Where do Human Beings Come From? APE TO MAN On The History Channel(R)

Where do Human Beings Come From? APE TO MAN On The History Channel(R)

Premieres August 7, 2005 at 9-11pm ET/PT

NEW YORK, AUG. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- It has long been considered the most compelling question in our history: Where do human beings come from? Although life has existed for millions of years, only in the past century-and-a-half have we begun to use science to explore the ancestral roots of our own species. The search for the ultimate answer has taken a number of twists and turns, with careers made and broken along the way. APE TO MAN is the story of the quest to find the origins of the human race -- a quest that spanned more than 150 years of obsessive searching. APE TO MAN is a world premiere on The History Channel on August 7 at 9-11 pm ET/PT.

The search for the origins of humanity is a story of bones and the tales they tell. It was in 1856 that the first bones of an extinct human ancestor were encountered, unearthed by a crew of unskilled laborers digging for limestone in Western Europe. The find, which would be known as Neanderthal Man, was seeing the light of day for the first time in more than 40,000 years At the time, the concept of a previous human species was virtually unthinkable. Yet just a few years later, Charles Darwin's work The Origin of Species first broached the subject of evolution, and by the end of the nineteenth century, it had become the hottest topic of the age. Adventurers had embarked on the search for the Missing Link, the single creature that represented the evolutionary leap from apes to humans. APE TO MAN examines the major discoveries that have led us to the understanding we have today, including theories that never gained full acceptance in their time, an elaborate hoax that confused the scientific community for years, and the ultimate understanding of the key elements that separate man from apes.

Highlights of APE TO MAN include:

* Reenactments of the work of Eugene DuBois, an Amsterdam physician who
left his practice in 1890 in search of the Missing Link and found what
would be called Homo erectus, a 500,000-year old ape-like skeleton, in
Sumatra. DuBois' assertion that he has found the Missing Link results
in his rejection by the scientific community. Only later did people
realize the impact of the discovery.

* Examination of the key elements that marked the evolution from ape to
man, including the ability to walk upright, the use of tools, the
harnessing of fire, the ability to form communities, and the ability to
reason and plan.

* The story of Piltdown Man, a skeleton discovered in England in 1912
which was, for a time, considered by many to be the definitive Missing
Link, but later discovered to be one of the greatest hoaxes in the
history of science.

* Raymond Dart's 1924 discovery of Taung Child, a fossilized skull of a
child in Africa that is nearly two million years old. It was the oldest
finding to date, but was completely ignored by the scientific community
because people still believed in the erroneous story of Piltdown Man.

Two key shifts in thinking led to our understanding today -- the shift to Africa as the birthplace of the human species; and the shift from thinking that brain size was the driving force of evolution, to the understanding that the use of tools was really the key step.

Executive Producer for The History Channel is Marc Etkind. APE TO MAN is produced by Lion Television for The History Channel. Executive Producer is Bill Locke. Producer is Anna Thomson. Director is Nic Young.

Now reaching more than 88 million Nielsen subscribers, The History Channel(R), "Where the Past Comes Alive(R)," brings history to life in a powerful manner and provides an inviting place where people experience history personally and connect their own lives to the great lives and events of the past. In 2004, The History Channel earned five News and Documentary Emmy(R) Awards and previously received the prestigious Governor's Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for the network's "Save Our History(R)" campaign dedicated to historic preservation and history education. The network received its second Peabody Award in 2005. The History Channel web site is located at www.HistoryChannel.com.

Source: The History Channel

CONTACT: Kathie Gordon of The History Channel, +1-212-210-1320,
kathie.gordon@aetn.com

Web site: http://www.historychannel.com/

NOTE TO EDITORS: For more information and photography please visit us on the web at www.historychannelpress.com.

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