abc listen hello my name is nidge and today on imagine this i'm looking at my family tree why is it a tree it's what shows you how a family started and how it grew and it is a tree that passes down generations like My sister and I are on one branch, and our parents are above us on another branch, and their parents, my grandparents, are above them on their own branch.
And what about great-grandparents?
Great-great-grandparents.
Great, great, great grandma.
Pretty quickly, it becomes a really big tree.
I have a big family, so yeah.
With huge branches that go back a long way through time.
How far back does it go?
All the way to the queen and king?
Like forever, because you just don't know how far it could go.
Definitely before I was born.
And that's what today's question is all about.
Hello, my name's Lolo Lange.
I'm five years old.
Hello, my name is Maisie.
I'm five years old.
Hi, my name's James.
I'm seven years old.
And my question is, who was the first person to be made?
Who was the first person in the world?
How did humans come to be alive?
If it takes a person to make a person, then where did it all start?
Like a million generations?
Could be.
I'm not actually that sure about it.
We should talk to Associate Professor Michelle Langley.
She's an archaeologist.
That's someone who learns about the past by looking at really old things they find at ancient sites.
Come on, let's go find her.
Hi, Professor.
Hi, Michelle.
Hi, Michelle.
Hello, how's it going?
You caught me on a hot choccy break.
Archaeology is thirsty work.
Where are we?
This is an archaeological site.
It's a place where we can see signs of people from the past, from the things they've left behind.
My job is to work out what the objects are and what they were used for.
How come?
This can tell us about the lives of people who lived a long time ago and how we got to be here today.
Cool.
We want to know how humans came to be alive.
Well, that's a tricky question.
There's still so much we don't know, and we're still learning new things all the time.
But how about we use our imaginations to have a look through some important moments in early human history?
Yeah!
Let's start four million years ago.
That's so long ago.
Evolution takes a really long time.
Where are we?
East Africa.
We know that all human beings evolved from early ancestors millions of years ago.
We've learnt about evolution before.
It's how...
Things change by a tiny bit.
Yep.
Evolution is how living things change over a long time to become stronger in their environment.
Like how penguins evolved from flying birds to having webbed feet and flippers that made them great swimmers.
And how giraffes evolved long necks to eat leaves from tall trees.
Humans have evolved a lot too.
It's not the kind of changes you see in just one person, like having different colored hair or eyes.
It's the changes to a whole species after generations and generations.
It takes a really long time.
What's that?
Monkey.
Australopithecus.
That's a mouthful.
Australopithecus.
Australopithecus.
Australopithecus.
Australopithecus means southern ape.
Southern because we're in the southern part of the world.
And ape because humans and apes come from the same family tree.
And it's monkeys starting to evolve to humans.
Kind of.
We think Australopithecus was an early human ancestor.
It is one of your family members from like really long ago.
So our ancestors are apes?
Were apes.
What?
There are five kinds of apes in the world today.
Gorillas, bonobos, orangutans, chimpanzees and us.
Wow.
That's pretty cool.
We know this by looking at DNA.
What's that?
DNA is like an instruction book for our bodies and how they are made.
A person will get their DNA from their parents.
That's why you might have the same ears as your mum or the same eye colour as your dad.
My dad has blue eyes and I have blue eyes.
I've definitely got my dad's teeth and his hands.
My hair is the same as my mum's hair and dad's eyes.
So I look different to you because I have different DNA.
These differences are very small though.
All human beings have 99.9% identical DNA.
So we're basically exactly the same as each other.
Yep, and our closest non-human relative, the chimpanzee, has DNA that's 98% the same as ours.
Well that explains it.
You lot are always one getting around.
Australopithecus is an important step in our evolution, because this is the first time that early humans started moving around on two legs.
How did they start walking?
Did one Australopithecus just start running around and then teach everyone else?
Or maybe everyone chased him or her?
No, evolution is super slow.
There would have been really small changes.
You'd barely even notice over generations.
The important thing is that walking on two legs helped Australopithecus be stronger in its environment.
Because then it's better so we can see down low and up high so we can hold stuff.
While walking around.
Yep.
You can juggle.
Every little step or new trick helped each generation be a little stronger and very slowly we start seeing human beings evolve.
So it's not like two of these Australopithecuses.
Had a human baby by surprise.
They're called australopithecines.
And no, there's actually no such thing as the first human or the first human baby being born.
These changes happen much slower than that.
Let's jump ahead a couple of million years to see where walking on two legs got us.
Hey, look.
There are huts now, and they're made of branches and animal skins.
Where are we now?
We're still in Africa, but now early humans are moving around and making communities in other areas and even other continents too.
Australopithecus is long gone.
Now Homo erectus is wandering around.
It means standing man.
Now our ancestors aren't just walking on two feet, they're running.
They're much taller than before, they have bigger brains and they're very good at making things with their hands.
Whoa, is that an axe?
Yep.
Being able to make hand axes meant early humans could chop down trees to build shelter.
They could catch more food and use animal skins to keep warm.
Plus, something else very important happened.
They learned to control fire.
Can you imagine that moment?
Ah, incredible.
They just changed humans forever.
Get a stick and a rock and you rub the stick really fast to create fire.
We can use it to warm up.
Keep us warm and cooking food.
Yeah, which meant being able to eat a lot more types of food.
Yeah, like raw potato.
Nah, not great.
Chicken.
What if you eat a raw piece of... Pie ball?
Yeah, you wouldn't want that.
Fire is special for another reason too.
Oh, toasting marshmallows?
No.
Fire brings us together.
Have you ever sat around a campfire?
I have and it felt really warm.
Sometimes we do it at Grandma and Grandad's house.
Being able to come together every night.
A sit around of fire may have been when early humans told stories to learn from each other.
So, over millions of years early, humans went from small, hairy beings that were more like chimpanzees living in trees to tall, upright walkers with tools and shelter and fire.
They still look pretty different though.
When do they start looking more like us?
300,000 years ago.
Where are we now?
And when?
We're on the southern African coast about 100,000 years ago.
Homo erectus did move to other parts of the world, but some groups stayed in Africa.
Some didn't have any connection with each other, so they evolved into different kinds of early human species.
There were more than one?
There were lots.
Homo sapiens were the ones who evolved in Africa.
Neanderthals evolved in Europe.
Denisovans evolved in Asia.
But there's only one type of human now, right?
Yes.
About 70,000 years ago, some Homo sapiens moved out of Africa and travelled all around the world.
Eventually, Homo sapiens were everywhere and they became you and me and everyone on the whole planet.
Whoa.
We're Homo sapiens.
It means wise human.
I'm so wise.
You sure are.
What made homo sapiens so clever?
Well, we certainly had big brains, but I think a big key to our success was making friends.
Really?
Doing things on your own is really hard.
We need friends.
Since you can have fun with friends.
So you won't be lonely and you'll be happy, because happy is really important.
So we build trust.
Yes, we evolved ways to communicate and cooperate with people outside of just our family.
By working together, we were able to create communities that got bigger and bigger.
Wow, pretty cool.
Come on, let's head back.
It's cool learning about early humans, but hot chocolate doesn't get invented for another 96000 years.
Ooh, I'll get the marshmallows.
So does my family tree go back hundreds of thousands of years?
Yep, and it connects to every single person in the whole world.
To all the people who have ever lived.
Wow.
That's a lot of people.
And not only that, every living thing is connected in the same way.
Hmm?
What do you mean?
All life on Earth is connected through evolution, from the earliest simple forms of life that started billions of years ago to the millions of animals and plants that exist today.
Plants too?
Yeah.
Wow.
We even share a lot of DNA with a banana.
What?
That's where I get all my appeal.
Ba-dum-ching. tree of life that's always changing and evolving.
Thanks so much for teaching us about the first humans, Michelle.
Or should I call you Kaz?
So Lalalangi, Maisie and James, humans came to be alive through millions of years of evolution.
Slowly changing.
Our early ancestors looked very different to us.
They were small and hairy and lived in trees.
Until they started walking on two legs.
Then running.
Over millions of years, our ancestors learned to make tools with their hands.
Like axes and tents.
And used the power of fire.
And friendship.
To evolve into homo sapiens.
That's us.
There wasn't a first person or a first baby.
Because evolution takes a really long time.
Ages.
But it connects us all in a big family tree.
With lots of branches.
From the first ever life on Earth.
Billions of years ago.
All the way to you and me.
And me.
And me.
And me.
And every living thing in between.
Imagine This is an ABC Kids Listen podcast hosted by me, Dr. Neeraj Lal.
A big thanks to our guest, Associate Professor Michelle Langley, and to all the kids who helped make the show.
Today's episode was written and produced by Samia Bella, with sound design by Wei Nguyen, and was made on Wurundjeri Woiwurrung Turbul Dakinjung, Ngunnawal and Gadigal lands.
Our executive producer is Emma Gibbs.
For more podcasts to play, music to move and stories and soundtracks for sleep.
Download the ABC Kids Listen app free from your app store.
Or look for ABC Kids Listen on the ABC Listen app.
