Discovery

In the first of a new series, Peter Curran puts archaeologists under his anthropological microscope. Do the scientists who discover and interpret lives in the distant past have a distinctive culture and mind set of their own? To find out, Peter visits a tribe of British archaeologists at their excavations on the island of Jersey in the English Channel.

For 250,000 years, Jersey was a magnet for bands of nomadic Neanderthals and later Stone Age hunter gatherers. During much of that time, sea level was lower than today and you could walk to Jersey from Britain or France. When Ice Ages waned, groups of Palaeolithic people gravitated there to hunt mammoths, rhinos and reindeer.

Today, Jersey is drawing archaeologists from all over the UK because of its windows into the early Stone Age past. While the scientists want to learn about the people and their lives in the landscape back then, Peter Curran gets down in the dirt to find out what makes the archaeologists tick and what might distinguish them as a tribe of science.

Were Australia's prehistoric Aboriginal people the world's first true astronomers, predating European and ancient Greek and Indian astronomers by thousands of years?

The stunning discovery of what is being called an "Aboriginal Stonehenge", the first of its kind to be found in Australia, could change that continent's history and with it our whole understanding of how and when humans began to accurately chart the night skies.

The 50 metre egg-shaped arrangement of stones in a farmer's field in Victoria, was forgotten after the arrival of European settlers some 200 years ago and until recently overgrown by meadow grass.

Now, the site called Wurdi Youang has got Aborigines and astronomers scratching their heads.

How did its stones come to be perfectly aligned with summer and winter Solstices and the autumn and winter Equinoxes, like Britain's 4,500 year-old Stonehenge?

The problem is that there are very few Aboriginal records in the literature and nobody left to explain what they meant and what they were used for.

What is becoming clear is that Australia's ancient indigenous people had a command of astronomy and mathematics, and ability to observe and keep accurate astronomical records.

The stones at Wurdi Youang will be a test of Australia's scientists and of Australia’s willingness to properly appreciate its ancient indigenous past.

Human uniqueness takes many forms - we can communicate complex ideas; we have developed technologies, such as medicine and transport; and we change our environment to suit our biology. But how does human culture affect our biology - our genes?

In the final part of this series geneticist and broadcaster Adam Rutherford explores the complex and sometimes controversial world of human evolution.

He talks to geneticists, evolutionary psychologists and anthropologists to try and understand and untangle the relationship between our biology - our genes and our cultural and social behaviour.

Have we, as Professor Steve Jones thinks, evolved beyond evolution by natural selection?

He thinks that in the western, developed world, the normal driving force for evolution by natural selection is tailing off.

We are all having a similar number of babies and those children are surviving and having children of their own.

The impact of this is that there's no longer an opportunity for genes which may be beneficial to be selectively passed on.

As these trends increase, he says that "if we haven't already stopped evolving, we soon will."

Seeing evolution in action isn't easy, by its very nature, it only occurs on a generational time-scale.

But there is evidence of very recent human evolution, some of which may still be occurring now.

Since the human genome was decoded, geneticists are finding regions of genetic code which are relatively stable amongst populations - the so called "Darwin's Fingerprint" - evidence that these genes have been selected for and passed on, in the past.

Examples of these include genes for lactose tolerance, which evolved in dairy herders, as recently as 3,000 years ago, and is thought to still be spreading as the world switches to a dairy-rich diet.

Disease-resistance is also seen in our genomes, as is apparent increases in the length of time women are able to have babies.

Probably the most important area of human evolution since we split from our last common ancestor with chimpanzees, is in the development of our brains.

But there is very little evidence that our brains are still evolving biologically.

Being more intelligent does not mean that you will have more babies and pass your 'brainy' genes to more children.

Cognitive psychologist, Steven Pinker thinks that "just because our society is changing and our way of life is changing beyond recognition doesn’t mean that our genes are changing as well."

But, Kevin Laland, at St Andrews University says we're not just passive actors in our genetic destiny.

In fact it's our ability to change our environment which not only drives out cultural evolution, but has a direct effect on our genes as well.

Many recent examples of human evolution have happened in closed societies and are a result of pairing up within a limited gene pool.

One example is the Ashkanazi Jews, who may have evolved increased intelligence, as well as a number of heritable diseases.

With societies now starting to open up, and the increasing acceptance of interracial and cultural marriages; ease of travel; and increased connectivity through the internet etc...

Adam Rutherford asks if we're heading for a much more homogenous society?

And what will this mean for our genetic diversity and possible future evolution?

In the second episode of this three-part series, geneticist and broadcaster Adam Rutherford explores the complex and sometimes controversial world of human evolution.

He talks to geneticists, evolutionary psychologists and anthropologists to try and understand and untangle the relationship between our biology, our genes and our cultural and social behaviour.

Have we, as Professor Steve Jones thinks, evolved beyond evolution by natural selection?

He thinks that in the western, developed world, the normal driving force for evolution by natural selection is tailing off.

We are all having a similar number of babies and those children are surviving and having children of their own.

The impact of this is that there's no longer an opportunity for genes which may be beneficial to be selectively passed on.

As these trends increase, he says that "if we haven't already stopped evolving, we soon will."

Seeing evolution in action isn't easy, by its very nature, it only occurs on a generational time-scale.

But there is evidence of very recent human evolution, some of which may still be occurring now - particularly fueld by disease epedemics, from flu to HIV.

Since the human genome was decoded, geneticists are finding regions of genetic code which are relatively stable amongst populations - the so called "Darwin's Fingerprint" - evidence that these genes have been selected for and passed on, in the past.

Examples of these include genes for lactose tolerance, which evolved in dairy herders, as recently as 3000 years ago, and is thought to still be spreading as the world switches to a dairy-rich diet.

Disease-resistance is also seen in our genomes, as is apparent increases in the length of time women are able to have babies.

But, Kevin Laland, at St Andrews University says we're not just passive actors in our genetic destiny.

In fact it's our ability to change our environment which not only drives out cultural evolution, but has a direct effect on our genes as well.

Human uniqueness takes many forms - we can communicate complex ideas; we have developed technologies, such as medicine and transport; and we change our environment to suit our biology.

But how does human culture affect our biology - our genes?

Geneticist and broadcaster Adam Rutherford explores the complex and sometimes controversial world of human evolution.

He talks to geneticists, evolutionary psychologists and anthropologists to try and understand and untangle the relationship between our biology – our genes and our cultural and social behaviour.

Evolved beyond evolution?

Have we, as Professor Steve Jones thinks, evolved beyond evolution by natural selection?

He thinks that in the western, developed world, the normal driving force for evolution by natural selection is tailing off.

We are all having a similar number of babies and those children are surviving and having children of their own.

The impact of this is that there's no longer an opportunity for genes which may be beneficial to be selectively passed on.

As these trends increase, he says that "if we haven't already stopped evolving, we soon will."

"Darwin's Fingerprint"

Seeing evolution in action isn't easy, by its very nature, it only occurs on a generational time-scale.

But there is evidence of very recent human evolution, some of which may still be occurring now.

Since the Human Genome was decoded, geneticists are finding regions of genetic code which are relatively stable amongst populations - the so called "Darwin's Fingerprint" - evidence that these genes have been selected for and passed on, in the past.

Examples of these include genes for lactose tolerance, which evolved in dairy herders, as recently as 3000 years ago, and is thought to still be spreading as the world switches to a dairy-rich diet.

Disease-resistance is also seen in our genomes, as is apparent increases in the length of time women are able to have babies.

Brain development

Probably the most important area of human evolution since we split from our last common ancestor with chimpanzees, is in the development of our brains.

But there is very little evidence that our brains are still evolving – biologically.

Being more intelligent does not mean that you will have more babies and pass your 'brainy' genes to more children.

Cognitive psychologist, Steven Pinker thinks that "just because our society is changing and our way of life is changing beyond recognition doesn’t mean that our genes are changing as well."

But, Kevin Laland, at St Andrews University says we're not just passive actors in our genetic destiny.

In fact it's our ability to change our environment which not only drives out cultural evolution, but has a direct effect on our genes as well.

Future evolution

Many recent examples of human evolution have happened in closed societies and are a result of pairing up within a limited gene pool. One example is the Ashkanazi Jews, who may have evolved increased intelligence, as well as a number of heritable diseases.

With societies now starting to open up, and the increasing acceptance of interracial and cultural marriages; ease of travel; and increased connectivity through the internet etc.

Adam Rutherford asks if we're heading for a much more homogenous society?

And what will this mean for our genetic diversity and possible future evolution?