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Do you remember could you describe me the first fossil you found. The first fossil 

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I found was found behind apartment building where I lived when I was about eleven years old

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and I was interested in natural history in this period of my life I was a big reader of books about nature animals

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plants butterflies all sorts of things like that and.

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I had the chance to visit the Natural History Museum in Paris with my cousin.

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And my cousin offered me a little book about fossils and I was very enthusiastic about finding fossils myself.

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And so using this little book I scouted around the house in the neighborhood and luckily

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Well by the way nothing very surprising.

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I found a mollusc on a piece of lime stone and so I was happy to connect that with what I had in this book

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and that was my first fossil really what you were twelve years old something like that when you found it? Eleven

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and what did you find so fascinating of this fossile. Well it's a complicated story.

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I was born in Algeria and I grew up there until I was like eight years old.

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And I grew up in a very I would say unstable

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and violent environment because it was a colonial war there a colonial war that turned to be a civilian war

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in the end. And so my my childhood was surrounded by a very I would say scary environment somehow.

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And then I was deported outside of the country with my family

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and I lived in France around Paris in not so nice neighborhoods for some years. And I think probably to me.

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Natural history was a sort of escape into a world that was much nicer somehow in this rather grim or scary environment

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and I when I discovered paleontology when I discovered fossils.

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In this natural history museum I realize that beyond the nature of today there was another nature.

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There were ancient natures and it was like a multiplication of this world

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and it was even more fascinating because we did not know everything about these past worlds

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and there was a lot to discover.

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So that's where it started. When you went on looking into the fossils what you find or discover.

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Well I was I think I was a little bit obsessed by fossils. In this time period of my life and so.

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I had the chance at the middle school where I was to meet a professor who was also interested in fossils

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and paleontology and supported me and pushed me to persevere in this topic

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and so I had a lot of activities that were either at school or with this professor and that was around paleontology.

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We created a local geology club and we did a lot of excursions to find fossils with other kids.

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I know I was the most motivated of all of them I was the president of the association

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and the chief editor of the journal the probably the only reader of the journal and then yeah.

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So basically I think at this stage of my life I decided what I wanted to be what I wanted to do

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and I just continued throughout the years to work in this direction and I never really.

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Deviated much. still what is so fascinating for you now at this age about it. Well I yeah.

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Now it becomes something a little bit different.

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I would say because now I'm mostly interested about human fossils and not just reconstructing nature and environment

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but I'm working on humans who lived a long time before us

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and these Humans are not exactly like us they share a lot of features they somehow belong to human kind but

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but they are also different in many aspects and so they are a little bit like to say aliens somehow

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and I found this extremely fascinating to think on humans which are not completely humans like us. the other thing is

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and this also probably connects with my childhood.

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I think there is something about saving something from death and oblivion

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and the fate of all living creatures is to disappear completely. But by chance when we have a fossil of a human.

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who lived half a million year ago.

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So suddenly we saved something of this life somehow we we  resuscitate a part of his existence

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and we can learn things about even his or her daily life. So to me it's not just a piece of bone.

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somehow it's a person.

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And of course I would say the communication is very limited with this person but there is something like that.

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So it's a bit like travelling through time and connecting with a lost world.

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And discovering things that are somehow unknown to others

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or unknown to us until we are able to unveil something of their past reality. and what kind of humans.

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what are we talking about. Well today we live in a world where there is only one kind of humans.

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And we have we are what we call what paleontologists and biologists call modern humans and modern humans are.

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a late version of a species that we call homo sapiens and today this is the only species of humans on Earth but

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when we move back in time. It was almost never like that.

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So in past there was

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always several groups of humans we don't know if we should call them specious or subspecies

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but what is clear is that we had groups of humans in the past that were much more different one from the other than any

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kind of differences that you can see today between modern humans living in different parts of the world so.

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An order of magnitude higher and so just moving let's say a hundred thousand years ago.

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We know that we have the ancestor of modern humans living in Africa.

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But on other continents we have Neanderthals in Europe

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and parts of Asia is a group living in the Far East that we call Denisovans and it's a group that has been identified

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rather recently we also know that in some islands off Indonesia like Flores we have another kind of

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creature which is probably the descendants of local homo erectus a very ancient hominin

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and these humans living in Flores they are very minute creatures. They are being called Hobbits.

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And all these groups they are there are quite different one from the other

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what happened at some point is that our ancestors the modern humans who lived in Africa started to expand outside

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of their geographical domain. And they expanded first in Southwest Asia.

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Maybe they entered a large portion of Asia rather early

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and then about I would say fifty thousand years ago their expansion accelerated a lot

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and so they started moving into the domain of the Neanderthals in Europe they went to Australia they moved

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further east in the place where the Denisovans lived.

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Eventually they entered in the higher latitudes they passed in the Americas.

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via the Bering strait and they went to all the most remote islands in the middle of oceans.

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What made them or us actually, our ancestors so successful.

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That's a big mystery actually that's the question we try to understand to resolve.

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and what's in what's fascinating

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when one compares modern humans Neanderthals other hominins of the time period around Say hundred to fifty thousand

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years ago that we see that all these hominins are sort of evolving in the same direction and they have bigger

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and bigger brains and they have more and more complex behaviors

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and probably they are sort of responding to the same kind of pressure of selection.

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But something happened with one of these groups our ancestors that gradually made them I would say extremely successful

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as a species and

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when we say successful for a species it means that these species have a higher reproductive success than others. And so.

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These humans start to replace all the others.

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We know now that there was a certain level of admixture with local population and that's an idea that the.

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The media and the public like very much. But the truth is that this admixture was very reduced in fact very little.

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A couple of percent not more. And so it's primarily a replacement of population.

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So there is something with our species which is new. At the scale of hominin evolution.

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And this something new.

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Could be related to technology for example people some people have believed that these modern humans had some kind of

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new tools new weapons some kind of new cognitive abilities. Maybe something related to the complexity of

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Language for example or it could also be something related to.

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The complexity of the social networks of these people. in what way. Well.

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Humans are extremely good at creating connections with other humans and not just humans in their direct

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environment but even humans living far away. And so.

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So in other words the

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when we speak about a group of humans we don't speak about families we talk about networks that covers a very large

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portion of a continent.

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And so we don't know exactly when this developed in the course of human evolution but it's very likely that.

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Belonging to such a large network is a considerable strength.

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If you compete with other hominins who are basically organized in the form of local groups which can be very

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successful but with the size of the social network more result. This is one idea but there are many others.

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There are also many I would say psychological traits of modern humans which of course are very difficult to investigate

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in the fossil record but things like if you think on things like altruism or heroism

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or things like that it's you know the ability of a individual to lose something for the benefit of others

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or even to sacrifice himself for a self for the survival of others. This also. It's a remarkable feature of humans.

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Again we don't know exactly when in the course of human evolution these develop but we can easily imagine that.

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One group having this kind of behaviors that would compete with another group that does not have this kind of

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features. Well that would be also a big advantage. and not so nice for the competition I suppose.

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Yeah but of course today we.

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We like to think on humans of the past with I would say with pink glasses and so we like to think on

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hunter gatherers of the past Neanderthals or early modern humans as peaceful

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hunter gatherers that lived in equilibrium with nature and did not overexploit the environment and were nice.

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With others. I'm not so convinced that humans have ever been so good.

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Again I think maybe it's a memory of my own childhood or life but I know that humans can be.

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really terrible with others especially others from a different group

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and so you can love your family your children your friends your neighbors and.

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And kill other people who have a different language

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or a different kind of culture. so in a way humans are dangerous as a species for other species.

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Well humans. actually humans have been dangerous not just for other humans

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but they have been dangerous in general for other species

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and there is something that could be related to the expansion of modern humans. Showing that.

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Let's say after fifty thousand we see signs of a direct impact of the human expansion.

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On the environment

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and especially on the fauna of course there are already signs of that further back in the past we see for

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example when humans start to hunt.

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Other animals they compete with carnivores and in this competition sometimes carnivores are very good

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but sometimes humans are better.

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So we have reduction of the number of carnivores in Africa already between two and one million years ago but

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when modern humans started to expand out of Africa especially

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when they're going to reach areas where humans never lived before places where there was no Neanderthals no Denisovan

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nothing places like Australia for example or Americas.

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So there the impact of these groups is going to be rather terrible on the on the fauna

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we see a lot of large animals disappearing

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and we think that the predation of humans is for something so. and what is it that makes it so dangerous.

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Well I think probably the difference between modern humans recent modern humans.

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And other hominins is that we have a way to exploit the resource which is much more intense somehow For example we know

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that Neanderthals in Europe co-existed with a number of species that are going to disappear

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when modern humans arrived and replaced Neanderthals.

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By the way in a rather provocative way I could say Neanderthals were just like another species of predators that has

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been eliminated by modern humans I know it's politically incorrect. How did we do that. Well for the fauna

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It's quite easy to understand it it looks like the number of preys that we extract from the environment is for some

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species is too high.

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Very large animals like say elephants for example they have a rather slow reproduction rate

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and so if you start taking too many young individuals at some point it becomes not sustainable for the species

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carnivores Well you can hunt them directly.

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You can also compete with them for the preys and then the result is more or less the same.

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Now for humans it's difficult to say because you have many ways one group of humans can replace another

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and I think in the case of Neanderthals. We have a competition for the occupation of the European territory.

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Between Neanderthals and modern humans.

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I don't think these groups they co-existed anywhere for a long time I think at the scale of the continents they co-existed

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but locally in one region one valley. I don't think so and so you can you can have a direct.

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I would say conflict.

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You know hunter gatherers off to I mean recent

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hunter gatherers they they go at war against other groups especially when they compete for a resource.

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So you know you kill the men you take the women you do things not very nice

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but then of course there are other factors that can add on that you can be more.

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effective in exploiting the environment which means in the end you're going to have more children

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and these children have a higher chance of survival

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and you can have also a long higher longevity higher chance of survival as a young adult all these put together

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especially if you're dealing with groups that are represented by small numbers

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and this is something we it's difficult to imagine for us but

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when we speak about early modern humans or Neanderthals in Europe we're talking about population size of 

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ten thousand twenty thousand something like that maybe a bit more

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but not we're not talking about hundreds of thousands or millions.

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So for groups of a I would say a few thousand individual if you have a difference in demographic success clearly one's

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going to replace another and then you have other things like disease Things like that so.

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Finally it's a it's a complex process including absorption of some individuals in the group

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but in the end what is clear is that.

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Let's say after forty thousand years ago in in Europe in most of Europe you have only modern humans maybe there are

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some Neanderthals surviving in a corner in the southern Iberia our places like that but not for a very long time.

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And if you look at the genome of these Modern humans in Europe in this time period.

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We have something like about four percent of Neanderthal D.N.A.

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In their genome and this four percent are going to gradually decrease because there is a selection

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a natural selection against this part of the genome and today.

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non African humans carry about two percent of Neanderthal genome  and we're not sure that in this two percent

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there are much D.N.A.

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Coding for important features which is another aspect of the problem. And why did you choose 

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To to go in this scientific field I mean looking into humans and not in other species. Why did you choose that. Well.

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Well first of all I continued to be interested in other creatures than than humans.

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But what I like with human evolution is that it allowed me to combine also an interest for archaeology.

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And archaeology is the science investigating the material culture of humans

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and trying to understand what is going on in terms of technical evolution or other behaviors for humans

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and what is really peculiar with hominins in general

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and especially more with modern humans is that it's impossible to disentangle cultural evolution

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and biological evolution and so the the whole story of human evolution is an interaction between culture.

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And social organization and biology and looking at one without looking at the other is sort of.

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I would say meaningless. And what makes you and your institute so incredibly good at this. Well For me I guess it's motivation

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Like for everything

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in life you have to be very motivated in what you do what I've tried to do

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when I moved to Leipzig was to create a department where there was these different aspects of human evolution that

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could be investigated and not just with I would say.

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Classical methods of human paleontology and paleolithic archaeology.

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But putting

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also on top of that many methods coming from what is called archaeological sciences which basically means physics

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and chemistry applied to the kind of questions we can address. For human evolution and so this 

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This concept is something that I did not really invent myself because there are other people who had this idea that

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basically we had to look at all these aspects of human evolution

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but as a matter of fact there are very few places on earth.

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If there are any beside here in Leipzig where all these aspects are studied. By one department.

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Going into all these directions. When I was a young scientist I.

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I was invited to teach at Berkeley University where there was a professor who was just getting retired.

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Francis Clark Howell

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and Francis Clark Howell had a very strong influence on me. he was the one who basically proposed this concept

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of what is called paleoanthropology.

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Which is putting together all sort of fields including things like environmental sciences paleoclimatology.

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looking at many other aspects of the surroundings of hominins to try to decipher human evolution.

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And Clark I would say developed his career in a academic environment in the U.S. where there was still a department of anthropology

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Where there was for example cultural anthropology and palaeontology together and with other things like linguistics

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or genetics all these in one big department today this is gone.

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Mostly. And now it's only here in Leipzig. it's not only here but it's mostly here

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and so I was I was extremely I would say fortunate to be offered to create this department in this institute because

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this institute already addresses the question of what makes humans different. And to address this question.

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There were already in this institute departments like linguistics genetics primatology the study of our

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direct relatives African apes and Asian apes people also working on

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The development of psychology in children and apes

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and to me I thought it looked to me like that was like the best place to develop my department with people coming

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with these different disciplines.

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And with the modern techniques of course you are able to discover and understand more

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and more of this human evolution. We become much more ambitious today yeah. In the.

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When I started to do paleontology when I was let's say this little boy looking for fossils or even when I was a student

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and doing my Ph D.

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Studying the fossils were mostly looking at bumps and holes on bones and making measurements

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and trying to describe the shape of different fossils and basically grouping them in different species

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and trying to built up a tree of human evolution and connecting that with a chronology and some stone artefacts

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but today we try to investigate things like diet like mobility. Accessing the genome of fossils.

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It's something we even did not think of when I was a beginner in the field

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and now we can say things about you know how connected were the father

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and the mother of a Neanderthal who lived forty five thousand years ago and we can say oh this pair the mother

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and the father they could have been maybe half siblings or cousins

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or things like that we can say things about the mobility of humans in the landscape.

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We can say even things about the way they exploit the fauna

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what kind of if the animals they are hunting are coming from far away

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or they are local animals so we can really say a lot of things about I would say their daily life.

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In the meantime of course there is a sort of frustrating limit. That seems still impossible.

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Sometime I ask what would you like to know.

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About Neanderthals for example

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and as a joke a couple of time I already said Oh I would like to know what kind of relationship

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a Neanderthal had with his brother in law.

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And I think yeah this is really where it would be really important for example to figure out what could have been a

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difference between Neanderthals and modern humans. I'm not sure we know that ever. But it is a limit that 

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You would like to cross. Yeah sure sure.

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I think there is a difficulty in our field and the difficulty comes from the fact that it's a paradox

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but there is a great interest of the public for Origins. people want to know about origins they want to know about

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Neanderthals and modern humans

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and it's incredibly popular. somehow it's great because I guess this is how I could make a job of these interest in the

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meantime it results in the construction of mythology I would say that is a sort of scientific mythology.

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That replaced a religious believe in the past. So all human societies have their myth of origin.

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Western societies they have prehistory and paleoanthropology

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and so the result of that is that there is a lot of storytelling for basically to compensate for the lack of

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information we have with many aspects of the nature and the life of ancient humans.

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And so we tend to. There is a sort of pressure of the environment the public the media for us to tell stories.

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And so there are many topics for which we have to use our imagination to basically fill the gaps

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and so this is where it's a bit problematic because I think we fill the gap with conceptions that are mostly depending

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on the ideology of the historical period where we live.

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And so I always warn the students about even scientific papers about separating the evidence.

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The scientific results and the storytelling and there is always a little bit of storytelling.

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What kind of storytelling should i think about. Oh I it's quite obvious that for example this question of

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The difference between Neanderthals and modern humans or the replacement process of Neanderthals by modern humans

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and things like that are deeply influenced by scenarios that we have in mind.

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And which are not always just a deduction from the empirical evidence that we have from sites. And if you.

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For example if you like to think that ancient hunter gatherers was you know.

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As I said peaceful hunter gatherers who were preoccupied by ecology

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and not discriminating these poor Neanderthals you are going to built up stories around that.

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And so I think our field is easily filled with this kind of thing. And as you move further back in time.

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I think we have a fundamental misunderstanding of what ancient hominins were because the natural trend for humans is to

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project themselves in the past. So when we speak about hominins living a million and a half years ago.

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Rather naturally we see them as humans of today that would not have all the technology that we have.

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And maybe a smaller brain

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but basically it would be very close to us they would be in better health a bit stronger

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but they would see the world like we see it and they would see each other as we see each other

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and I think this is completely wrong in fact but.

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For millennia humans they have built up this vision of the world where they are there is us

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and the rest of the world for example we see us as completely separated from animals.

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When in fact if you look at many of the human features that have been for a long time believed to be proper to humans.

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You will find out that you find all these things in many other species of course not with the degree of complexity or

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the degree of intensity that you see in humans but you will find it so in other words.

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There is not a very well cut limit between the humans and the others.

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And so there is this grey zone where we have archaic hominins which I think to me again I found it absolutely fascinating.

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But for many people including in my field of science. Yeah there is this.

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Sort of tendency to separate what is the real humans and something more much more different and primitive before.

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And so we in other words which we have a tendency to humanize as much as possible.

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Everything which is close to us in time

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and then beyond a certain point then we basically see everything like very primitive very different.

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And so this border has been moving through time and so.

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For some people humans start with the genius homo for other the humans start with modern humans

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and you have almost everything in between and of course the reality is much more complex. There is a sentence in.

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A book by a famous French writer called Toqueville who wrote a book about.

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Democracy in America and in this book Toqueville says somewhere that any wrong idea

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but that would be very simple and very clear would be always much more successful than a complicated but true

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Concept and I think it is very true also in science and in my science especially. It's also actually when you think about that.

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It's what we can learn from your scientific field can help us also to understand what will happen to the human species

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in the future. I think yes. Somehow you can see the field of human evolution like a sort of substitute for.

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A mythology a myth of origin and it's of course it's a science but it has this mythological dimension

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also but recently I think there is another

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sort of aspect that has been developing a lot which is trying to understand.

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The way humans evolved in the past and the way humans interacted with other species and with the planet in general.

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Give us a sort of deeper perspective on what could be the future of human evolution and.

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And this is a rather new I would say preoccupation for humans.

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Humans have been always preoccupied by what was going to happen in the future.

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But for example the notion that humans are changing the climate.

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The notion that humans are pushing to extinction so many species something rather new.

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At the scale of human evolution I would say. So it's really a historical process that is just very close to us.

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So many people worry about the fact that since the global warming has been discovered we don't do much.

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Well as a matter of fact if you. again if you think on deep history

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I found remarkable that so soon after finding out something is going on that we are already trying to find

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a solution and somehow I'm rather optimistic I think humans will find solutions and try to change that but

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but again to sort of have an influence of this interaction between humans and environment is very important to.

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to have the background to understand what was before and how humans have already altered the planet.

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There is another aspect which is the biological and even social evolution of humans.

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There are many practical things like for example our diet.

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You know the way we eat we feed our bodies it's something today that become.

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Is becoming a problem for a lot of obese people. why. Well there is a evolutionary 

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Explanation for that we have adaptations that were designed somehow for a different style of life.

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And so the fact that humans have developed very peculiar features in the past to be successful is very important to

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figure out why we are where we are today. And even going deeper into for example.

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Questions that now become really I would say dramatically important like acting on our own genome.

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Again it's dramatically important to understand what has been the past evolution of humans

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and what you know how selection worked on humans

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and why humans are what they are before we started to play with our own genes. It's a new chapter of life.

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Evolution starting because it never happened before that one species living species could take the control of the

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genome of other species.

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To this extent in a sort of deliberate way

326
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and then started to somehow take the control of its own genome. 

327
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But that made also the human species so successful that we were always able to.

328
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Yeah but I would say we are successful and dangerous

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and it's because we are dangerous that we have been successful somehow. But now we have to be careful with.

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This notion of danger and success because maybe there is a level of danger that ultimately would hurt our success.

331
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So in the. In other words we have to think a lot on and I think we do it.

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Actually I think I found it somehow admirable somehow of course we don't do it as much as we should

333
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but at least there are people doing it.

334
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Again if you think on the past history of humans for the last millennia.

335
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It's something really new somehow. and we create new species technical species.

336
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Yeah we oh you know something really amazing.

337
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There are many things amazing about human evolution

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but there is one thing that I like to think of is the way humans have externalised biological function.

339
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In their technical or social environment. And there would be we could speak for hours about this but.

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This is really something fascinating and by the way it explains why cultural

341
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and social evolution is so basically intertwined with the biological evolution. And humans have this very peculiar.

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niche in nature that they create.

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complex societies they create artefacts they have this trend to more and more behavioral complexity

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and to do that they need a big brain and not just a big brain but a very good big brain

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and this big brain is fantastic. We can do amazing things with with our brain. No need to detail that.

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But this big brain has a cost. And the cost is very high. It is very high in terms of energy supply.

347
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It's very high in terms of maintenance

348
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and all sort of things it has a very high price in terms of producing other humans babies and children etc.

349
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And so we had to change a lot of things. In our biology. To accommodate this very costly organ.

350
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And

351
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when we say we had to change it isn't It was not a deliberate decision of humans it's natural selection that pushed

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us into this direction

353
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and so we have reorganized a lot of things in our biology physiology to make this possible this evolution things like

354
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our diet. Again the way we reproduce things like that in the meantime.

355
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This has been made possible because of the technical environment that we created. If you think for example on diet.

356
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We can extract much more calories from our food to fuel our costly brain because we have weapons that in the past

357
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were used to kill animals at a distance we had tools to dispatch the carcasses of these animals we were able to.

358
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Later we have learned how to cook food to prepare the food we eat etc

359
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and so in other words things that were basically

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handled by our organism in the past had been delegated to things which are external to our body

361
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and this is true for other aspects.

362
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Not just in the technical or material domain but also in the social domain like for example.

363
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The brain is very costly for an adult is even more costly for a child. And it's a big issue.

364
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If you think on that for a mother to be able to fuel and maintain their own brain

365
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and in the meantime to develop a baby with a brain that is also very costly

366
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and so we gradually we started to have a very peculiar way to give birth to children

367
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and we gave birth to children with a brain which is unfinished. I mean all.

368
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I mean for most mammals the brain isn't finished at birth.

369
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But our brain is really unfinished and so most of the growth of the brain occures.

370
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After birth especially the wiring of the brain and so this wiring develops

371
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when you are interacting with the environment which by the way makes it even more efficient

372
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and complex a little bit like you would.

373
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Remodel a computer that you would be using for different tasks you know

374
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but then there is another sort of layer on that is that by weaning our children very early and making them.

375
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able to eat solid food before their brain became.

376
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Too big it became possible for the females to share the burden of fueling the brain of the developing children with other

377
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adults of the group. So we became co-operative breeders and so the you know the.

378
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Raising children is a collective venture.

379
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For humans. But now we're also able to externalize the brain we make artificial brain. Exactly.

380
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So now we continue to externalize we externalize memory and this started already with coding things.

381
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The writing is already.

382
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I mean just representing pictures symbols was already a way to externalize something out of our brain then a second

383
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major step was writing because then writing was you know you could store as many as almost as much as information

384
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you wanted without having to hold it in your brain. You know when when writing was invented.

385
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There were people and still the ancient Greeks

386
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or the druids in Europe worried about writing because they had this feeling that people would lose their ability to

387
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remember things because they had this easy way to record things. I mean ancient Greeks some ancient Greeks.

388
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But now of course we go much further with digital storage of information

389
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and by the way extending this I mentioned already this ability and this need of humans for building up networks.

390
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Now these networks are planetary networks and again it's through technology that we have been able to do that.

391
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But I think the following step would be a sort of reinternalization of what we have as externalized as devices.

392
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So in other words. Well this is a bit of science fiction but people worry a lot about.

393
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Intelligent machines robots basically competition between humans and artificial intelligence.

394
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I think we will internalize artificial intelligence so it would not be any more external

395
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but internal somehow and people have tried already to implant.

396
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Chips electronic chips in part of the brain of animals and there are some attempts with humans also.

397
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So I don't know if it will be about.

398
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Memory but it could be for other functions and basically we are very far from being cyborgs but I think.

399
00:51:07,86 --> 00:51:14,01
The notion that we can sort of enhance

400
00:51:14,03 --> 00:51:25,18
Some human capabilities in an artificial way it's on the table and it's something which is more and more considered

401
00:51:25,18 --> 00:51:30,26
and I think it will be together with altering our genome

402
00:51:30,26 --> 00:51:34,24
and the way we interact with the environment the genome of other creatures.

403
00:51:34,93 --> 00:51:42,69
These are big ethical issues for humans not for the future for today and

404
00:51:43,69 --> 00:51:50,91
and again I think it's dramatically important to have a perspective about where we come from.

405
00:51:52,61 --> 00:51:56,8
And why we are here to basically be able to handle these questions.

406
00:51:56,87 --> 00:52:04,62
Many of these questions that today are discussed like if you think on that like for example artificial procreation or the.

407
00:52:04,88 --> 00:52:09,46
You know basically externalizing reproduction.

408
00:52:09,48 --> 00:52:14,63
People think it's something completely you know crazy

409
00:52:14,63 --> 00:52:24,09
and something that develops in post modern societies with people doing sort of crazy experiences.

410
00:52:24,11 --> 00:52:29,97
Experiments and things like that. As a paleoanthropologist I have a different view.

411
00:52:30,05 --> 00:52:36,88
I think it's just a continuation of things we have been doing for a long time already in the course of our evolution 

412
00:52:36,88 --> 00:52:46,68
ofcourse it is very spectacular it is very extreme but somehow if you if you think on that especially regarding reproduction.

413
00:52:47,29 --> 00:52:57,49
Our reproduction as modern humans has been made possible because we created an artificial environment around

414
00:52:57,49 --> 00:53:01,46
reproduction and when I say we created an artificial environment.

415
00:53:01,88 --> 00:53:05,9
I'm not talking about medical progress in the twentieth century.

416
00:53:06,27 --> 00:53:11,92
I'm talking about paleolithic times but basically the way.

417
00:53:12,98 --> 00:53:21,39
I mean the possibility to have these so immature neonates

418
00:53:22,24 --> 00:53:32,22
Surviving and developing all these cognitive skills and being maintained for twenty years before they become adults

419
00:53:33,63 --> 00:53:41,99
and reproduce and be part of the society has been made possible only because with our big brain.

420
00:53:42,03 --> 00:53:46,8
We created a technical environment and a social environment for that.

421
00:53:47,89 --> 00:53:54,35
And so again what we see in modern societies is just like the continuation of this trend.

422
00:53:54,36 --> 00:54:00,67
Now of course it's up to us to decide what is good or bad and how far I mean when I say good or bad.

423
00:54:00,74 --> 00:54:02,8
I'm not talking about religious belief

424
00:54:02,8 --> 00:54:13,8
but I'm talking about what is what could be counterproductive for us as a species. Could you tell me what are 

425
00:54:13,8 --> 00:54:14,31
the questions.

426
00:54:14,84 --> 00:54:24,57
You are looking for answers for. The field I address has many questions and this is due to the fact that hominin

427
00:54:24,58 --> 00:54:32,42
evolution covers several millions of years and we have a whole variety of species that existed during this time period

428
00:54:33,24 --> 00:54:38,31
and there is one thing that is important to realize is that we know only a portion

429
00:54:38,31 --> 00:54:46,17
and maybe only a small portion of these groups of hominins that existed in the past there are time periods

430
00:54:46,17 --> 00:54:50,28
and regions for which we have no information at all

431
00:54:50,98 --> 00:54:54,4
and that does not mean that there was nothing there just means we don't know.

432
00:54:55,76 --> 00:55:04,73
So basically we have a pile of cut branches and we try to build a tree but we don't have all the branches

433
00:55:05,54 --> 00:55:14,41
and so somehow the tree we build is not so accurate that we think it is. So that's one part of the story.

434
00:55:14,42 --> 00:55:24,07
which is basically looking for fossils finding new hominins and completing this big puzzle.

435
00:55:24,09 --> 00:55:30,89
Again remember that out of this complex bush today there is just one.

436
00:55:31,45 --> 00:55:39,11
Branch that sticks out and gave birth to all species.

437
00:55:39,87 --> 00:55:48,28
So beside that there are many questions about What are humans and how different they are from other creatures.

438
00:55:48,5 --> 00:55:51,87
So in other words we have.

439
00:55:51,89 --> 00:55:59,89
A part of the field which is not really looking at the past but is more looking at humans of.

440
00:56:00,00 --> 00:56:10,11
Today and analyzing for example the differences that we can detect or study between apes

441
00:56:10,11 --> 00:56:18,19
and humans we know that African apes and especially chimpanzees are very closely related to us.

442
00:56:20,36 --> 00:56:29,79
And so somehow studying living primates is very important also and then after we identify

443
00:56:29,79 --> 00:56:39,00
some key aspects of humans for example things about their of course their anatomy their big

444
00:56:39,00 --> 00:56:52,56
brain. Their reduced .. things like that their diet. But also aspects of their social organization. Reproductive pattern

445
00:56:53,81 --> 00:56:57,93
development pattern. psychology.

446
00:56:58,14 --> 00:57:05,06
So then the game is to go into this tree that is I remind you an incomplete tree

447
00:57:05,06 --> 00:57:15,15
and try to find out when these different features develop and why and how along these different branches

448
00:57:15,96 --> 00:57:27,88
and what's emerging today is this picture that in fact all these branches somehow achieved a certain kind of humankind

449
00:57:27,88 --> 00:57:34,85
somehow. But not completely like us and so they have some of these features not others.

450
00:57:34,96 --> 00:57:46,49
And we are just at the beginning of understanding that and trying to decipher the complexity of this evolution

451
00:57:46,49 --> 00:58:05,61
and recently what happened in the field is that we had a very fast development of paleogenetic studies.

452
00:57:57,17 --> 00:58:04,55
And there is this other way to look at the past which is I would say a molecular way. Through D.N.A.

453
00:58:05,63 --> 00:58:10,95
Also through ancient proteins now people study proteins and try to make philogeny

454
00:58:10,95 --> 00:58:19,46
and all this molecular information provides us with all sorts of other 

455
00:58:20,06 --> 00:58:28,8
Information but also many new questions that we never envisioned before. What kind of questions.

456
00:58:28,82 --> 00:58:34,89
Well so far paleogenetics has been mostly dealing with.

457
00:58:36,44 --> 00:58:41,21
What we call philogeny which is basically the construction of the tree.

458
00:58:41,23 --> 00:58:47,77
So how one group is related to another when was there a split point in the past.

459
00:58:49,94 --> 00:58:57,39
Information about the demography were these groups large or small Did they suffer

460
00:58:57,39 --> 00:59:01,69
demographic crashes bottlenecks for example.

461
00:59:03,77 --> 00:59:14,65
And then we have discovered that the level of admixture between all these groups is more is higher

462
00:59:14,65 --> 00:59:26,71
and more consistent than we think it was. Actually this is nothing proper to humans. Now that we are able to do.

463
00:59:26,72 --> 00:59:37,26
High resolution sequencing of many many creatures we see that the history of species is intermixing a little bit.

464
00:59:37,38 --> 00:59:45,35
It's common. it exists among primates among elephants among horses among carnivores everywhere.

465
00:59:45,58 --> 00:59:53,68
Basically all species that were not separated for more than say five million years they can more

466
00:59:53,68 --> 00:59:59,91
or less interbreed. There is one thing that paleogenetics and genetics.

467
01:00:00,00 --> 01:00:11,58
So far it is not really able to address or start to question is what we call phenotypic expression.

468
01:00:11,59 --> 01:00:15,13
So in other words when we find a difference in the genome.

469
01:00:15,42 --> 01:00:24,57
What does it mean in terms of features. is it something. first of all we know that some differences have no

470
01:00:24,57 --> 01:00:32,82
effect on the phenotype So it's nothing we can detect as a difference. in the meantime sometimes a small difference can

471
01:00:32,82 --> 01:00:46,75
result in a major effect in the phenotype so among three billions and a half of nucleotides in D.N.A.

472
01:00:47,76 --> 01:00:57,00
We know that some mutation that just changes one out of more than three billions can have a dramatic effect on how one

473
01:00:57,01 --> 01:00:58,5
individual looks like

474
01:00:58,5 --> 01:01:08,54
and so we are now at a stage where we know that a certain number of coding genes that are present in all modern

475
01:01:08,54 --> 01:01:13,56
humans are absent in Neanderthals or other archaic humans

476
01:01:14,79 --> 01:01:20,26
and conversely there are some versions of some genes which are not found in modern humans

477
01:01:20,26 --> 01:01:31,48
but only on the Neanderthal What does it mean in terms of anatomy biology behavior our brain development whatever we don't

478
01:01:31,48 --> 01:01:33,25
we don't know it's always frustrating

479
01:01:33,25 --> 01:01:38,78
when you ask geneticists Oh you find this gene so what does it mean in general they say we don't know.

480
01:01:39,53 --> 01:01:47,76
And we are. that's a field that is also developing now. people are trying to find ways to resolve that.

481
01:01:49,24 --> 01:01:59,38
And there is a lot of work so I think they are going to manage in the near future to bring some questions.

482
01:02:00,00 --> 01:02:10,04
Some answers. It's a great time to be what you are. Yes when I was when I was a Ph D student.

483
01:02:10,06 --> 01:02:14,94
I was a bit depressed I mean that's probably the normal destiny  of a Ph D.

484
01:02:14,94 --> 01:02:22,08
Student I guess. but I had this feeling that I was born too late in a world too old

485
01:02:22,8 --> 01:02:31,45
and that many issues about what I was interested in: Neanderthals homo erectus homo sapiens etc.

486
01:02:31,47 --> 01:02:42,29
has been already investigated by very bright scientists. I could not be more wrong than that because in fact.

487
01:02:42,32 --> 01:02:44,12
First of all.

488
01:02:45,14 --> 01:02:53,28
Since I was a student there is a number of new groups of hominin that has been found. incredible. Second

489
01:02:53,63 --> 01:02:59,07
There are many aspects of biology and behavior

490
01:02:59,07 --> 01:03:08,8
of ancient hominins that we could not conceive to be accessible to scientific investigation.

491
01:03:08,87 --> 01:03:14,02
So the methodologies been developing at an incredible speed.

492
01:03:14,28 --> 01:03:26,04
So in other words what I'm saying is that probably I witness more progresses in my field since I was a student until

493
01:03:26,04 --> 01:03:29,95
today than probably in the previous half century.

494
01:03:31,11 --> 01:03:33,39
So I think it's a very exciting time

495
01:03:33,39 --> 01:03:42,24
and I don't think there is reasons why this would stop you know I tell the young students scientist I say you know.

496
01:03:42,26 --> 01:03:44,38
It's going to continue.

497
01:03:44,4 --> 01:03:52,23
And of course there are some issues with the development of all these new methodologies because sometimes they are very

498
01:03:52,23 --> 01:03:58,48
costly or very sophisticated even at a personal level they demand.

499
01:04:00,00 --> 01:04:09,93
A lot of investment from the scientists in the way that in order to master these methodologies you have to

500
01:04:09,93 --> 01:04:15,99
become very specialized. sometimes I fear that we are going to miss.

501
01:04:18,81 --> 01:04:28,74
People who are more generally somehow. I see myself as a as a generalist it was always my problem.

502
01:04:28,76 --> 01:04:33,69
I was interested in too many things varied.

503
01:04:34,68 --> 01:04:40,98
Somehow it was a great chance that I was given this possibility to build up a department where I can

504
01:04:40,98 --> 01:04:46,14
I can hire people who do all the things I will never do because I cannot do

505
01:04:46,14 --> 01:04:52,69
Everything. But basically delegating all these projects to other people.

506
01:04:52,71 --> 01:04:59,33
But again I think it's always important when you do science and when you study

507
01:05:00,21 --> 01:05:07,6
and you are very good very expert in a narrow field. You can be the best.

508
01:05:08,03 --> 01:05:12,86
But it is very important to step back and know understand.

509
01:05:12,87 --> 01:05:20,57
What is the big picture and where your little piece of the puzzle fits into this big picture.

510
01:05:22,01 --> 01:05:26,61
What are you afraid of. nothing.

511
01:05:28,13 --> 01:05:37,9
You mean for my field for in general. is there something you can lay awake in bed about.

512
01:05:41,41 --> 01:05:53,29
Not much in fact. Of course I am anxious about details I would say. Sometime we have a paper we want to publish.

513
01:05:53,5 --> 01:05:59,73
It's very important to us and it fails for some reason yeah it's stressing 

514
01:06:00,00 --> 01:06:10,88
it's vexing. Or there are projects we would like to do and it does not work sometimes for.

515
01:06:10,9 --> 01:06:12,72
I would say political reasons.

516
01:06:13,69 --> 01:06:20,02
In the broad sense. interaction with others competition with other groups but

517
01:06:20,94 --> 01:06:30,55
but in general these issues are much more I would say problematic for young scientists starting in the field.

518
01:06:31,89 --> 01:06:41,46
For me I would say I suffer for them. But I don't take it personally too much at heart.

519
01:06:42,59 --> 01:06:55,83
In fact the only thing I fear is not working anymore. Basically getting retired and not being able to.

520
01:06:57,08 --> 01:07:01,87
To do what I'm doing every day and I think this is not a very original fear.

521
01:07:02,21 --> 01:07:08,29
But I think it's a fear that many scientists have and.

522
01:07:08,31 --> 01:07:19,25
Clearly the day I won't have any more capability to develop all these projects to follow them to support students

523
01:07:19,25 --> 01:07:20,41
or young scientist.

524
01:07:21,52 --> 01:07:29,28
It's a great thing to be able to work every day with young people who have a lot of great ideas and basically to say well.

525
01:07:29,33 --> 01:07:32,39
Let's do it and help them to do it.

526
01:07:32,39 --> 01:07:40,01
So yeah this day yeah I fear it a little bit. During history 

527
01:07:40,06 --> 01:07:44,58
Paleoanthropology has been misused also as a.

528
01:07:44,6 --> 01:07:56,28
Particularly idealistically. Sorry. Through ideologies. Yeah from an ideological point. How do you see that.

529
01:07:56,36 --> 01:08:15,7
Yeah I think the field is strongly influenced by the ideology of the time 'Zeitgeist' or also by the

530
01:08:16,98 --> 01:08:24,71
Sometimes by political power by I would say nationalism for example.

531
01:08:24,73 --> 01:08:35,6
So there are many stories about how people have been biased in the way they interpreted the archaeological evidence

532
01:08:35,6 --> 01:08:44,92
in particular based on nationalist issues and so.

533
01:08:44,93 --> 01:08:53,01
I would say rarely I mean speaking about paleolithical archeology it is not true for archaeology of more recent periods

534
01:08:53,01 --> 01:09:03,81
but speaking about paleolithic archeology. There are a few examples where we can say there is a major misuse of the field.

535
01:09:03,9 --> 01:09:18,46
I see more this as a I would say a pollution of the scientific speech by conceptions which are nonscientific.

536
01:09:18,48 --> 01:09:23,96
And I think we have to live with that somehow we have to accept it we have to

537
01:09:26,07 --> 01:09:29,19
but the way to live with that is to be aware of this.

538
01:09:30,57 --> 01:09:37,04
I think a common mistake today is to think that this was true in the nineteenth century or the.

539
01:09:37,63 --> 01:09:42,72
The beginning of the twentieth century but that today you know we we are.

540
01:09:44,42 --> 01:09:50,68
Good scientists and we are freed from all these things. I think we are not more free today than we were a century ago

541
01:09:51,6 --> 01:10:01,44
and I see that every day. In what way do you see that. Well I see that there are I would say there are fashions. In the field.

542
01:10:01,47 --> 01:10:05,94
Even for example the way hominins are represented.

543
01:10:07,84 --> 01:10:21,01
We are often asked to provide pictures of this ancient world and we easily make fun of the reconstructions that were made a century ago.

544
01:10:23,51 --> 01:10:34,37
Somehow I think our representations today are also sort of funny. If you go to the Neanderthal museum.

545
01:10:36,01 --> 01:10:43,46
In .. or near Dusseldorf they have a reconstruction of a Neanderthal with a suit and a tie.

546
01:10:43,92 --> 01:10:46,71
Which is watching at the visitors.

547
01:10:48,78 --> 01:10:58,45
I think this is the expression of a conception that we have today of how we want to think of the Neanderthals like

548
01:11:00,11 --> 01:11:04,25
other humans just like modern humans almost.

549
01:11:05,23 --> 01:11:13,88
But I think it's as wrong as the representation of a Neanderthal like a gorilla that escaped from a zoo. I think so.

550
01:11:13,92 --> 01:11:26,52
We sort of add on this material I would say a philosophical or ideological conception that we have today.

551
01:11:26,67 --> 01:11:33,54
Now what is clear is that if you think on the past.

552
01:11:33,55 --> 01:11:46,84
If you think especially in the twentieth century you also see how I would say political situations could influence the

553
01:11:47,58 --> 01:11:56,35
field. when colonialism was something common. It had an impact on the field and the way.

554
01:11:56,37 --> 01:12:06,59
People saw human evolution. for example for a long period Europe was seen as the center of human evolution.

555
01:12:06,61 --> 01:12:09,11
Just because Europe was the center of the world

556
01:12:09,11 --> 01:12:16,03
and so it was difficult to think that modern humans of today did not originate from Europe

557
01:12:16,03 --> 01:12:20,52
and there are models in the first half of the twentieth century.

558
01:12:20,85 --> 01:12:31,29
Where in which all the groups of living humans of today Africans Inuit Europeans or Asians

559
01:12:31,42 --> 01:12:34,12
would originate from different sides of Europe.

560
01:12:34,92 --> 01:12:38,79
You know now we find it funny but people. even ridiculous

561
01:12:38,79 --> 01:12:47,16
but people did not think this way in the 1930 or forty. Where did they originate from the humans. 

562
01:12:48,48 --> 01:12:54,38
Well the modern humans originated in Africa.

563
01:12:55,43 --> 01:12:57,29
And they expanded out of Africa

564
01:12:57,29 --> 01:13:06,6
and even after you say that you don't really always measure what it means. practically it means that modern humans

565
01:13:06,6 --> 01:13:10,76
ancestral to us to modern Europeans

566
01:13:10,76 --> 01:13:21,66
when they arrived in the middle latitudes of Eurasia say fifty to forty thousand years ago they were probably black

567
01:13:21,66 --> 01:13:28,59
guys you know and they changed their phenotype to adapt to the local conditions. OK.

568
01:13:28,65 --> 01:13:38,99
Or I better say their phenotype changed to adapt to the local conditions so. And even today.

569
01:13:39,01 --> 01:13:49,61
There are groups of scientists who are not very comfortable with the African origins of modern humans for example if you

570
01:13:49,61 --> 01:14:02,27
look at the Chinese literature in the field it is very easy to detect that especially if you move back.

571
01:14:02,33 --> 01:14:16,1
Not very far in time you see that there is a discomfort with African modern origins and.

572
01:14:16,12 --> 01:14:29,71
There is a long tradition of seeing the human evolution in Asia as a distinct process of what has been going on in

573
01:14:29,71 --> 01:14:33,2
other continents Europe or Africa

574
01:14:33,2 --> 01:14:43,72
and so that the idea is that basically modern Chinese would originate in older hominins in China and.

575
01:14:45,4 --> 01:14:52,96
then that could go back to homo erectus in China. And so in other words I have difficulty.

576
01:14:53,45 --> 01:15:01,34
Difficulties thinking that this is not somehow stained by some form of nationalism.

577
01:15:01,58 --> 01:15:11,17
So this idea that humans to start with the genius homo.

578
01:15:12,34 --> 01:15:21,64
Originated in one place or another it's something which has been very popular but which is far from being demonstrated.

579
01:15:22,38 --> 01:15:31,68
But now if you go today in South Africa or in Ethiopia or in Kenya or in Tanzania people will take your hand

580
01:15:31,68 --> 01:15:38,39
and take you to the cradle of humankind somewhere so there are several cradles competing one with the other.

581
01:15:39,85 --> 01:15:46,13
Well I don't know maybe there is no cradle maybe it's a much larger region.

582
01:15:46,8 --> 01:15:55,5
Now for modern humans this notion that modern humans originated in a what has been called sometimes a Garden of Eden

583
01:15:55,5 --> 01:16:00,52
by the way you see the connection with the Biblical mythology

584
01:16:01,63 --> 01:16:09,23
Has been always very popular since this notion of African origin developed

585
01:16:09,23 --> 01:16:19,97
and so this garden has been seen in different parts of sub-Saharan Africa where I'm not sure that the reality of the

586
01:16:19,97 --> 01:16:21,7
data really confirms that

587
01:16:22,63 --> 01:16:37,02
but the origin of modern humans has been always a topic where I would say political ideological nationalist issues have

588
01:16:37,02 --> 01:16:43,87
been involved somehow. So before.

589
01:16:45,74 --> 01:16:51,79
Before the Second World War there was this idea that modern humans originated in Europe.

590
01:16:53,43 --> 01:17:01,86
And then during the Nazi regime there were even archaeologists that tried to prove that modern humans emerged in Germania.

591
01:17:02,09 --> 01:17:10,3
You know and they Well they got some support from the Nazi regime to demonstrate that.

592
01:17:10,32 --> 01:17:19,22
And today we see all these debates about where are the oldest modern humans it's still there.

593
01:17:19,38 --> 01:17:23,36
And so people fight about different parts of Africa

594
01:17:23,36 --> 01:17:29,05
or there are some people who think maybe it's in Asia that modern humans emerged

595
01:17:29,05 --> 01:17:39,51
and again I think it's very difficult to think that you are not influenced by your direct environment because

596
01:17:39,51 --> 01:17:40,27
first of all

597
01:17:40,27 --> 01:17:50,35
you are more prone to advocate for origin in the places that you know where you have been studying different

598
01:17:50,35 --> 01:18:05,31
sites and fossils and etc. In the end I think I see science as a Darwinian process. So there are many wrong ideas.

599
01:18:00,59 --> 01:18:05,3
Even if sometimes they are very popular. It's not a very democratic activity

600
01:18:05,84 --> 01:18:09,71
So the history of science is full of popular

601
01:18:09,72 --> 01:18:16,24
ideas that have been proven to be wrong even if they were supported by a large number of people

602
01:18:16,24 --> 01:18:21,95
but sometimes they have been falsified by minorities or even single individuals.

603
01:18:21,97 --> 01:18:33,45
And so there is this sort of Darwinian process that basically allows this renewal of ideas.

604
01:18:34,13 --> 01:18:47,77
One difficulty with paleoanthropology is that there is something that is often missing which is replication of the results

605
01:18:47,77 --> 01:19:02,99
and I think a key aspect of modern science is replicability So if you if you produce any result it should be replicated

606
01:19:02,99 --> 01:19:04,55
by others to be confirmed.

607
01:19:05,5 --> 01:19:07,99
It's not always possible in archaeology

608
01:19:07,99 --> 01:19:18,96
or in paleoanthropology. why because there are fields which are basically built up around sites.

609
01:19:19,18 --> 01:19:24,87
So a place somewhere on earth and objects. and in general.

610
01:19:25,39 --> 01:19:34,29
These sites or these objects they are controlled by individuals or groups or countries and so

611
01:19:34,29 --> 01:19:45,94
when a good story has been elaborated around an object or a site and that this good story is somehow.

612
01:19:47,04 --> 01:19:53,7
Very supportive for a individual or a group or a nation this individual this group

613
01:19:53,7 --> 01:20:02,95
or this nation they are not going to be very willing to let other people come and check if it's true or not

614
01:20:02,96 --> 01:20:10,46
So it takes a long time in the field of paleoanthropology sometimes to falsify

615
01:20:11,2 --> 01:20:15,81
results. And

616
01:20:15,82 --> 01:20:24,5
when it happens sometimes it's a bit sort of scandalous. We are just publishing a paper that's going to come out Friday.

617
01:20:24,51 --> 01:20:26,94
I can speak about it because this recording

618
01:20:27,57 --> 01:20:33,58
Will not be on air before but we have been asked by a museum to redate.

619
01:20:35,26 --> 01:20:38,37
A fossil that has been studied by others

620
01:20:39,19 --> 01:20:46,72
and this fossil has been published in major journals as an hybrid of Neanderthals and modern humans

621
01:20:47,56 --> 01:20:53,7
and by redating this material we found that first of all it's very recent and it cannot be

622
01:20:53,7 --> 01:21:00,83
a hybrid of Neanderthal and modern humans. B. that other fragments of humans that have been found around are not human.

623
01:21:00,84 --> 01:21:09,05
In fact. And finally investigating the D.N.A. of these things we found out that it's certainly not.

624
01:21:09,16 --> 01:21:15,8
a hybrid of Neanderthals and modern humans but a recent human probably of neolithic time.

625
01:21:17,03 --> 01:21:22,87
But I predict that the publication of this paper is going to be not well taken.

626
01:21:23,34 --> 01:21:32,99
Not just by the people who published the first study but I'm not sure that in general the field likes that. So.

627
01:21:33,94 --> 01:21:46,35
Somehow it's always difficult to be the one who somehow creates some kind of little scandal about a nice story

628
01:21:46,35 --> 01:21:56,72
that has been around for a while. You are always looking into the fossils into the ground but you also like to discover.

629
01:21:58,13 --> 01:22:03,76
The orbit. The stars.

630
01:22:03,78 --> 01:22:14,24
Oh by the way I've been interested in astronomy when I was I was kid al so I even still have a telescope a good one

631
01:22:14,26 --> 01:22:24,43
In my basement. But. No I never considered making a profession of. Of something like that.

632
01:22:24,55 --> 01:22:31,01
I've been interested in other things. First of all in my own field.

633
01:22:31,03 --> 01:22:38,17
I think in another life I would like to do other things that I couldn't do in this one.

634
01:22:38,18 --> 01:22:51,32
But outside of the scientific field I think I would have been very interested in another type of creation like

635
01:22:51,32 --> 01:23:05,14
architecture or art. I'm very impressed by artists. I was a couple of days ago I was in Paris and I had a chance to.

636
01:23:05,16 --> 01:23:13,14
Have dinner with. First of all to attend a presentation and have dinner with Anish Kapoor.

637
01:23:13,15 --> 01:23:17,05
He's a very famous English Indian.

638
01:23:18,31 --> 01:23:19,62
Sculptor and

639
01:23:21,89 --> 01:23:35,64
and I'm always impressed by the way artists are able to explore the reality of things in a very different way than scientists

640
01:23:35,64 --> 01:23:43,4
but. I have another question also Julian Huxley describes that through humans the universe is becoming conscious of itself

641
01:23:44,14 --> 01:23:50,37
because of our brains. We're now creating a kind of mind of the universe. Can you elaborate a bit on that.

642
01:23:51,89 --> 01:24:06,08
Well I think I tend to think on humans as a sort of collective brain and.

643
01:24:06,93 --> 01:24:15,23
Probably what is most impressive about humans is that humans as individuals they are very sort of weak

644
01:24:15,23 --> 01:24:22,49
and limited creatures. It is difficult to think on a human like a very dangerous creature for nature

645
01:24:22,49 --> 01:24:33,03
or other animals but humans have been throughout their evolution able to create social groups

646
01:24:33,03 --> 01:24:40,7
and then networks of social groups and networks that were always more extended and

647
01:24:40,71 --> 01:24:50,67
and today we have this sort of almost collective intelligence of humans which is something that.

648
01:24:50,68 --> 01:24:52,74
We do every day that to me.

649
01:24:54,16 --> 01:24:56,23
Still is amazing is the fact that

650
01:24:56,23 --> 01:25:05,7
when you miss some information you can sort of find it almost instantly in the collective brain of all humans of ours

651
01:25:05,7 --> 01:25:08,69
you go on internet and.

652
01:25:08,71 --> 01:25:18,02
I won't say the word but you you know type a certain name and you'll get all sorts of information about that.

653
01:25:18,04 --> 01:25:26,86
And so this this capability to put in relation the intelligence and.

654
01:25:26,88 --> 01:25:35,68
And memory of all humans is absolutely fascinating and goes much beyond information or.

655
01:25:37,94 --> 01:25:42,25
Basically recording of anything.

656
01:25:42,52 --> 01:25:53,99
It's also the capability that humans have to add expertise in a way that they can produce amazing results.

657
01:25:54,41 --> 01:26:04,87
So somehow the main difference between us I mean when I say us I mean modern humans of today and

658
01:26:05,6 --> 01:26:05,89
A Neanderthal

659
01:26:05,89 --> 01:26:17,62
or an other hominin is that probably most of these people were able to do everything they needed to do to

660
01:26:17,62 --> 01:26:19,78
make their life possible.

661
01:26:19,8 --> 01:26:23,11
And of course for us it's completely different

662
01:26:23,11 --> 01:26:30,34
and almost every single object that are around me not just objects many services

663
01:26:30,34 --> 01:26:40,02
and functions in the modern societies are made possible by the addition of the expertise of many many people. So the

664
01:26:40,02 --> 01:26:46,79
example which is often given is a cellular phone basically nobody would be able to build a cell phone

665
01:26:47,77 --> 01:26:54,27
but by adding many many people who are able to conceive and to produce all the parts of a cellular phone 

666
01:26:54,27 --> 01:26:57,93
and the software and everything we have this amazing object.

667
01:26:58,46 --> 01:27:05,98
So this notion that humans they represent a sort of network of memory and conscience.

668
01:27:07,17 --> 01:27:11,33
Today is quite striking with especially the internet

669
01:27:12,09 --> 01:27:23,38
and interconnection of many individuals is not a completely new idea somehow because you know if you moved back in the

670
01:27:23,38 --> 01:27:33,13
nineteenth century. You had people who. Today it seems a bit strange but we may think of that.

671
01:27:36,38 --> 01:27:42,99
Who separated in nature a vegetal reign a animal reign and a  human reign

672
01:27:44,06 --> 01:27:55,1
and just yesterday I was reading a chapter of a book by De Quatrefages who is a very famous naturalist.

673
01:27:55,12 --> 01:28:04,02
Just after the French Revolution and De Quatrefages developed in this book this notion of human reign.

674
01:28:04,31 --> 01:28:11,17
And his argument is exactly this one is the notion that humans they have acquired.

675
01:28:12,93 --> 01:28:19,17
Something that the rest of nature does not have is this self consciousness

676
01:28:19,89 --> 01:28:27,28
And so especially if you see humans as a big network is the sort of self consciousness of the universe itself

677
01:28:27,28 --> 01:28:37,33
somehow at least the living creatures on one planet. What I found a paradox is that and I'm a bit torn by that

678
01:28:37,48 --> 01:28:43,19
somehow of course humans are absolutely unique.

679
01:28:44,82 --> 01:28:51,22
In many aspects but in the meantime we know how they root in the living world

680
01:28:52,05 --> 01:28:57,64
and we know that they root very close to apes like chimpanzees and bonobos

681
01:28:59,71 --> 01:29:09,67
and so in other words I think this notion that of course the notion of human reign is kind of ridiculous because we

682
01:29:09,67 --> 01:29:17,44
belong to the animal reign of course. it's not just that we belong to the animal world actually we are some kind of

683
01:29:17,44 --> 01:29:23,28
bizarre apes very close from one species of other apes the chimpanzee

684
01:29:24,07 --> 01:29:32,43
and a species which is further away from things like orangutans or gibbons or things like that.

685
01:29:35,18 --> 01:29:41,08
So we tend to develop this notion of exceptionalism of.

686
01:29:41,1 --> 01:29:49,58
Of humans but to some extent it's true of course with living humans with modern humans

687
01:29:49,58 --> 01:29:58,8
and I mentioned many aspects that make them absolutely unique in the history of life.

688
01:30:00,00 --> 01:30:04,98
In the meantime I think we have to be careful not to project

689
01:30:04,99 --> 01:30:14,33
or extend this notion of exceptionalism into the past because if we move into the past.

690
01:30:14,35 --> 01:30:20,18
Hominins that lived a hundred, two hundred, five hundred thousand years ago.

691
01:30:20,2 --> 01:30:28,64
I think they were just like another species of mammals on earth and they are something a bit unusual.

692
01:30:29,25 --> 01:30:42,1
Carnivorous predatory apes able to run after animals and catch them eat them. But in terms of.

693
01:30:43,35 --> 01:30:52,45
Simply in terms of numbers there was nothing remarkable nothing really visible in the landscape I would say.

694
01:30:52,47 --> 01:30:56,99
And if you think for example on the competition between humans and carnivores

695
01:30:58,36 --> 01:31:02,96
There are places on earth where obviously humans sort of.

696
01:31:02,98 --> 01:31:10,19
Succeeded in this competition but there are other places where it's not so obvious for a long time

697
01:31:10,19 --> 01:31:21,82
and so for example we think that the development of human groups. Say before half a million year ago in Europe.

698
01:31:21,83 --> 01:31:31,86
Was probably somehow limited by the reach and dangerous variety

699
01:31:31,88 --> 01:31:37,03
of large carnivores existing in this part of the planet and so

700
01:31:37,03 --> 01:31:43,35
it took us some time to take over the situation so.

701
01:31:43,37 --> 01:31:48,95
Again I think we should refrain ourselves from projecting in the past.

702
01:31:49,86 --> 01:31:58,12
What humans are today or how we want to see us today.

703
01:31:53,53 --> 01:31:59,87
I think this is a main problem. it has been always a problem in paleoanthropology. Somehow 

704
01:32:00,00 --> 01:32:09,87
Even people working on hominins living two million years ago or more wanted to see them like a version

705
01:32:09,89 --> 01:32:15,85
A little bit more primitive of modern humans but running around in the savanna having villages

706
01:32:15,85 --> 01:32:24,47
and meeting every night to tell stories to each other which I think it's a fantasy.

707
01:32:24,49 --> 01:32:31,33
Last question you are in the art. Our series is in archetypes. Every episode is an archetype. You are in The Conqueror.

708
01:32:33,32 --> 01:32:45,29
Does that fit well? Well you mean. A conqueror. I can interpret that two ways. One way is

709
01:32:45,93 --> 01:32:58,31
As an individual and another way is regarding my topic of research. So as an individual.

710
01:32:59,09 --> 01:33:02,3
I have been always a rather ambitious person I think

711
01:33:03,24 --> 01:33:20,42
and I my first years on earth were very challenging in many ways and I could not have survived I had a difficult start.

712
01:33:20,44 --> 01:33:23,83
And I was poor.

713
01:33:25,99 --> 01:33:29,95
And so I was a immigrant I was a refugee

714
01:33:30,98 --> 01:33:41,51
and I had these kind of I think retrospectively I can see that I had this sort of rage of.

715
01:33:41,53 --> 01:33:51,1
You know managing doing well in life and being successful in reaching my goals and.

716
01:33:51,96 --> 01:33:59,85
Even from a material point of view to be you know on the safe side I would say. So yeah a conqueror my mother would

717
01:34:00,00 --> 01:34:10,96
Like that probably. if she would hear that. Now if you think of my topic my main topic of interest.

718
01:34:13,92 --> 01:34:28,95
Certainly you can see the evolution of humans as a sort of epics. Epic Story of a conquest of the planet by a species.

719
01:34:28,97 --> 01:34:35,57
I try to keep a cool brain somehow about that because this is something you find a lot in the literature

720
01:34:35,57 --> 01:34:40,00
in the also in the popular literature the T.V.

721
01:34:40,00 --> 01:34:51,1
Documentaries in films and I think it's a sort of retrospective way we have to tell the story.

722
01:34:51,12 --> 01:35:01,76
And it meets this this storytelling which is so popular about the mythology of our

723
01:35:02,69 --> 01:35:13,12
Species the mythology of our human societies and modern societies. I think somehow humans have been driven into these.

724
01:35:16,46 --> 01:35:29,07
Ecological niche. First completely by chance I would say and the fact is that we are lucky to be humans and not to be.

725
01:35:29,09 --> 01:35:33,46
Endangered species on Earth but.

726
01:35:34,4 --> 01:35:42,79
We have to remember that many other hominins humans existed on earth and they are not here anymore.

727
01:35:42,81 --> 01:35:49,47
And so that should maybe give us a certain level of modesty

728
01:35:49,47 --> 01:35:59,81
or maybe you know it's a sort of warning that we have to be careful because species are mortal

729
01:36:00,96 --> 01:36:05,33
And evolution is mostly about extinction.

730
01:36:05,35 --> 01:36:12,96
So it's nice that we have this level of consciousness that allows us to speak about it and to analyze a lot of things

731
01:36:13,73 --> 01:36:25,86
but so let's be wise somehow. So we have been conquerors by accident but let's be wise men now.