Profs & Pints DC: Becoming Human

Profs and Pints DC presents: “Becoming Human,” on where we came from, who we are, and what that means, with Ella Al-Shamahi, paleoanthropologist, explorer, stand-up comedian, and host of the upcoming BBC/PBS series HUMAN.

Come to Washington D.C.’s Penn Social to learn compelling story of, well, us–Homo sapiens—in a talk that asks not just where we come from, but who we are and what that means.

Telling the tale will be Ella Al-Shamahi, a National Geographic-sponsored explorer who explores Paleolithic caves in unstable or hostile parts of the world, produced the BBC2 series Neanderthals: Meet Your Ancestors, and has taught classes at the University of London while pursuing a doctorate in anthropology.

She’ll start by describing how, once upon a time, our world was a bit like Lord of the Rings in that we, Homo sapiens, shared this planet with many other species of human. We weren’t that remarkable—in fact,…