Josh Gates continues his incredible investigation into humanity’s origins on Expedition Unknown this week — and Monsters & Critics has an exclusive clip.
This is the second installment to the exploration he began last week, and we find him firmly in the heart of Africa as he and the series experts explore the most remote areas of the continent and analyze evidence in laboratories.
In the clip, Josh sees the Rosetta stone of human evolution as he journeys through the history of civilization and deep into our collective prehistoric past.
This week, Josh will also present some viable explanations rooted in science for how we as a species got to be where we are and, more importantly, why our species of mankind thrived despite eons of plagues like insects, disease and natural disasters wiping out millions of people.
Humankind is pretty hardy, as Gates will show you in Wednesday’s episode. He asks the question: “Can lessons from the first humans prevent us from becoming the last humans?”
He adds: “I’m here to find out what our ancient ancestors can tell us about ourselves.”
Where did humans come from?
The data is constantly being massaged and updated, but scientists hold firm that human life evolved and began in Africa, migrating to points north and beyond.
New evidence suggests a large swath of homo sapiens emerged from Asia, not Africa. New research indicates that neanderthals, named for the neander valley from which they sprung in Europe, might have mated with “Super Archaics” or “ghost tribes“.
The established view is that one female in Africa was the mother of all humanity, but that is being challenged constantly by scientific findings. There are numerous articles and white papers on the subject, and they all to some degree contradict the others. It is an ongoing scientific study which some think is being aided by the worldwide craze to have personal DNA tested and cataloged.
Exclusive preview of Expedition Unknown
On Wednesday’s episode of Expedition Unknown, Josh Gates travels to Africa to get up close and personal with a distant relative and scale dangerous cliffs all to answer one question: Where did humans come from?
Watch our exclusive clip below, as Josh learns about our tell-tale DNA and examines what the bones and fossils reveal about our earliest ancestors:
Expedition Unknown airs Wednesdays at 8PM ET/PT on Discovery.