Back to Show
Eons
Our Most Mysterious Extinct Cousins
Season 6
Episode 12
There was a group of hominins, those creatures more closely related to us than to chimpanzees, that did take a different, parallel journey from our ancestors. Our paths ran beside each other - and potentially even crossed at times - but while ours led us here, theirs led to extinction. What happened to Paranthropus and what can their fate tell us about our past?
Support Provided By
Season
![What's the Oldest Beverage](https://kcet.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/219f92e/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1920x1080+0+0/resize/768x432!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimage.pbs.org%2Fvideo-assets%2FpoSYa8A-asset-mezzanine-16x9-hwQlrCn.jpg)
11:55
What was the first ever drink?
![The Mystery of South America's False Horses](https://kcet.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/10707b5/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1920x1080+0+0/resize/768x432!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimage.pbs.org%2Fvideo-assets%2FR3ALCxu-asset-mezzanine-16x9-tAN15HW.jpg)
9:45
How did the "false horse," Thoatherium, and its relatives survive?
![When The Atlantic Ripped Open A Supercontinent](https://kcet.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/e665127/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1920x1080+0+0/resize/768x432!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimage.pbs.org%2Fvideo-assets%2F2Qn5eQt-asset-mezzanine-16x9-kmdjGNy.jpg)
10:21
Did you know volcanoes created the Atlantic Ocean that we know today?
![The Second Time Sponges Took Over The World](https://kcet.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/ff81813/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1920x1080+0+0/resize/768x432!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimage.pbs.org%2Fvideo-assets%2FftsQtM6-asset-mezzanine-16x9-mGfj9kY.jpg)
8:04
Learn about how researchers have discovered a piece of a weird, but critical, time in the deep past…
![No Single Cradle of Humankind](https://kcet.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/e85c653/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1920x1080+0+0/resize/768x432!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimage.pbs.org%2Fvideo-assets%2Frjtgjed-asset-mezzanine-16x9-j9smty1.jpg)
10:46
Maybe there wasn’t just one so-called "cradle of humankind"?
![The Hazy Evolution of Cannabis](https://kcet.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/6a71f2c/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1920x1080+0+0/resize/768x432!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimage.pbs.org%2Fvideo-assets%2FUL5sd1L-asset-mezzanine-16x9-ZyJmuxa.jpg)
10:18
How did such a strange plant like cannabis come to be in the first place?
![What Will Earth Be Like 300 Million Years From Now?](https://kcet.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/3433003/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1920x1080+0+0/resize/768x432!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimage.pbs.org%2Fvideo-assets%2FkqGWTev-asset-mezzanine-16x9-e0xcKgU.jpg)
9:34
We’re taking a look towards the deep future. After all, the story is far from over.
![What Was The Earliest Surgery?](https://kcet.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/4e0b18d/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1920x1080+0+0/resize/768x432!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimage.pbs.org%2Fvideo-assets%2FMB4s5jS-asset-mezzanine-16x9-ht42ggu.jpg)
7:59
When did we start practicing medicine in its varied, complex forms?
![How Snake Venom Sparked An Evolutionary Arms Race](https://kcet.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/609129e/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1920x1080+0+0/resize/768x432!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimage.pbs.org%2Fvideo-assets%2FavnN5av-asset-mezzanine-16x9-BAWBnPI.jpg)
9:11
For some, the rise of venomous elapid snakes was an almost apocalyptic catastrophe.
![Why Is It So Hard to Tell the Sex of a Dinosaur?](https://kcet.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/f0f1d11/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1920x1080+0+0/resize/768x432!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimage.pbs.org%2Fvideo-assets%2FwepRcV8-asset-mezzanine-16x9-7vVJqWT.jpg)
12:07
When you only have fossils, how do you know if a dinosaur is female or male?
![Animals Are Older Than We Thought](https://kcet.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/d271496/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1920x1080+0+0/resize/768x432!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimage.pbs.org%2Fvideo-assets%2FW4nMuUy-asset-mezzanine-16x9-9vECDhv.jpg)
11:57
What are animal-like fossils doing in rocks a billion years old?
![How Ancient Microbes Rode Bug Bits Out to Sea](https://kcet.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/9bfe63d/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1920x1080+0+0/resize/768x432!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimage.pbs.org%2Fvideo-assets%2FUXHo5Ri-asset-mezzanine-16x9-yPKWlE7.jpeg)
8:42
Exoskeleton fragments may have allowed microbes to sail the ocean and change the world.