Footprints in Time

Footprints in Time recounts the 3.8 billion-year history of life on Earth through the stories of fifty remarkable fossils. From petrified primordial bacteria to the weird wonders preserved in the Burgess Shale, from the reign of the dinosaurs to the remains of our recent Neanderthal cousins, these fossils are prime documentary evidence for the progress of evolution and perfect examples of Charles Darwin's 'endless forms most beautiful'. The tremendous fossil discoveries of the last few decades have filled in many of the so-called 'missing links: 580 millions years ago, Pikaia is our first ancestor to show some backbone; Tiktaalik is the fish that left the sea for the land 375 million years ago; Archaeopteryx marks the transformation of dinosaurs into birds 150 millions years ago; Sahelanthropus tchadensis is the first of our ancestors to walk upright seven million years ago; Homo erectus the first to master fire 70,000 years ago. We can even watch small, dog-like creatures return to the sea and evolve into whales over a 55 million-year time scale.