Thousands of years ago one small group of our species, Homo sapiens, crossed out of Africa and into the unknown. Their descendants faced baking deserts, sweat-soaked jungles and frozen wildernesses and risked everything on the vast empty ocean. Within 60,000 years they colonized the whole world… How did they do it? Why do we, their descendants all look so different? And what did we have that meant we were the only human species to survive?
4 hour playlist
Travel 4,000 years back in time. For the first time you’ll see Stonehenge not as a ruin but as a prehistoric temple. Our presenter Jeff Douglas meets the Stonehenge experts and examines the evidence: ancient weapons, "magic" stones and murder victims. Jeff passes the facts back to Steve, Colin and Neil three graphic artists on a Stone Age adventure. Youll see the designers using cutting edge CGI to re-create dramatic moments from the history of Stonehenge.
When the dinosaurs died off 65 million years ago, it was killer birds not mammals which dominated areas of South America. Killer Birds profiled include the flightless ratite Andalgaornis and the larger Titanis, and the huge extinct flying Argentavis. Bob Chandler (of Florida Museum of Natural History) discovers that the titanis wingbone was very dinosaurian, allowing it to grip prey. This Documentary series, produced for the Discovery Channel, using three-dimensional graphics, life-like robotics, skeletal reconstructions, and on-site visits to explore prehistoric animals.
Homo ergaster, an ancient predecessor of modern humans, had to scavenge to survive. They lived in the elements among the monsters of the day, like the saber-toothed cat. Over time, early humans evolved and developed simple tools, began to communicate, and learned to control their most important tool, fire. 40,000 years ago, Neanderthals were at the top of their form, hunting beasts like the Giant Steppe Bison. The Neanderthals were usurped by an entirely new race of humans, the Cro-Magnons. They adapted and survived when the Neanderthals could not.
There are almost 5,000 different languages spoken in the world. Many linguists believe that these 5,000 evolved from about 200 distinct and apparently unrelated families. Whether or not all of these language families could have developed from a single language is the issue explored by this documentary. There is a controversy among linguists as to whether a primordial language once existed. Some claim that after about 10,000 years, any language has changed too much for anyone to ascertain the original tongue.
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