.
We need young people in Kenya.
We need young people in Brazil
who are up to the challenge
of understanding
this could happen,
and up to the challenge of
making sure that it doesn't.
Let's don't worry about us per
se, but us in terms of the way
we live and how we're
living has to take
in the biological perspective
if we're to survive in the form
that we know we are today.
[APPLAUSE]
>>GUPTA: Doctor Johanson, so
you've been busy since Lucy,
as you mentioned.
Good to hear.
You just got back as well from
Tanzania and South Africa.
What are you working on now?
When you're thinking about
this field and your work,
what do you do when you go
out on one of these trips?
What is your process?
Are there specific
questions that you're still
trying to answer?
>>JOHANNSON: I think there
are two major areas that
are most interesting to me
and to the Institute of Human
Origins, where we have a
number of scientists working
in Ethiopia and South Africa.
And that is one of the topics
that Richard touched on,
which is the emergence
of Homo sapiens.
And what prompted
that appearance
of modern Homo sapiens?
When did it occur?
Where did it occur?
We have a scientist who's
working in South Africa.
I visited his site recently.
And there's good
evidence there of tools
that don't show up in Europe
till about 40,000 years.
He's finding them as old
as 75,000 or 100,000 years,
finding innovations such
as heat treatment, a stone
for the manufacture
of stone tools,
that didn't appear in Europe
till about 30,000 years ago
that first appeared
in southern Africa--
the use of ochre
in body decoration,
for example, the emergence
or glimmerings of art,
one of the things
that distinguishes us.
So I think that that's one
area that we are spending
a lot of effort on trying to
understand the oldest Homo
sapiens when we
came out of Africa,
but when those
innovations occurred.
And they seemed to be
tied to climatic changes.
At around 200,000
years ago, there
was an extended period of
prolonged, very cold climate
that is coincident with the
emergence of our own species,
as well as coincident with
the emergence of a number
of these innovations.
The other area where
we work in Ethiopia
is targeting sediments that
are between two and three
million years.
I alluded to this
in my presentation,
that we are very interested
in trying to understand
the emergence of our own genus.
We know a great deal
about Australopithecus.
We are beginning
to know about some
of these more ancient
areas of human evolution.
But we really would like to know
a lot more about the origins
of our own genus, Homo.
>>GUPTA: Dr. Leakey, you
talked about this whole bit
in your speech, but what do
you think makes us human?
I read this article
recently about the fact
that when we evolve, is
it perhaps in the future
this idea that
human beings the way
that we know human beings
could be replaced by computers?
I mean, could they do
what we human beings do?
Which raised the
question in my own mind,
what makes us human beings?
>>LEAKEY: I think there
are two questions that I'd
like to address.
One is one that we are guilty of
often saying that we separated
from the apes.
That gave lie to the search
for the missing link,
this common ancestor
between apes and humans.
And I think one has to--
one steps back a little
bit in later life.
One realizes we actually
haven't separated at all.
We are apes.
We're just another species,
another complicated group
of apes that walk
around on two legs.
Many of our closest relatives
have become extinct,
and we have survived.
But there was no sort of
omega moment where wow,
suddenly we have
something completely new.
It was a very gradual,
different process.
So evolution didn't cause that
dramatic origin of humans.
And I think what
makes us human depends
where you want to cut it.
Clearly, our use of technology
today and our dependency
on the lifestyles that
we've grown accustomed to,
whether it's the very
poor or the very rich,
is part of what makes modern
humans in the 21st century
modern humans in
the 21st century.
And there's very little
comparison to them
and the people who lived
in the 16th century.
But they were humans.
Does humanity require
that we have the capacity
to score highly in the Mensa
tables or with IQ tests?
Well there are
clearly people who
can't do the Mensa
or the IQ test
for a variety of
medical reasons.
And yet they're perfectly human.
So how do you want to cut this?
Where do you want
to draw this line?
Is it because we have a large
brain relative to body size?
Well, yes, but if
you start looking
at modern humans in anatomical
departments in medical schools,
as you probably know
from your own training,
it's not always
the bigger brains
that are the smartest people.
It doesn't work as
simply as you would
like to suggest if you say
big brains are important.
These things are all relative.
And I have long
toyed with this idea
that somehow, technology is an
important part of being human.
But when you have several,
as Don has explained,
different species of hominid--
whether they're Homo,
or Australopithecus,
or whether they're
pumpkins and apples,
I mean it doesn't really
matter what we call them.
But there were several
different things
going on at the same time.
And you have evidence of basic,
crude technology in terms
of cutting objects,
are we sure who
made those tools,
who accessed the meat
diet through those tools?
Do we rule out the
other candidates?
Are we not being
driven by a desire
to simplify it to a point
where we're doing this?
So is toolmaking necessarily
a criterion for being human?
And I think one would have to
say, probably not, unless you
redefine tools.
And so this whole thing starts
to get very complicated.
And I think depends
where you draw it.
But I think one of the
most fundamental points
at which this story might
start is bipedalism.
And I think this search for
the first biped, if you like,
which Don alluded to
in terms of the growing
debate about Ardipithecus
and whether it
had a toe that prevented it
walking on two legs habitually,
or whether it was clambering
around in the trees
on top of the branches, and
sometimes was upright hanging
on to the center trunk--
good heavens, we could
talk about that forever.
The point is that bipedalism
does seem to set us apart
from the other apes.
And it's not just that
they walked upright,
but they adapted their
hips, and their back,
and their limb bones for
a habitual upright bipedal
posture.
That is, if you like, the
beginning of this story.
But I think a much more
interesting part of it--
not more interesting, but
equally interesting story--
is when did we learn
to use language
to do things that
nothing else does?
When did we put
syntax into our--
when could we express ideas that
weren't simply go, come, stop,
run, danger, food,
but actually starting
to discuss where the
danger might come from,
and where the food might
come from in the next season,
and how we relate?
When did compassion come about?
When did we start worrying about
the survival of an individual--
empathy, if you
like, or compassion?
Well, it's something
very simple.
I never really thought about it.
But as some of you know, I
lost both legs in an accident
some years ago.
And if you are a two-legged
creature and you have no legs,
you don't go very far.
Even if they give you
one artificial leg
and you only have
one leg, you're
still totally dependent on
somebody feeling sorry for you,
or caring for you, or thinking
they can get something from you
if you get better--
whatever motive
you want to apply.
But being a uniped is no
better than being a no-ped.
Whereas if you're a
chimpanzee, or a baboon,
or a lion, or a dog
and you have four legs,
you can lose one and
do perfectly well.
You can actually, in the
case of domestic dogs,
lose two and still
do pretty well,
provided their diagonally
removed and not along one side.
Now, once we became
bipedal, and this comes back
to the story, bonding
and social interactions
take on a totally different
not just meaning, but value.
And I do not believe bipedal
primates could have survived
unless they had, in
addition to being bipedal,
changed the way they
think in terms of altruism
and in terms of
social networking
and social connections.
And it's all very
well to say we love
the mother of our children.
The hell we do.
We do as long as we can
have children with her.
But once they're born,
men tend to take off.
So I think that's a
primary character.
And I don't think sex
is the basis of bonding.
I think it's much
more fundamental.
It's survival.
>>JOHANNSON: Your
question of what
does it mean to be
human has been addressed
by anthropologists
for centuries.
And some people say you're
not human till you're bipedal.
Other people say
you're not human
till you start making tools.
Some people say you're
not human until you
have an enlarged brain.
And you don't immediately
become magically human
by stepping into this
evolutionary tunnel as an ape,
and walking out as a
fully formed human.
So that these are things
that accumulate over time,
and make other things possible.
And ultimately, of
course, the thing
that makes us most unique and
different from all creatures
is the ability to
think symbolically.
I think this is really
the defining feature,
something that we don't
have paleo tape recorders.
We don't know what
paleo language was like.
But when we do encounter
early human ancestors, maybe
as old as 75,000 years,
who are beginning
to leave their mark by
engraving a piece of ochre
that ultimately evolves
into something like what
we see in these marvelous
rock paintings that
are all over South Africa, East
Africa, and of course, the ones
we know best in Herzog's
new film, the Chauvet
film in the upper
Paleolithic in Europe,
that is the final major
distinguishing feature that
makes us so different
from all other animals.
But yet on the
other hand, the more
we study the apes,
as Richard said,
we've been called the
bipedal ape, the naked ape,
the stupid ape, or whatever.
But we are certainly--
we're finding, by studying
our closest relatives, that it
blurs a little bit, that apes--
particularly chimpanzees-- do
make and use rudimentary tools.
They use rudimentary
tools to crack open nuts.
They use rudimentary tools
to termite fish, for example.
They do show signs
of compassion.
There are apes that
Jane Goodall has studied
where a young baby
has died from grief
over the death of its mother.
So these sorts of things
all have their glimmerings
probably much deeper in the
past than we ever thought.
And that is something to look at
on the other side of this coin,
not so much what makes us human.
But are there glimmerings
and indications
from studies of our
closest relatives
that this is part
of a continuum,
that it isn't a magic moment
when a finger comes out,
and touches us,
and makes us human?
This is a continuum.
This is an evolutionary change
and tinkering over time.
And that, again,
is something that
gives us a much better
understanding of who we are.
We are not separately sort
of uniquely brought about.
We are part of this continuum.
We are one branch on it.
And we can look at our
closest living relatives,
the African apes, and
see glimmerings of what
it might mean to be human.
>>GUPTA: We got a lot of
questions from the audience
here, so I'm going to try
and get to as many of these
as I can.
And let me start with
you, Doctor Leakey.
Do you think the
discovery of life
beyond Earth will
change opinions
about the origins of
life here on Earth?
>>LEAKEY: Do I think that
the discovery of life beyond
Earth--
>>GUPTA: Will change
opinions about--
>>LEAKEY: Would change the
way we think about life here
and our origins here?
>>GUPTA: The origins
here on Earth.
>>LEAKEY: Well, absolutely.
I mean, I think the arrogance
of thinking that we're unique
would be dealt a swift blow.
And I can't wait
for that to happen.
I think it would be
a wonderful thing
to demonstrate beyond any doubt.
I mean, I think there is
already sufficient reason
to believe there is
life, whether it's
life equivalent to us.
And we are now
falling into the trap
that we think it'll be
life like we have here.
Let's hope not.
But that there will be
life in other planets,
unless you're prepared
to be as arrogant as we
have been for the last few
centuries, surely it's there.
Surely it's going
to be different.
Surely it's going to be
difficult to access it.
And the analogy of
an alien spacecraft
going by and looking at Earth,
and said, "Should we drop in?"
They say, no, that's
a failed state,
let's move on to
something better--
I think is a very good one.
>>GUPTA: Let me keep going.
I'll just get to
the next question.
How or why did Homo sapiens
develop in eastern Africa
and not elsewhere in the world?
And maybe you could extrapolate
to other species, as well.
>>JOHANNSON: Well, I think
the conditions in Africa,
both environmental
and biological,
were perfectly poised for the
emergence of Homo sapiens.
And whether it happened
in eastern Africa
or southern Africa,
we know definitively
that it happened in Africa.
It did not happen
in glacial Europe.
It did not happen in Asia.
This is where we see things like
Homo erectus and Neanderthals.
Neanderthals are a
wonderful example
here of kind of understanding
the origins of species
like this, because Neanderthals
and we had a common ancestor.
It's sometimes called
Homo heidelbergensis,
which is a strange name to
use for the origins of sapiens
in Africa.
But they were isolated
genetically and environmentally
in Europe, and evolved into
their own definitive species.
We evolved in a tropical
environment under very
different conditions, under
which hunter-gathering,
for example, was something
that was of very high selective
value, because
they not only ate--
they subsisted like
Neanderthals did solely on meat,
but we subsisted on a very mixed
diet of hunting and gathering.
I think that the
factors that in Africa
were very conducive to the
origins of Homo sapiens.
>>GUPTA: Let me get to
this question with you,
Doctor Leakey.
If evolution never ceases,
then what do you think humans
will be like about a
million years from now?
>>LEAKEY: Well, a
million years from now,
I think the process of
extinction is likely to have--
>>GUPTA: I was afraid you
were going to say that.
>>LEAKEY: Required
further consideration.
I mean, I think one needs to
be very careful to understand
that evolution doesn't happen
because the clock is ticking.
And I think there's
a misconception
that Darwin suggested
that life will continue
to change irrespective, provided
there is time thrown into this.
It's far more
important to recognize
that for evolution to happen,
or a physical change to happen,
or adaptive strategies
to take effect,
there has to be an underlying,
fundamental environmental
pressure that drives an organism
to try doing things differently
if they're going to survive.
And I think it is the lack of
a continuum in a stable habitat
that has led to the
appearance of new species
and the extinction of others.
The second part of this requires
that a successful variant
needs to be able to breed
over a number of generations
for that change to be fixed.
And you probably, for humans,
need 50 to 100 generations
as a minimum, maybe longer.
And we can't isolate
a human population
for that long, and
difficult to conceive
of anything that could
happen that would do that.
So I think physical
evolution is not
something we should
be worried about,
or expect, other than
medical interventions.
But I don't think you can
project those that far forward.
And people say,
well, what examples
do you have of
evolution not occurring?
Well, the coelacanth, which
lives in the Indian Ocean
in the deep bottom of the
sea, 600 meters or more down
in the Indian Ocean and
probably other tropical oceans--
the coelacanth hasn't changed,
what, for a 100 million,
150 million years?
And that's because where
he lives or it lives
hasn't changed either.
It's dark, high pressure.
There's no change at all to the
environment of the coelacanth.
And without the
change in environment,
the coelacanth, which we
can now see, fortunately,
by sending down probes and
submarines, the coelacanth
living happily
amongst the dinosaurs.
Or the time of the
dinosaurs is still
living happily amongst us.
They didn't see him, and
nor did we, but he's there.
>>JOHANNSON: Well, just
yesterday, Richard's daughter
Louise and I had two
sessions, wonderful sessions,
with educators and
high school students
from the City of New
York who are really
being taught to be thinkers,
not just pushing buttons.
And these kids asked
that same question.
And I posed an
interesting model,
and that was the model
of space exploration.
Should we be successful in
sending into space a mission
for 200,000 years, and then
having them return after
200,000 years, the conditions
that Richard was speaking
of on that spacecraft--
mutations, recombination,
genetic drift, and so on--
might very well have them evolve
into a new species of Homo.
And when they returned
after 400,000 years
to the very planet that
sent them into space,
they would not be able to
interbreed with very species
that sent them out.
>>GUPTA: That's fascinating.
Let me just--
>>LEAKEY: There wouldn't be
very many of them, probably.
We'd fix them pretty quickly.
>>GUPTA: Let me just ask a
follow-up really quickly,
Doctor Johanson.
I mean, is it possible
given some of the external
pressures-- you said
environmental pressures,
but I'll say external-- that
we are placing on ourselves
in terms of the cognitive
decline, the lack of education,
the obesity crisis--
could we start to de-evolve
as human beings, become
less efficient, our
brains actually becoming
less productive?
Could that happen?
We talked about extinction,
but what about de-evolution?
>>JOHANNSON: Well,
I don't think so.
I think there are enough
genes being exchanged
between populations around
the planet that something,
unless there is an extreme
isolation of people who
only eat Fritos, for
example, and don't interbreed
with anybody else.
That might happen.
>>GUPTA: Now you're scaring me.
>>JOHANNSON: But
I don't think so.
I think the genes are flowing
in and out of populations
globally.
And it's one of the things that
keeps us moving along, more
or less, as the same species.
I mean, we can board a
plane tomorrow morning
to Australia and exchange genes.
And the exchange
of these genes--
[LAUGHTER]
It's true.
The exchange of these genes--
>>LEAKEY: You always
keep saying that.
>>JOHANNSON: --certainly keeps
the species moving along.
>>GUPTA: There's a couple
of questions that are sort
of repeating a little
bit here, so I want to--
I'll try and reword these a
little bit for Doctor Leakey.
It says, you spoke a few
years ago, they say--
I guess they heard you
speak before-- about
extinction of Homo sapiens.
When and why do you
think that will happen?
Now, that's what we're
sort of talking about here,
but these
environmental pressures
that you're alluding
to, is there something
that you think about,
worry about, forecast,
as far as driving that?
>>LEAKEY: I think the
environmental pressures
that we're looking at today,
irrespective of what's
causing them.
And I think we--
there's been a lot of debate
in the media, the press,
the Western world about
whether this is humanly caused
or whether we're
exacerbating it,
or whether we're responsible,
or whether we should do anything
about it.
Let's keep that aside.
The fact is that
the last time there
was major environmental
change in the magnitude
that we're seeing, things
happened to Homo sapiens.
And if you like, it was the
beginning of agriculture.
If you want to go
further back than that,
it probably seems
to be connected
to the origins of syntactic
speech which we see today.
Clearly today, with 7
billion people on the planet,
and heading for 10,
environmental change
of the magnitude that the first
indications are suggesting
we're going to face over
the next 50 to 100 years
are going to be so massive
that there will be fundamental
change to the way the
planet operates in terms
of the human population.
We simply cannot sustain
10 billion people
on the consumption patterns
that we're looking at against
the changes in climate that
we're seeing beginning,
and which we can look
geologically as having happened
in the past.
It's just too much.
It can't be done.
So that, I think is a
very fundamental cause
of concern for me.
And it's particularly important
in developing countries
like you see in Africa.
And 85%, 90% of the
world population
is living at poverty
or below poverty.
And the impact on
that population
of massive climate
change that we're seeing
is going to be very significant.
But to put another side on
that, if ice melt in Greenland
and ice melt in the Arctic and
ice melt in the Antarctic is
as described-- and I've been
to the Antarctic to have a look
at it--
and you can measure
the amount of ice,
and you can see it beginning
to melt quite dramatically,
sea level rise is
going to happen.
And a rise of 5 meters of the
ocean in the next 30 to 50
years is going to put most
of the Eastern Seaboard
on the United States
in some difficulty,
not to mention what happens
on the Western Seaboard,
and what happens to
the whole of Europe.
And many countries will
disappear in the Pacific
and beyond.
So yes, I think in
the next 100 years,
we're going to see
fundamental changes to way
the world looks in terms
of our existence on it.
>>GUPTA: Did you want
to comment on that?
I mean, is it--
>>JOHANNSON: I would
just comment and say
that I think that the human
mind, the human brain,
is infinitely inventive.
And I think that it's moments
of challenge that really push us
to our limits, and have us
make major breakthroughs
in technologies, major
breakthroughs in agriculture,
major breakthroughs in
all aspects of living.
We are really
culture-bound animals.
We are the most plastic.
We are the most adaptable
creature on the planet.
And the changes
that will come about
will come about through
technological and cultural
changes.
I'm not quite as pessimistic,
I think, as Richard is.
I think that the species
is aware that there
are signals, that
species are dying out,
that they are going extinct.
They're disappearing.
We are overusing
land, and so on.
And I think that
people are beginning
to put on their thinking
caps, and figuring out
how to use new
sources of energy,
how to make the
energy go further,
how to make crops go
further, and to be much more
vigilant about the sorts of
things that have brought us
to where we are now.
We are, in many ways,
introspective species,
even though I called
us Homo egocentricus.
And we have a mind that
is infinitely inventive.
And I think that
culturally-- for instance,
if glaciers came back,
people in New York City
just wouldn't grow hair.
They'd just put on
a coat, or put on,
turn up the heat
in the environment
that they're living in.
So I'm somewhat more
optimistic about the future.
>>GUPTA: This is a question
more to do with, I think,
specific process.
And let me ask you, Doctor
Leakey, with the advent,
the question is, of
more sophisticated
genomic sequencing, can
evolutionary anthropologists
use these techniques to
fill in some of the gaps?
>>LEAKEY: Say that again,
sorry, I can't quite get you.
>>GUPTA: I think they're talking
about using genomic sequencing
as a tool, as a route of
exploration to try and fill
in some of the gaps.
Could evolutionary
anthropologists
use that as a tool?
>>LEAKEY: Yes, I
think absolutely.
>>GUPTA: I think they
already are, to some extent.
>>LEAKEY: Absolutely
certain, for sure, but I
think the fossil record
is also very important.
And I think the genetic
evidence is what it is.
The genomic work that's
being done is fabulous,
but I think we do
need a fossil record,
because we need to look not
just at the human story,
but we look at
the story of life,
and what has happened to life in
the broader picture, the bigger
theater of the changes
that have happened
on this planet over the last
three and a half billion years.
I think that's what's important
in putting us in perspective.
I think putting our own
origins in a clearer focus,
the work on genes is going to be
enormously important at pushing
some of the frontiers that
seem to be out of reach
at the moment to
the fossil record,
the archaeological record.
And I think what we're learning
from that is hugely important.
But I think the
bigger picture will
be told by a combination
of different techniques
of investigation.
And I think we want
to be careful to try
to remember that if we're
talking about something that
is true, all the lines
should be congruent
when we get to the end
of the investigation.
>>GUPTA: Working all in
the same direction, yes.
>>JOHANNSON: I think we're
using genetics very effectively
to understand human migrations,
as Richard talked about.
But we also are
limited by the fact
that biological material
does not last very long.
You need to have DNA, obviously,
to do this genetic profiling.
And we have Neanderthals at
100,000 years where we're
beginning to see good DNA.
And through that
DNA, we're beginning
to see that Neanderthals
were different from us.
But there was also
a period of time,
perhaps 100,000 years
ago the geneticists
are suggesting, when we were
capable of interbreeding
with Neanderthals.
But beyond that, we really don't
have any good genetic material
in the fossil record.
We can use genetic
similarities and differences
to help classify
animals and plants.
We could use them to help
reconstruct sort of the family
tree or phylogeny of when
certain branches came off.
But certainly, we will
not be able to say
what the genetics of, say,
Lucy was, for example.
Now last year, when
it was announced
that within the next
couple of years,
the scientists in Leipzig will
have a complete genome sequence
of a Neanderthal, one of the
questions that was debated
was whether or not we should
now take that complete sequence
of Neanderthals-- because after
all, Homo sapiens was maybe
not directly, but
indirectly responsible
for the extinction
of Neanderthals.
Should we now back-breed
to Neanderthals,
and bring them back
after destroying them?
But the moral question
is, what would you
do with the Neanderthal?
Put them in the
state legislature.
[APPLAUSE]
>>GUPTA: Did you
have that planned?
>>JOHANNSON: No, I didn't.
>>GUPTA: You teed that up
for yourself, didn't you?
>>LEAKEY: I think international
travel through airports
of the world suggests that
they're not all gone, anyway.
>>GUPTA: When you look
at all the various routes
of exploration,
Doctor Johanson--
and you're still traveling,
and just been in Ethiopia
and in South Africa--
when you're using all these
various routes of exploration,
are there only specific
areas in these countries
where you can do your work?
I mean, how is that determined
where your team can actually
excavate and look for fossils?
>>JOHANNSON: Sure, that's
a very good question.
It was like the old
days in California
when we saw the Gold Rush.
In this sense, we sort
of had the hominid rush.
Everybody wants to go find
their early human ancestor.
And the governments,
particularly Ethiopia
where I've worked
since 1970, allocate
places, geographic regions
that are in our permit area.
So this is a permit that is
issued to us as individuals,
where we can consistently
work without any difficulty
whatsoever.
And scientists who
work nearby do not
impinge on other
scientists' areas.
We respect these
sorts of boundaries.
And so we do have well-defined
areas where we work.
>>GUPTA: If there are
budding anthropologists,
Doctor Leakey,
listening, how does one
go about starting
that, getting a permit,
just beginning in this field?
>>LEAKEY: Well I think it's
slightly different in Kenya.
Paleontological
prehistoric research
requires some form of permits.
But I think generally
speaking, they're
not bounded by the boundaries
that exist in Ethiopia.
They're more site
specific or time specific
over a much broader area.
And I think if
scientists continue
to collaborate, cooperate,
and talk to each other,
it becomes less important that
you put boundaries around them.
And I think restrictions
of the kind that I think
we've seen in Ethiopia
may ultimately
be counterproductive, in
that scientists are not
talking to each other.
And you, yourself, have
alluded to the fact with me
that at times, you've
been up to Addis
and you wanted to
look at material that
has been published, and
you've been denied access
to look at that material
in its original form.
Now, I think that is very
counterproductive and
inappropriate.
And I think we need to be
very conscious of the fact
that if we use public
money to find things,
and we ultimately publish them,
and we got our first data out,
there needs to be a more mature
approach to sharing data.
And I think unfortunately,
it's part of the world
that we live in,
where you want to keep
things very close to yourself.
You want to have longer than is
reasonable access, because it
helps you raise money
for the next grant.
You want to have your own
opportunity to make a headline.
And I think the
funding mechanism
that goes into scientific
advance in pre-history
at any rate, in
anthropology, has probably
got a lot to answer for in
terms of pushing scientists
to demand, to try to
find headline material,
to try to monopolize the work
that they've done in a way
that I think is
counter-intuitive to looking
for the truth.
And I think there are big areas
where dialogue and consultation
are necessary today.
>>GUPTA: Let me just follow up.
We've just got a couple
more minutes left.
But all the things that
you're talking about
in terms of the
questions that you still
want to answer on your
explanations, taking,
again, all these
routes of exploration--
are you optimistic we're going
to find those answers given
the state of science
now, given the interest
in this particular field?
>>JOHANNSON: Well, I think
that if we look long and hard
enough, and widely
enough, we will
find the right geological
deposits between two
and three million years
when our genus arose.
And Richard has in mind
some places in Kenya.
There are other
colleagues in Ethiopia
we work with that have ideas
of where to look for that.
I think we'll
solve that problem.
I think that whether or not
Neanderthals could sort of
sit around and
speak to one another
like we are today, that's
a more difficult problem.
But if we look at the
circumstantial evidence
that Neanderthals did not
create art like we have,
they probably did not have
symbolic syntactic language
like we do.
There will be lots of questions.
Will we get back
to a point where
we get so close to
that common ancestor
to the African
apes and ourselves
that we will not be
able to make a decision,
by looking at a list
of characteristics,
as to whether it belongs
on our tree or an ape tree?
There are a lot of mysteries.
And the one thing that you
said that caught my ear
was that yes, I would
encourage young people
to get involved in this
field, not just to go out
and stake your claim as to
where you might find fossils,
but to get involved on
the analytical side.
Because new techniques are
coming along all the time
that are allowing us to extract
even more and more information
from these fossils.
A colleague in
England, for example,
has been using
scanning techniques
to look at the inner ear
at the semicircular canals,
and say something about
the locomotor abilities.
We never thought that we'd
use something like that.
So I would encourage people,
young students and our students
at ASU to not just go out
and try to find their fossil,
but to get involved on
the analytical side.
This is not just a
discovery-driven field.
This is a field that
needs good minds,
people who can really analyze
and understand these features,
and add a new significant
fact or bit of understanding
to where we came from.
>>LEAKEY: Let me just
add one point to that,
because I'm going to take it
to a more contemporary issue.
And I think we are well
within the grasp of being
able to demonstrate that
bigotry and prejudice has
no scientific basis.
And it is purely
bigotry and prejudice
that are driving some of
the divides that separate
people of the world today.
And I think if we can
make it understood
and clear that irrespective
of our superficial features,
we are one people, and
we owe it to each other
to respect each other as one
species, one people with one
origin, we may get over
some of the hurdles
that the 21st century
is offering us.
And I think this sort of
research may go towards that.
[APPLAUSE]
>>GUPTA: I was going to
ask another question,
but I think that might be
a perfect point on which
to leave it.
How about a nice round of
applause for Doctors Johanson
and Leakey?
[APPLAUSE]
>>LEAKEY: Thank you very much.
>>GUPTA: Thank you, Richard.
>>JOHANNSON: Thank you.
