Three-Part Special Premieres Wednesdays at 9 p.m. beginning November 4

Credit:Paul Brehem

NOVA presents a three-part series of one-hour specials investigating explosive new discoveries that are transforming the picture of how we became human. Shot “in the trenches” as discoveries were unearthed throughout Africa and Europe, each hour of “Becoming Human: Unearthing Our Earliest Ancestors” unfolds with a forensic investigation into the life and death of a specific hominid ancestor.

Watch this extended preview:

The first program (11/4) explores fresh clues about our earliest ancestors in Africa, including the stunningly complete fossil nicknamed “Lucy’s Child.” These three-million-year-old bones from Ethiopia reveal humanity’s oldest and most telltale trait — upright walking, rather than a big brain. Part two (11/11) tackles the mysteries of how our ancestors managed to survive in a savannah teeming with vicious predators, and when and why we first left our African cradle to colonize every corner of the earth. In the series conclusion (11/18), NOVA probes a wave of dramatic new evidence, based partly on cutting-edge DNA analysis, that reveals how we became today’s creative and “behaviorally modern” humans and offers new insights into what really happened to the enigmatic Neanderthals who faded into extinction.

For more videos and information on human evolution, visit pbs.org/nova/becominghuman.