Walking With Cavemen (2003) BBC

Walking With Cavemen (7/10)

The Africa of two million years ago is a crossroads in human evolution. Half a dozen or more different species of ape-men exist alongside one another. Each of them has exploited the environment in a different way and has developed their own survival strategy .



One and a half million years ago, a new breed of ape-man walks the land. In southern Africa, Homo ergaster has taken the next step to becoming human. They have long, modern looking noses, which cool air as they breathe.



Their hairless bodies, with millions of tiny sweat glands, mean they don't pant anymore to control their temperature - they sweat. And, above all, they have big brains - nearly two-thirds the size of ours.



Savage Family follows the lives of a close-knit group of ergaster on a hunt and discovers how they use are their big brains. They are the first ape-men to have our complex understanding of the natural world, and can recognise and follow the footprints left behind by many different animals. They are expert toolmakers and use a highly refined stone hand axe. But the most important things they use are their big brains for understanding others in their group.



Ergaster live in large social groups and spend their time getting along with each other. Their society is held together not by a dominant male, but by the bonds of family and friends. For the first time, hunters will bring back meat to people left behind from a hunt, using it to forge alliances and reinforce relationships. Their extraordinary social world has led to a new phenomenon in our human story - couples living together monogamously, at least for a time.



Their new found social bonds and understanding of the world has equipped them with skills that enable them to move away from their ancestral home in Africa. Over thousands of years they spread throughout the Middle East and Asia, reaching as far as China and are now known in their new Asian home as - Homo erectus.



But for all their sophistication, these ancestors are still very different from us. Jump forward one million years and they are still around, and so too are their stone axes. Nothing about their exceptional tool has changed. In a million years they have made no technological advancements. Compare this with Homo sapiens who have gone from the Steam Age to the Space Age in under 100 years.



Their brains simply do not work in the flexible way ours do. For them to become like us requires a major change in thinking. It could be we know what triggered this dramatic change. Towards the end of ergaster's time there is evidence that they learnt to control and work with fire as a weapon, for warmth and as a tool.



For the first time in our history the night no longer brought danger, but warmth, security and time for the mind to wander and perhaps time for the mind to change. Fire certainly revolutionised the way our ancestors lived - perhaps it did the same for their thoughts.



First true Homo species: Homo ergaster / Homo erectus

The presumed tool making abilities of habilis were not enough to convince many anthropologists that they should be named ‘Homo’. The species of the genus Homo have large brains, a more modern skeleton, a significant reduction in tooth and jaw size and, importantly, culture. Overall, these hominids departed from the ape-like body plan of our early evolution and were rapidly approaching the body and brain size that characterise modern humans.



The Kenyan fossil skeleton called 'Nariokotome Boy,' belongs to a species of early Homo called Homo ergaster. It is the most complete skeleton of an early hominid found to date. The skeleton was that of an adolescent boy who was tall and thin in body shape and had already reached a height of 1.5 meters. This species had a narrow pelvis, which was much more efficient for walking and running than our own.



Naked skin

Professor Peter Wheeler of Liverpool John Moores University has done much work on thermoregulatory selection pressure on human evolution. His research suggests that naked skin with highly developed sweat glands enabled ergaster to lose heat by evaporation at a rate between 10 and 100 times faster than they could using their respiratory systems alone.



Language

The evidence of fossil brains provides clues that Homo ergaster may have had spoken language, but this evidence is not very strong. Hence there is controversy as to the extent to which ergaster would have been able to master language. The throats of ergaster suggest that they could have articulated a larger range of vowel sounds than apes. It has been suggested that they would have had a proto-language.



The human eye

Work by Japanese researchers Hiromi Kobayashi and Shiro Kohshima show that the human eye has exceptional features. Human eyes differ in the following ways from those of apes: 1) The exposed white sclera lacks any pigmentation, and 2) humans posses the largest ratio of exposed white sclera in the eye outline and 3) the eye outline is extraordinarily elongated in the horizontal direction. Humans, with their more sophisticated societies, need to be able to know who they can trust and who they can’t. Reading a person’s gaze is crucial for this. Many scientists think that this new eye design evolved at the time of ergaster.



Acheulean tools

The tools first appeared around 1.4 million years ago, and are found alongside ergaster remains. It took great skill and strength to master the making of Acheulean tools. At around a million years ago the tools became dominated by symmetrical axes called bifaces.



The production team trained the ergaster actors in how to accurately manufacture and use these stone tools, and they even had to learn how to butcher a real deer carcass with the stone axes they’d made.



Homo erectus and the exodus from Africa.

The first hominid fossil found outside of Africa was the ergaster Trinil2 type specimen, known as Java Man. Further discoveries in Java have turned up remains from a total of about 40 individuals, and an equal number have come from Zhoukoudian in China. It seems the first humans ventured out of Africa via the Middle East with Oldowan tools close to two million years ago, but they do not appear to have ventured into Europe. Perhaps they were prevented in doing so by climate and geography. Instead they dispersed east, taking a southern route to China and on to the island of Java in South-East Asia. Dr Geoffrey Pope believes bamboo would have been an important resource for these first Asians.



Evidence of hominid use of fire

It is important to distinguish between opportunistic use and direct control of fire. It’s very difficult to prove hominid control of fire without a hearth. Archaeologists use clues like burnt animal bones, charcoal, heat-stained stone tools and baked clay, as well as the colour of the deposits and the presence of hominid remains, to determine the likelihood that hominids were involved in or responsible for the fire. But bush fires and lightning strikes can produce the same effects. This makes determining the earliest use of fire difficult.



Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/prehistoric_life/tv_radio/wwcavemen

Professor Robert Winston meets Lucy, the first upright ape, and follows her ancestors on the three-million-year journey to civilisation. Broadcast in 2003, Walking with Cavemen combined special effects with the latest scientific theories, to show us what it really means to be human.

Overview

In the previous Walking with... documentaries, extinct animals were recreated with CGI and animatronics. For Walking with Cavemen, a slightly different approach was taken. While most of the animals depicted were still computer generated or animatronic, the human ancestors were portrayed by actors wearing makeup and prosthetics, giving them a more realistic look and permitting the actors to give the creatures a human quality.



Like its predecessors, Walking with Cavemen is made in the style of a wildlife documentary, featuring a voice-over narrator (Robert Winston in the British release, Alec Baldwin in the North American release) who describes the recreations of the prehistoric past as if they were real. As with the predecessors, this approach necessitated the presentation of speculation as if it were fact, and some of the statements made about the behaviour of the creatures are more open to question than the documentary may indicate.



Each species segment takes the form of a short drama featuring a group of the particular hominid in question going about their daily lives (the search for food, protecting territory, and caring for the sick and injured). The intent is to get the human viewer to feel for the creatures being examined, almost to imagine being one of them (a trait that the documentary links to the modern human brain).

Episodes

Episode One: "First Ancestors"

In the first episode, we see Australopithecus afarensis, and focus on their evolved bipedality (walking on just rear feet - our legs). More specifically, the story follows the famous Lucy and her relatives, as they first develop a leadership conflict following the death of the alpha male due to a crocodile attack, and then are attacked by a rival troupe. The attack ends with death of Lucy herself, and her eldest daughter caring for Lucy's now-orphaned baby (her sibling), as a sign of the developing humanity in these "apemen".



Time: 3.2 Million Years Ago

Place: Ethiopia



* Australopithecus afarensis

* Ancylotherium

* Deinotherium

* Crocodile



Episode Two: "Blood Brothers"

The second episode leaps forward to a time when Paranthropus boisei, Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis co-exist. H. habilis is depicted as an intelligent omnivore that is more adaptable than the herbivorous P. boisei. The two species are contrasted, with H. habilis being "a jack of all trades", while P. boisei are "a master of one" - i.e. they are specialized herbivores while H. habilis are generalized omnivores. Consequently, though P. boisei are able to eat termites, tall grasses and hard acacia pods in difficult times, they will not be able to survive in the future, when at the beginning of the next Ice Age the climate will change, and these plants will be gone for good. H. habilis, on the contrary, have become smart by eating carrion and bone marrow among other things, and evolving a basic social behavior, which is more firm than that of P. boisei, will continue to survive, until it evolves into Homo ergaster, seen in the next episode, who has developed these traits to a greater extent.



The episode also briefly shows the H. rudolfensis, remarking that albeit they are taller, they are very similar to the H. habilis.



Time: 2 Million Years Ago

Place: East Africa



* Paranthropus boisei

* Homo habilis

* Dinofelis

* Deinotherium

* Ancylotherium

* Homo rudolfensis



Episode Three: "Savage Family"

In the third episode, Homo ergaster is depicted as the first creature to master the art of tracking. This was made possible because their diet has grown increasingly more carnivorous, and the nutrients in meat made them even smarter than H. habilis of the previous episode. They also begin to form into tribal societies, with genuine bonds between their men and women, though violence is still occurring.



The episode later shows H. ergaster spreading into Asia, becoming Homo erectus and encountering the enormous herbivorous ape Gigantopithecus, "the original King Kong".



However, for the next million years, H. ergaster is still very much an animal, following its instinct, but then, they are shown harnessing fire and beginning to break-away from their direct dependence on their environment. (This ties neatly into the next and final episode, which is centered on human mind and imagination.)



Time: 1.5 Million Years Ago - 500 000 Years Ago

Place: Southern Africa - China



* Homo ergaster

* Homo erectus

* Gigantopithecus



Episode Four: "The Survivors"

The fourth episode talks about the mental evolution of the humanity, as opposed to the physical in previous ones. First we leap forward to a time when Homo heidelbergensis is living in Great Britain. H. Heidelbergensis is depicted as intelligent and sensitive but lacking in the ability to comprehend an afterlife, or anything that isn't in the "here and now".



Next, the episode shows a life of a clan Homo neanderthalensis, how they lived and hunted, including the mighty mammoth during the latest Ice age. They are intelligent but still lack the imagination of modern humans.



Finally, we see modern Homo sapiens (represented by Bushmen) in Africa, who had to become imaginative and inventive to survive the long drought, and finally glimpse the cave painters of Europe, who had "evolved" the idea of the afterlife and the supernatural, and who are now ready to start the human history as it is now known (and drive-out the Neanderthals to extinction).



Time: 200 000 Years Ago - 150 000 Years Ago

Place: Europe - Africa



* Homo heidelbergensis

* Neanderthal

* Megaloceros

* Mammoth

* Homo sapiens

Source: Wikipedia