Woolly Mammoth: Secrets from the Ice

Woolly Mammoth: Secrets from the Ice is a BBC nature documentary presented by Prof. Alice Roberts, revealing the natural history of the most famous of Ice Age animals - the woolly mammoth. Mammoths have transfixed humans since the depths of the last Ice Age, when their herds roamed across what is now Europe and Asia. Although these curious members of the elephant family have now been extinct for thousands of years, scientists can now paint an incredibly detailed picture of their lives thanks to whole carcasses that have been beautifully preserved in the Siberian permafrost. Alice Roberts meets the scientists who are using the latest genetic, chemical and molecular tests to reveal the adaptations that allowed mammoths to evolve from their origins in the tropics, to surviving the extremes of Siberia.

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Ice Age Giants

Dinosaurs, Myths and Monsters

From dinosaurs to mammoths, when our ancient ancestors encountered the fossil bones of extinct prehistoric creatures, what did they think they were? Just like us, ancient peoples were fascinated by the giant bones they found in the ground. In an epic story that takes us from Ancient Greece to the American Wild West, historian Tom Holland goes on a journey of discovery to explore the fascinating ways in which our ancestors sought to explain the remains of dinosaurs and other giant prehistoric creatures, and how bones and fossils have affected human culture.

In Classical Greece, petrified bones were exhibited in temples as the remains of a long lost race of colossal Heroes. Chinese tales of dragons may well have had their origins in the great fossil beds of the Gobi desert. In the Middle Ages, Christians believed that mysterious bones found in rock were the remains of giants drowned in Noah's Flood.

But far from always being wrong, Tom learns that ancient explanations and myths about large fossilised bones often contained remarkable paleontological insights long before modern science explained the truth about dinosaurs. Tom encounters a medieval sculpture that is the first known reconstruction of a monster from a fossil, and learns about the Native Americans stories which contained clues that led bone hunters to some of the greatest dinosaur finds of the nineteenth century.

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Walking with Dinosaurs
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