Dawn of Humanity (2015) User Reviews (4)

Entertaining; scientifically misleading

[ccroft-45035 · 7/10 · 8 February 2016]

I enjoyed watching the film, and it does provide an informative and provoking look at hominid fossil history, paleoarcheology, etc.

The video left a very misleading impression, however, on conclusions to be drawn from this find. Berger's dating is entirely speculative; apparently he didn't even try carbon dating to see if they were relatively younger (<50K years).

The video states that no fossilized remains other than an owl's were found with the hominin remains. This is not true...micromammal fossils were also found.

And the fact that Berger ran away from well-established journals like Science and Nature (which had apparently questioned some of his research or conclusions) and decided to opt for a relatively obscure journal "eLife" raises questions about how concerned he was about accuracy/scientific integrity as opposed to rushing his "find" to some kind of publication.

I know this video is meant to basically tell the story from Berger's perspective. But those drawing many conclusions from it without more information would be premature.

Fossil hunting for education and pleasure

[bettycjung · 16 July 2018]

7/16/18. An interesting documentary that looks at the world of anthropologists trying to piece together the history of Man from whatever fossils they could gather. As mentioned in the movie, the fossil records are incomplete, so the story of humanity will remain that way until all the fossils are in. And, who knows how long that will take? Nevertheless, worth watching scientists at work.

NOVA Special

[ynigayrana · 10/10 · 7 December 2021]

Please watch this tv special in support of paleoanthropologists! Please watch the shadow of the tomb raider! Bones of Turkana, Toumaï, and planet of the apes!

Great Episode!

[ryan-laskowski · 10/10 · 15 August 2018]

But it troubles me that the paleoanthropologist Lee Rogers Berger has the wherewithal to figure out that a mining crew came through and blasted a cave open... but not to figure out that the men probably took one look at the TINY SKELETON staring at them and high-tailed it.