Here are National Geographic Human Family Tree video and photos. The documentary, narrated by Kevin Bacon will premiere on NGC on Sunday, August 30, 2009 at 9pm ET.
The program sets out to reveal, in dramatic fashion, that by gathering and studying the DNA of a couple of hundred random people collected in a single day on a single Queens, New York street, scientists are able to prove that we are all related; that we are, as the program title implies members of the same human family tree.
As the National Geographic Human Family Tree program reveals, the DNA so collected was used to trace the ancestry of the entire human race. The experiment showed that race, religion, and nationality aside, everyone’s ancestral origin can be traced back to East Africa, considered the cradle of humanity. Ironically, people who don’t know each other, randomly selected in a single neighborhood, from a diversity of backgrounds all share — as does every human — a common ancestry. See more photos and video below.
Top Photo: Lake Eyasi, Tanzania: Hollowed Baobab tree trunks are traditionally used as places where Hadzabe give birth. The Hadzabe, who live about 15-hundred miles north of the San near Tanzania’s Serengeti, represent one of the first branches in the human family tree. They split from the founding population (the San) around 150,000 years ago. Today the Hadzabe are one of the last groups of hunter-gatherers on Earth. (photo credit: NGT/Chad Cohen)
Reenactment: Modern humans set out to reach new continents around 45,000 years ago by land and by sea. Here, they arrive in Australia on a raft. (photo credit: NGT/Isham Randolph)
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Video “Human Family Tree – Preview” – By studying the DNA of random people on a New York street, scientists prove we are all cousins in the family of man. Link: National Geographic Human Family Tree Video
Video “Human Family Tree: Genetic Roadmaps” – Mapping the tiny, random changes in our genetic code unlocks the mystery of who we are and how we got here. Video Link
Video “Human Family Tree: The Longest Human Journey” – If you want to understand how humans first got to the Americas, it’s simple. All you need is a 14,000-year-old excrement sample! Video Link
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Can I order a cd with the NatG human family tree?
Hi Sonia,
Yes, NatGeo sells the DVDs online:
http://shop.nationalgeographic.com/gateway/128/105.html