SAPIENS: THE NEW BEGINNING SCRIPT - JUNE 21st 2018 A TWO-PART DOCUMENTARY - 104 MINUTES DIRECTED BY OLIVIER JULIEN - PRODUCED BY HIND SAIH Homo Sapiens: A New Departure a two-part documentary - 104 minutes EPISODE 1: PAGE 3 THE DISCOVERY OF THE JEBEL IRHOUD MAN: THE WORLD’S OLDEST HOMO SAPIENS FOSSILS EPISODE 2: PAGE 11 HOMO SAPIENS, A NEW SCIENTIFIC MODEL Contact : Hind Saih BELLOTA FILMS 14, rue du Moulin Joly 75011 Paris, France [email protected] Episode 1 The discovery of the Jebel Irhoud man: the world’s oldest Homo sapiens fossils Introduction And this discovery did not come out of the blue. The first hominin skull had been found at In June 2017, in the scientific journal Nature, the Irhoud site over 50 years ago. But its dating an international team led by professors Jean- and interpretation have varied significantly Jacques Hublin and Abdelouahed Ben-Ncer ever since, influenced by historical vicissitudes, published an article about their archeological advances in dating techniques and the progress finds at Jebel Irhoud in Morocco. made in our understanding of human evolution. The news swept across the world in the press: Since its discovery, the site has been poorly the team announced the discovery of Homo preserved, left abandoned and damaged by sapiens fossils that were 300,000-year-old, erosion, looting and vandalism. according to thermoluminescence dating. For 30 years, Jean-Jacques Hublin and Their results contradicted the generally accepted Abdelouahed Ben-Ncer were fascinated by theory placing the dawn of our species in East Jebel Irhoud and dreamed of excavating it again. Africa 200,000 years ago. These remains are In 2004, they persuaded two institutions, the 100,000 older, and they were found over 6,000 Moroccan National Institute of Archeology and kilometers from the region considered to be Heritage (known as the INSAP, Institut National “the cradle of humanity.” des Sciences de l’Archéologie et du Patrimoine) in Rabat and the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, to provide them with all of the technological A - Ben-Ncer: “It was a shock, even for us! resources of modern archeology. We thought they were old, but we couldn’t The findings from this new excavation at Jebel have imagined they would date back so far…. Irhoud mark an undeniable turning point in the It’s quite extraordinary…” way we understand the origins of our species. 3 PART 1: JEBEL IRHOUD, A WIDELY-DEBATE AND FRAGILE ARCHEOLOGICAL SITE (1960 TO 2004) A - Introduction In May 2018, during a final excavation campaign Computer-generated imagery (CGI) of the prior to the definitive closure of the archaeological 3D model of the site created at the Max site, an unexpected discovery was made: Planck Institute & archival photographs from excavators came across yet another cavity with Ennouchi’s collection. deposits that seemed to extend under the cliff Shannon McPherron provides analysis on face to the east. If these deposits contained site and in another untouched cave other remains, they would be older than previous in Jebel Irhoud. finds. Emile Ennouchi, a professor at Morocco’s Over night, there was a massive landslide. University of Rabat, led a campaign to excavate The mission was suspended to stabilize the the site. The cave’s ceiling was blasted away site, but miraculously the freshly excavated to gain access, creating 2,000 metric tons of area was spared. debris. J.J. Hublin, A. Ben-Ncer and S. McPherron arrived on site to appraise the situation and Collections at the Rabat Archeological Museum: recounted the stories that drew them to this skulls, tools and animal remains. excavation. Over the course of 3 years, many artifacts and fossils were unearthed at the site: another B - Unearthing the Jebel Irhoud man adult skull, the lower mandible of a child, many animal remains and a collection of flint tools. (1960s to 1970s) But unfortunately, the exact location of many of the specimens was not recorded. This sequence features shots of the researchers Drawing upon European understandings of at work interwoven with interviews set on-site stone tools, Ennouchi identified these skeletal or in archeological laboratories, illustrated remains as belonging to African Neanderthals. with archival footage, renderings and fossil Carbon-14 dating estimated that they were and tool collections. 40,000 years old. The scene opens with drone shots over the A. Ben-Ncer on location Jebel Irhoud site and archival photographs of Moroccan miners. A miner lifts a skull from “In 1961, the true identity of the Jebel Irhoud the rubble created by a blast. man was unthinkable: it didn’t fit with the In the 1960s, during a mining operation in one of theories of that time and it was beyond the the many caves that dot Jebel Irhoud’s hillside, scope of available dating technologies … miners unearthed an impressive fossilized skull. It went against everything we thought we knew… and nevertheless…” After a number of cursory excavations in the 1970s, the archeological site was left abandoned. And most of the skeletal remains were stored at institutions in France. However, a number of researchers had serious reservations about Ennouchi’s conclusion that they belonged to Neanderthals. They were also puzzled by the carbon dating results. 4 C - New interpretations offered by other researchers (1980s to 1990s) J.J. Hublin studies and measures Electro spin resonance (ESR) dating at the the mandible fossil Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany Jean Jacques Hublin is one of the researchers In the 1990s, J.J. Hublin, a world-leading to have taken an interest in these fossils, paleontologist, sought to recalculate the direct publishing his first article in 1981 based on an age of the Irhoud 3 mandible, using a technique examination of the mandible fossil, designated called electro resonance spin spectroscopy as Irhoud 3. (ESR), also known as electro paramagnetic “It was my first encounter with the material resonance (EPR). from Irhoud, but this jaw line could not have been that of a Neanderthal.” Daniel Richter, a geochronology expert at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) Rabat, Morocco: A comparative analysis of “With carbon-14 dating, it is impossible to the skulls by Professor A. Ben-Ncer date materials further back than 50,000 years For A. Ben-Ncer, it was his doctoral exam at the ago and so a result of 40,000 years actually University of Bordeaux that led him to assess indicates a range between 40,000 and infinity. the differences between the skull found at Jebel ESR allows us to go back 1 one million years.” Irhoud and that of a Neanderthal. “Despite the elongated shape of the skull, A visual demonstration of the ESR technique the face is retracted and angular below the This method takes advantage of a specific cheekbones, but without the prognathous jaw property in crystalline substances such as tooth found in Neanderthals. Without a doubt, it’s the enamel: over time electrons are trapped in face of a Homo sapiens. But the skull doesn’t the defects of the mineral’s structure due to yet have all the traits found in the modern man. the natural background radioactivity emitted So it’s indisputably a primitive Homo sapiens. by the soils in which the specimens had been buried. The number of trapped electrons varies, Carrying cases containing skulls, designated depending on the annual intensity of the soils’ as Irhoud 1 and 2 radioactivity and the duration of the object’s In 1982, the 2 skulls unearthed at Jebel Irhoud exposure. An analysis of these electrons can were returned to Morocco: on the occasion of reveal the specimen’s age. This time, the results King Hassan II’s birthday, Yves Coppens was indicated that the Irhoud 3 fossil is 160,000 sent as a French envoy to present the fossils years old. to him. 20 years after its initial discovery, the Jebel Irhoud man had finally been confirmed to An animated map of Africa, archival footage belong to the Homo sapiens species. & skulls from Omo Kibish and Herto But the age of the remains, estimated to be In the early 2000s, all eyes were on Ethiopia 40,000 years old, remained problematic. in East Africa, where the oldest known Homo sapiens fossils had been discovered: Professor Fethi Amani the 195,000-year-old Omo Kibish remains and “An analysis of the remains of small rodents, the 160,000-year-old Herto fossils. These finds such as mice and gerbils, suggested the site was along with early genetic studies gave rise to much older; some of the species found were the theory that our species had evolved from a known to have only lived in the region between “Garden of Eden” in East Africa 700,000 and 125,000 years ago.” J.J. Hublin “For me, the Omo Kibish and Herto skulls, which were believed to be the same age or older than those of Irhoud, seem in some ways less archaic… And the ESR dating had been done without an accurate calibration of the site’s radioactivity because it was inaccessible at the time… I dreamed of settling this once and for all, but it took time to make it possible…” 5 PART 2: THE REDISCOVERY OF THE JEBEL IRHOUD MAN: A 21ST CENTURY ARCHEOLOGICAL DIG (2004 TO 2010) A - A gamble made with state-of- B - New fossils the art technology Filming the Jebel Irhoud excavation site The archeological site at Jebel Irhoud When the dig resumed in 2005, their excavation In 2004, J.J. Hublin was appointed Director of strategy proved worthwhile: within the first the Department of Human Evolution at the few years, the site had yielded an unimaginable Institute Max Plank in Leipzig.