All language subtitles for Kurzgesagt – All Of Human History In One Hour (720p).English

The modern human is at least 200,000 years old
- 10,000 generations of knowledge and memories.

Ancient egypt seems pretty recent in this view.

The last Millenium just a tiny speck and your
whole life is basically invisible in comparison.

So heres an experiment: every second
2 generations or 50 years will pass.

You are on a musical train ride looking out the
window, as you watch our ancestors hunt large

animals, tell stories around campfires
and slowly spread around the globe.

Experience all of Human History in one hour.

You can have this in the background,
study with it or just enjoy the ride.

From time to time, I’ll say a few words.

But before we start something
very important to us:

Cuts to foreign aid this year
have raised real concerns about

people’s well-being in some of
the world's poorest communities.

It can be hard to know what's
actually happening — or how to help.

GiveWell doesn’t claim to have all the answers.

But its team of independent, nonprofit researchers
are analyzing the impact of foreign aid funding

cuts in real time — identifying highly
cost-effective ways to save and improve lives,

and sharing what they’re learning for free,
so that everyone can have a big impact.

Thanks to GiveWell for making
videos like this possible!

The Earth is in the middle
of one of its many Ice Ages.

Glacial sheets are rampant and deserts expand.

But sheltered from all this is East Africa,
which remains temperate and comfortable.

It's not clear when our species arrived.

The earliest skeletal remains suggest
the first Homo Sapiens step foot into

the world at least 200,000 years
ago, perhaps even 300,000 years ago.

All humans descend directly through their
mothers from a woman who lived at this time,

based on DNA in our cells' mitochondria.

We were already great hunters,
wielding spears and fire,

huddling under animal skins and living
in communities that shared joy and death.

Without maps or shoes, we regularly traveled long

distances and even carried obsidian hundreds
of kilometers to turn into cutting tools.

Humans were not alone.

They lived side-by-side with multiple other
hominins, some millions of years older than us.

Cousins or ancestors?

It's unclear.

Our natural desire to wander
takes us all around the continent,

from the Mediterranean coast
down to the tip of South Africa.

One major obstacle slowed down
our progression: the deserts.

With no water to drink nor animals to hunt, we
didn't know how to cross these difficult regions.

Not everyone fitted the same
mold, just like people today.

The majority of Homo Sapiens stayed
in Africa, but a few intrepid souls

were leaving the continent by 180,000 years
ago, which we know about because they met

Neanderthals and interbred, leaving
genetic traces and a fossil record.

We think that in arid regions,
humans would congregate around oases.

By stringing together short trips between oases,

our ancestors might have been able to
occasionally cross impossible deserts.

Hair lice are delicate parasites that evolved

specifically to live under
the protection of our hair.

So when they split off into body lice,

we get the earliest evidence that we
started to wear clothes on our bodies.

Human expansion was not
some sort of linear journey.

There was no general planning, and it was just
as likely to go forwards as to retrace its steps.

If we didn't have the means to go somewhere,

then we'd never visit it even if it
was right next to our birthplace.

The island of Madagascar,
separated from Africa by sea,

remained untouched until 2000
years ago for this reason.

One of our greatest strengths is our adaptability.

Where other species would perish or
retreat when the climate changed,

we would instead find new ways of living.

Like when we moved into the African
coasts to escape the worst of this ice

age and had to rediscover everything
about how to hunt or find shelter.

It's hard to see technological
progress this far back.

Hardening pointy sticks in a fire seems so
simple, yet it was huge progress for this time.

Walking down the beach looking for shellfish,
our ancestors sometimes collected pretty shells.

We know they had an eye for beauty, just like us.

Remains of burnt snail shells from 170,000 years ago

suggest we caught giant gastropods
and turned them into roasted snacks.

One ancestor's trash is a paleoarcheologist's treasure.

164,000 year old leftovers containing shellfish reveal that humans learnt to exploit marine resources back then.

The hominins likely descended
from tree-dwelling apes,

and we still found trees quite
neat millions of years later.

Forests housed plenty of food
and could hide us from predators,

so we kept returning to them whenever we could.

Despite all of our tricks,
sharp sticks and hiding spots,

our species remained a target
for fearsome predators.

Bears, hyenas and lions larger than anything we
see today challenged our status as top hunters.

The real paleo diet: roasted seeds,
crushed tubers, and a lot of meat.

Nothing could be preserved for later,
so if you came across tasty fruit,

you had to eat it on the spot or lose it.

Thankfully, we could reach the
roughly 3000 calories needed per day.

Our ancestors had a hunter-gatherer
lifestyle that's difficult to imagine today.

They only really had to work
for about 20 hours per week,

with the rest spent socializing,
playing and perhaps painting.

Sounds fun!

Except you never knew when your next meal was
coming, or if tomorrow's hunt would be your last.

Ancient rivers criss-crossing
Africa likely served as roads

that our ancestors could walk along
to more quickly cross vast distances.

They would have a reliable source of water and
they attracted animals to prey on for food.

There's also a lot we don't know.

Whole branches of hominins lost to
time, like 140,000 year old Homo Longi

that was only recently discovered from
a Chinese skull and may rewrite our history.

Now we really lengthen our stride.

An unusually long and wet period called the
Abbassia Pluvial transforms deserts into

swamps and rivers across Africa, helping
more humans move across the continent.

Our expansion takes us across the
Miditerranean sea, to the island of Crete.

How did we get there 130,000 years ago?

Did we swim or build rafts?

We only find watercraft dated
tens of thousands of years later,

yet skeletal remains on the island
mean we must have found a way.

Just like artists today, we've
always wanted to express ourselves.

The oldest evidence for Homo
Sapiens painting dates back to

125,000 year old red ochre made from
pigmented clay found in South Africa,

though we used it on our surroundings
and our bodies much earlier than that.

Sadly, we've lost these
earliest works of art to time.

We also find shells perforated so they
can be strung together at this time,

to serve as decorations or jewellery.

Ancient bling!

On the shore of an ancient lake in Saudi Arabia,

we find footprints of humans among those
of many animals dated to 120,000 years ago.

The whole Arabian Peninsula was covered
in green grass and wetlands at this time,

making it an ideal environment
for our hunter-gatherer ancestors.

The oldest abstract symbols are
120,000 year old bone markings.

They're definitely calculated and
intentional, but what do they mean?

So much is lost from back then.

Homo Erectus, our longest living
cousin, goes extinct around this time,

and with them goes their culture
and 1.7 million years of history.

The global climate shifts once again,

accelerating human expansion out
of Africa from a trickle to a wave.

And as ocean levels were so much lower,

land bridges existed that led them along
surprising paths between continents!

However, our expansion isn't some coordinated
push in one direction but random movements that

are just as likely to leave as to return to
Africa with multiple overlapping migrations.

We believe the main path Homo
Sapiens had to leave Africa

was through the Arabian Peninsula,
leading to modern day Turkey and Iran.

Despite the challenge, they mastered the
mountainous areas they encountered there.

This is when we developed a taste for
starch: roots, starchy vegetables,

and seeds are added to our diet and
our mouth bacteria adapted to them.

Our ancestors tried to preserve their
knowledge and remember their past.

The oldest Homo Sapien burial
site is 100,000 years old,

containing skeletons and numerous burial goods.

Meanwhile, we start to reveal our complex

inner worlds by painting more
than we see with our own eyes.

Instead of simple representations of nature,
we find the first symbolic paintings.

Complex behaviour required
equally capable communication.

We very likely had languages we could
use to chat with other human groups.

In fact, Neanderthals had this capability too,

so might we have tried to chat
each other up when we met?

This capacity for culture and abstract
thought is engraved in our genes.

We can analyze DNA to determine what gives us
our personality, and it's clear that creative

self-awareness is a special feature
we have that other hominins lacked.

The oldest piece of string is 90,000 years
old, and it belonged to Neanderthals.

Could we have asked to trade for it?

Our innate adaptability served us well.

But quickly, we learnt to go further and
change the environment to suit us instead.

With the power of fire in our hands,

we burnt down forests and cleared vegetation
to make our own hunting or foraging easier.

Africa's northern regions remained
green and pleasant for a very long time.

This meant that more groups of
humans could follow a sort of

"Green Corridor" out of Africa,
resulting in more encounters with

Neanderthals and thus a lot more of
their DNA in our genetic material.

As humans crossed into Asia, their
territory expanded vertically too.

Our ancestors climbed and shrugged off piercing

winds to find themselves in caves
2000 to 3000 meters above sea level.

During harsh times, we relied on our technology

to expand our food repertoire and
increase our chances of survival.

Specialized tools like spears with barbed points
allowed Homo Sapiens to fish in rivers and lakes.

Our ancestors already knew that
materials in their environment

had properties that weren't visible or tangible.

They discovered medicinal plants,

and added them for example to bedding
for their insect-repelling effect.

Catastrophe! The Toba supereruption in
Indonesia radically alters the climate,

causing the human population to shrink to less
than 10,000 individuals: a genetic bottleneck.

The survivors were the ones who
knew how to scavenge for food,

find reliable shelter and were just lucky
enough to live in less affected areas.

We probably had to spend more time in
caves when weather outside worsened.

That gave us time to work on our stone
engraving skills and abstract paintings.

For generations, humans climbed mountains
and crossed wide open plains while travelling

across Asia, but when they transitioned
to the dense jungles of Southeast Asia,

they had to come up with an entirely
new lifestyle to handle them.

Prey was much harder to find and
track, the fruit were unfamiliar,

and predators could pounce from
every bush or drop down from above.

Yet, we thrived in there.

Human rituals continued to
grow stranger and more complex.

We found a cave in Botswana where
spearheads were gifted to a great

python made of carved rock 70,000 years ago.

Living side-by-side with other hominins for

thousands of years meant there
were many fruitful encounters.

Interbreeding with Neanderthals in Europe happened

so often that 1-4% of our modern
genetic makeup comes from them.

Paleolithic humans were rock nerds: they
could distinguish between different types

of stones and chose specific types
of flint to make their tools with,

even discarding easier sources
for higher quality ones.

Our growing creativity also had a practical side.

We developed bows and arrows 61,000 years ago,
helping make our hunting even more efficient.

Better technology allowed us to overcome obstacles
that used to be barriers to human expansion.

We used it to build simple rafts, which
we could use to cross the expanses of

water separating islands in Southeast
Asia, which were much smaller than today.

This allowed Homo Sapiens to
make their way into Indonesia,

New Guinea and the Australian continent,
each a new alien world to our ancestors.

While some groups bore the humid heat in Oceania,

others hemmed in by glaciers in Central
Europe pushed back against the cold to

expand into Western Europe and North
Asia, reaching as far as Siberia.

Our travels put us into contact
with more of our hominin cousins.

Encounters with Denisovans
in Asia led to interbreeding

that has left its own specific genetic mark.

Having groups of excellent hunters move into

new territories wasn't good
news for the local wildlife.

A widespread extinction of megafauna
has been blamed on human hunting,

that leaves land mammals
smaller, rarer or extinct.

Populations arrived in New Guinea more than
50,000 years ago, and we have evidence that

they cleared forests using stone axes to
make foraging for nuts and yams easier.

Starting 50,000 years ago, Homo Sapiens
underwent a cultural revolution.

The changes were so significant we distinguish
anatomically modern humans that just looked like

us, from behaviourally modern humans
that thought and acted like us too.

The evidence appears as a rapid expansion of stone age

technology and complex behaviours
that leave, for example, better cave art.

Our hunting styles also became very varied

and well adapted to the new
environments we encountered.

By 45,000 years ago, we became experts
in hunting monkies and squirrels,

then making tools out of their bones.

We find them in large numbers
inside caves in Sri Lanka.

Humans have always loved caves.

We love them so much that we find traces of human

activity inside them across the
whole world, whenever we look.

They're great natural protection
against the dangerous world outside,

whether it's climate or predators.

Cover the entrance, get a fire going and
you've got a ready made home for your family.

The first statue ever is 40,000 years old.

It's the Lion Man, depicting a human figure
with a lion head, found in a cave in Germany.

Homo Sapiens' arrival was so impactful that
other species started adapting to them.

Or, as the clever fox did, followed bands of
humans and picked through their leftovers.

The oldest musical instrument is the Hohle
Fels Flute also discovered in a German cave.

It’s from a vulture's wing bone with five holes,

up to 40,000 years old, and it tells us
what kind of music filled our nights.

Around this time, Homo Sapiens is also
carving the first human figurines.

The oldest we've found is the Hohle Fels Venus,
carved from mammoth ivory in the same region.

As humans progress, Neanderthals decline until

they disappear from the fossil
record around 35,000 years ago.

It wasn't sudden, but whatever happened caused

them to go extinct in the same
territories that humans occupied.

We found the earliest murder victim!

A skull was found with a depressed fracture,

suggesting someone was clubbed
in the head 33,000 years ago.

Humanity's best friends are also very old friends.

The first dogs were basically

identical to wolves except for behaviour
and diet when their domestication started.

The Aurignacian peoples in Europe develop
advanced technology like fine stone blades,

and the oldest human sculptures called
Venus figurines from clay 31,000 years ago.

Better tools means better tailoring.

We upgrade our clothes into multi-layered
form-fitting outfits and add actual shoes,

helping us push further into the remaining
inhospitable regions of the world.

It's harder to trace, but textile
industries also continued to improve.

One of the earliest evidence for linen and fabric

making comes from flax fibers
wound together 30,000 years ago.

Human history is punctuated by catastrophes
but they seem to affect us less and less.

The Oruanui supervolcano erupts
in New Zealand 25,700 years ago,

darkening the entire Southern
hemisphere but we get through it.

Cave bears go extinct around 24,000 years ago.

That's one less super-predator to worry about!

And more caves for our ancestors to take over.

Long before actual farming starts,
Neolithic peoples in the Middle East

understood they could control
what could grow on their lands.

These hunter-gatherer societies practiced
'proto-farming' where they intentionally

gathered plants they liked to eat
like barley and helped them grow.

The Last Glacial Maximum from 20,000 years ago

reduced sea levels by 120 meters and
covered 25% of Earth's land in ice.

But, it also allowed us to spread further
than ever before, including into the Americas.

Today's Bering Strait was
a Bering Bridge back then,

allowing hardy groups to walk across the
difficult passage into a new continent.

Humans managed to quickly descend down
the Americas to the southern tip in

only a few thousand years travelling
fastest down the safer coastlines.

They still had to traverse some
extreme landscapes: titantic jungles,

immense mountains, searing deserts and
breathtaking plateaus, whicle encountering

a number of savage super-predators like
Short-face Bears and Saber Tooth Tigers.

That must have really stretched their
adaptability and survival skills.

Human technology keeps making breakthroughs.

The oldest pottery, which requires
controlled baking of specific clay,

may be 20,000 years old
according to findings in China.

Our bodies adapt to new environments,

leading to blonde hair appearing
in ancient North Eurasian people.

The oldest human remains with
that hair are 17,000 years old.

Not all cultural practices invented back
then were something we want to preserve.

We have direct evidence that
our Homo Sapien ancestors

practiced cannibalism at least 15,800 years ago.

Though it's thought to be only a funerary
rite and not some sort of macabre food source.

We arrive at the year zero of the Human Era.

12,000 years ago people in modern turkey
built Gobekli Tepe, a giant structure,

with a level of collaboration
that heralded modern civilization.

Instead of wandering the world as isolated bands,

we joined forces and settled in larger groups
that shared learnings, beliefs and resources.

Soon we had our first buildings and temples.

Taming animals was our next major innovation,

enabling us to thrive practically
anywhere we could move a herd.

We then secured a food source
by growing crops every year.

Many humans abandoned their
hunter-gatherer lifestyle

to work the fields, clustering
around the most fertile lands.

Dogs and cats joined us in this move.

More food meant more people could live together.

Extra hands helped each other, allowing
others to specialize in different crafts.

From surviving, we began thriving.

The most successful villages grew into cities,
connected by trade and protected by walls.

Important technologies sprang from them, like
bronze, pottery and paper, at ever faster rates.

Even water bent to our will, as we diverted
rivers and dug canals to serve our needs.

The first civilizations in
history rose to control its flow.

Writing down our languages as words
was another massive breakthrough.

It allowed humans to communicate across any

distance and coordinate their efforts to
build things we still marvel at today.

Writing let us lay down the law in stone,

store knowledge over centuries and build
up armies to seal the fate of nations.

Whole civilizations arose from
ancient foundations, expanding then

eroding but often leaving behind innovations
and magnificent works of art or philosophy.

Later generations could build on
them to reach greater heights.

Our modern world is just the culmination of
thousands of years of effort, of generation

after generation building upon the works of
their ancestors to reach greater heights.

Cultures all around the world sought to
improve their lives in their own way.

Everything is moving and changing so fast today.

Let's not forget how we got here.

How many people wandered the same earth
for thousands and thousands of years,

with the same hopes and ambition.

We sit at the tip of a vast history, the human
history, accelerating into an unknown future.

Hopefully it's just the start
of somehing even greater.

This time of year is the perfect moment to
remember that you personally can help advance

this goal, for example by making a donation
to a highly cost-effective organization.

GiveWell has spent 18 years
researching global health and

development and only directs funding to the
highest-impact opportunities they’ve found.

Over 150,000 donors have already trusted GiveWell
to direct more than two and half billion dollars.

Rigorous evidence suggests that these donations

will save over 300,000 lives and
improve the lives of millions more

You can find all of their research and
recommendations on their site for free.

And, thanks to the donors who chose to
sponsor their research, GiveWell doesn’t

take a cut from your tax-deductible
donations to their recommended funds.

If this is your first time using
GiveWell, you can have your donation

matched up to $100 before the end of the
year or as long as matching funds last.

To claim your match, go to givewell.org.

And when you donate, select YouTube and
enter kurzgesagt on the donation form.

Make sure they know that you heard about GiveWell
from kurzgesagt to get your donation matched.