Ape Man

What does it mean to be human and what kind of people were our ancestors? The fabulous and mysterious cave paintings in France have long been thought to provide a window into the past - if only we could understand them.Now remarkable evidence from the trance-dances of Namibian bushmen and research on hallucinations by psychologists in Britain and the USA has been compared with the images in the caves themselves. The result is an astonishing new interpretation of the images. We can now see into the minds of our stone age ancestors and reconstruct the world of the cave-painters.

Who were the apes that took the first faltering steps towards being human? At a remote place called Taung on the edge of the Kalahari Desert was found the skull of a three-year-old child who had died millions of years ago. Known as Taung Child, this infant was a member of a long-vanished species who could walk upright – they straddled the boundary between ape and man. But they were tiny and weak. How did they survive?This episode reconstructs how they used their brains to compete with other animals, charts the emergence of the 'killer ape' theory, and how the key to success was the split between vegetarians and meat-eaters.

The search for the 'missing link' has caught our imagination ever since Darwin wrote The Origin of Species. This is the remarkable story of how the mythical half-man, half-ape, became reality - and how it changed our view of our ancestors.The film reconstructs the dying moments of a young boy, whose fossilised skeleton from 1.5 million years ago has revealed the true nature of the ape-man. Nicknamed Nariokotome Boy (after the lake in Kenya where he was found), he was a tall athletic youth we could be proud to call an ancestor, in a practically human body.His species were phenomenally successful predators and, from his origins in Africa, he dominated the world for over a million years. But his brain was tiny. Inside this human form was the mind of a wild animal.

When did the uniquely human emotions emerge in our ancestors? For over 2 million years primitive hominids - apes in a human body - roamed the tropical continents of Africa and Asia. But when and how did they enter the cold, hostile north: Europe? And what new powers did they need when they got there?This film reconstructs the tragic circumstances surrounding the lonely death of one of the early Europeans, over 400,000 years ago. Also, in a series of discoveries in Italy, Britain, Spain and Germany, scientists have pieced together evidence to explain how Europe was suddenly and decisively colonised. This trail has uncovered a moment of transformation in our evolution, when the human feelings of friendship, trust and love came into being.

Modern Homo sapiens have more in common with ancient skulls found in Africa than they do with the Neanderthals or other hominids found around the world - our immediate ancestors were all African. What we share in common is more important than what divides us as a species.Bones, tools, shells and red-coloured minerals from archaeological excavations in southern Africa reveal the daily lives of those remote ancestors, and that they headed for the beach. Human populations needed to migrate due to lack of resources and the coast was a route to conquer a continent, then move out of Africa to explore the world.

Last in the series exploring evolution and the origins of human life. For 200,000 years the Neanderthals lived unchallenged in Europe. But 30,000 years ago climate change and the arrival of modern humans from the east forced them to adapt or die.A skeleton of a boy found in Portugal may tell the tale of when Neanderthals and modern humans met - the Lagar Velho Boy appears to be the offspring of a Neanderthal and our own species. The sudden disappearance of the Neanderthals might not have been as final as it once seemed - our species may have assimilated some of the Neanderthals.