Planet of the Apemen: Battle for Earth

Planet of the Apemen: Battle for Earth is a two-part BBC documentary series about human evolution. The series tells the story of how Homo sapiens once shared the Earth with other species of hominid, and how, against all the odds, we survived. The first episode deals with the struggles of Homo sapiens with Homo erectus, and the second episode depicts Homo sapiens's encounter with Homo neanderthalensis.

Episode 1 - Homo Erectus


This episode is set 75,000 years ago in India, following a catastrophic super-volcanic eruption which forced a showdown between our ancestors and a completely different species of human, Homo erectus, who up until that point had reigned supreme.

Episode 2 - Neanderthal


This episode is set 35,000 years ago and depicts Homo sapiens's encounter with Homo neanderthalensis. As the ice caps retreated, the Neanderthal stronghold in Europe weakened, providing a window of opportunity to which modern humans owe their existence.

Related Links:
Ape to Man
Walking with Cavemen

The Day We Learned to Think

Understanding of humans' earliest past often comes from studying fossils. They tell us much of what we know about the people who lived before us. There is one thing fossils cannot tell us; at what point did we stop living day-to-day and start to think symbolically, to represent ideas about our environment and how we could change it? At a dig in South Africa the discovery of a small piece of ochre pigment, 70,000 years old, has raised some very interesting questions.

Anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) emerged in Africa roughly 100,000 years ago. We know from fossil evidence that Homo sapiens replaced other hominids around them and moved out of Africa into Asia and the Middle East, reaching Europe 40,000 years ago.

Prof Richard Klein believes art is a landmark in human evolution. Unquestionable art that's widespread and common suggests you're dealing with people just like us. No other animals, after all, are able to define a painting as anything other than a collection of colours and shapes. This ability is unique to humans.
(from bbc.co.uk)

Related Links:
How Art Made the World