Eons

No Single Cradle of Humankind

It would take decades for paleontologists to realize that maybe there wasn’t just one so-called "cradle of humankind," and realize that maybe they’d been asking the wrong question all along.

No Single Cradle of Humankind

10m 46s

  • When the Amazon Flowed Backwards: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    When the Amazon Flowed Backwards

    S7 E10 - 11m 25s

    What did life look like when the Amazon watershed flowed backwards? How did its direction shape the evolution of life around it? And what force could have possibly been strong enough to up-end one of the world’s mightiest rivers between then and now?

  • How Animals Got Butts: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    How Animals Got Butts

    S7 E9 - 12m 10s

    While the evolution of the butthole was a major breakthrough in animal development, its story might actually end with redefining what it means to have a butthole at all.

  • What Happened To The Other Mesozoic Mammals?: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    What Happened To The Other Mesozoic Mammals?

    S7 E8 - 12m 28s

    In 2003, a fossil belonging to a mammaliaform was discovered in an ancient lakebed in what's now China. It was an almost complete skeleton the size of a platypus, a find that complicated the history of mammaliaforms. It painted a picture of their explosive diversification, their mysterious disappearance, and how our own ancestors might have survived thanks to a leg up from some leafy allies…

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