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Ape-Man

Episode 3: Body

Duration: 50 minutes

First broadcast: on BBC Two Northern Ireland (Analogue)Latest broadcast: on BBC Knowledge

The search for the 'missing link' has caught our imagination ever since Darwin wrote The Origin of Species. This is the remarkable story of how the mythical half-man, half-ape, became reality - and how it changed our view of our ancestors.The film reconstructs the dying moments of a young boy, whose fossilised skeleton from 1.5 million years ago has revealed the true nature of the ape-man. Nicknamed Nariokotome Boy (after the lake in Kenya where he was found), he was a tall athletic youth we could be proud to call an ancestor, in a practically human body.His species were phenomenally successful predators and, from his origins in Africa, he dominated the world for over a million years. But his brain was tiny. Inside this human form was the mind of a wild animal. Show less

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