Lucy McDowell, one of the producers of the “Search for the First Human” film, takes us behind the scenes on three shoots: the site in Kenya’s Tugen Hills where fossils belonging to Orrorin tugenensis were found, the galleries of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, and a meeting with paleontologist Donald Johanson at the Institute for Human Origins at Arizona State University.
“Making this film was an incredible experience for everyone involved,” says McDowell. “We felt privileged to be able to witness science unfolding. Personally, handling the fossilized bones of a candidate for our earliest ancestor … was something I’ll never forget. It was also fantastic to meet and get to know the team of scientists who’ve worked on Orrorin. Its been an eye-opening glimpse in to the study of our origins. … I’ve been very tempted to exchange the camera for a trowel!”
KENYA — March 2001
Dr. Martin Pickford takes us on a tour of the dig site, where fossils of Orrorin were found.
Three months after the discovery of the Orrorin fossils, our camera crew returns with the scientists to the very site where Orrorin was discovered — a grueling eight-hour drive from Nairobi to the heart of the Tugen Hills.
When there, a lifetime experience was caught on camera. While filming, someone from the Community Museums of Kenya team finds a tooth — a molar. It appears to be human, while dating at an incredible six million years old. One more clue to Orrorin.
Yet behind the discoveries is a world of controversy, battles, and passions.
And travelling to Nairobi in July, I cannot forget the rivalries that abound between scientists in the hunt for human origins.
One such conflict is between the Community Museums of Kenya team, the discoverers of Orrorin, and a famous fossil-hunting family — the Leakeys. Fortunately, as a filmmaker and observer, I feel free to talk to both camps.
At the dig in Kenya’s Tugen Hills, eight hours by car from Nairobi.
So when I find myself in the Nairobi office of Meave Leakey, Richard Leakey’s wife, I am delighted that she is also happy to clear the politics aside. For she agrees, that Orrorin is an incredibly important find. If it proves to be bipedal, she says, it is hugely significant in our study of early human evolution.
Meanwhile, the team from the Community Museums of Kenya are extremely generous with their time in showing me the highlights of Nairobi. For they are busy preparing for the opening of the Kipsaraman Museum, which will eventually house Orrorin. They also have many educational projects on the go, including field schools to encourage the study of palaeontology and geology within Kenya. Their colleagues from France and Japan will soon be returning to their sites in the Tugen hills.
I am also privileged to be able meet Don Johanson, who is passing through Nairobi while I am there. 28 years ago he discovered Lucy in Ethiopia and he has since become America’s most famous paleontologist, and founder of the Institute of Human Origins in Arizona. Hearing the stories of his past adventures is a magical ending to an unforgettable trip.
PARIS — July 2001
One of the world’s great centers of paleontology, Paris’ National Museum of Natural History, is home to Martin Pickford and Brigitte Senut. This historic building, which holds galleries of dinosaurs, whales, and human ancestors, is a filmmaker’s delight.
Entering Martin and Brigitte’s small offices we encounter shelves crammed with hominid skulls, femurs, elephant bones, and other fossils of intrigue. It’s a great setting for Martin and Brigitte, who are also natural stars on camera. They love to explain their theories about the mechanisms of human evolution in ways that are easy to understand.
With casts of bones of chimps, early and modern humans, Martin takes us, step-by-step, through how we can interpret the very grooves, the bumps, the details that can make a discovery important to our understanding of the origins of early man.
Brigitte outlines their claims about Orrorin being our earliest ancestor. It is incredible to hear so much based on the tiniest of details in a handful of bones. But when you have spent time with paleontologists like we now have, that is nothing new.
They talk of the controversy that Orrorin has created and Brigitte laughs as she says that if she ever finds a skull from six million years ago again, she will bury it once more in the ground.
Back in the galleries, the crew are using cranes and special camera technology to engineer a visual feast of skeletons and creatures. It couldn’t be a better place to discover even more about the origins of humankind.
ARIZONA — August 2001
Dr. Donald Johanson, Director of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University, found the ancient hominid, “Lucy,” in 1974. Here speaks about the significance of the Orrorin find.
In the search for our earliest ancestors, perhaps the most famous discovery of all time has been Lucy, a partial skeleton found in Ethiopia in 1974. Her co-discoverer, Donald Johanson, went on to be one of the world’s most celebrated paleontologists.
We visit Donald at the Institute of Human Origins, the laboratory which he founded at Arizona State University. Our executive producer has flown in from Washington and is intrigued to hear Donald’s thoughts on Martin Pickford and Brigitte Senut’s find. Just a few weeks before he was the first paleontologist to see the collection of fossils known as Orrorin.
First we hear about Lucy and how it feels to make a discovery that rocks the world. Donald was just over 30 years old when he found Lucy, named for a Beatles song that was playing at the time. “Lucy” gave us critical information about early humans in Africa just over 3 million years ago.
More than 25 years later, Lucy has come under close scrutiny once more. Martin Pickford and Brigitte Senut now claim that Lucy is not our direct ancestor. Could this be the end of the line for the most famous skeleton on earth?
“Lucy’s” hipbone, tailbone, and femur.
Surrounded by fossils, Donald talks these claims through with the keen insights and open mind of an experienced scientist. He is intrigued about what the fossils could mean for the human evolutionary tree, even if it means his own find, Lucy, may no longer be our direct ancestor.
But it is the beginning of the human evolutionary tree that has brought us to Arizona. When did we become human? Was there a point when we were both chimp-like and human-like? How could Orrorin fit in to the evolutionary tree?
Donald was one of the first scientists to congratulate Martin and Brigitte on their find. Now, having seen the fossils for himself, he looks forward to further research on the bones and is excited by the possibility that Orrorin could be amongst our earliest ancestors.
