MOTHER AFRICA

In this first episode, Zeinab Badawi travels across Africa examining the origins of humankind; how and why we evolved on the continent. Africa is the greatest exporter of all time: every human being originated from there. During her journey Zeinab is granted rare access to the actual bones of one of the most iconic discoveries in the field of palaeontology, ‘Lucy’ in Ethiopia, or as she is known in Amharic, ‘Dinkenesh’, which means ‘you are marvellous’. Zeinab also spends time in Tanzania with an ethnic group that is unique in the world because they live in the way our ancestors did: as hunters of big animals and gatherers. This community who have rarely been filmed provide a fascinating insight into how we humans have lived for most of our history.