1 00:00:41,020 --> 00:00:43,420 Why are you going that way? 2 00:01:09,340 --> 00:01:16,100 You and I belong to the most widespread and dominant species of animal on Earth. 3 00:01:16,100 --> 00:01:21,380 We live on the ice caps at the pole and the tropical jungles at the Equator. 4 00:01:21,380 --> 00:01:24,740 We've climbed the highest mountain and dived deep into the seas. 5 00:01:24,740 --> 00:01:29,540 We've even left the Earth and set foot on the moon. 6 00:01:29,540 --> 00:01:32,200 And we're certainly the most numerous large animal. 7 00:01:32,200 --> 00:01:36,740 There are something like 4,000 million of us today. 8 00:01:36,740 --> 00:01:41,060 And we've reached this position with meteoric speed. 9 00:01:41,060 --> 00:01:44,900 It's all happened within the last 2,000 years or so. 10 00:01:44,900 --> 00:01:48,260 We seem to have broken loose from the restrictions 11 00:01:48,260 --> 00:01:53,060 that have governed the activities and numbers of other animals. 12 00:01:53,060 --> 00:01:54,780 Why should this be? 13 00:01:54,780 --> 00:01:57,900 Well, the story starts back in Africa. 14 00:02:02,460 --> 00:02:08,220 Ten million years ago, much of East and Central Africa was covered by wide open plains, 15 00:02:08,220 --> 00:02:12,820 just as it is today, and living there were herds of grazing animals. 16 00:02:15,540 --> 00:02:19,500 The ancestors of the antelope originally lived in the forest. 17 00:02:19,500 --> 00:02:23,820 Other kinds of animals from there also ventured out into the open 18 00:02:23,820 --> 00:02:25,740 in search of food. 19 00:02:25,740 --> 00:02:28,900 Apes had come down from the trees. 20 00:02:31,180 --> 00:02:33,580 Like the vervet monkeys of today, 21 00:02:33,580 --> 00:02:38,700 those ancient apes probably stayed close to the fringes of the forest at first, 22 00:02:38,700 --> 00:02:44,420 but regularly wandered out into the open to collect insects, seeds and other morsels. 23 00:02:46,860 --> 00:02:51,260 The earliest of these ground-living apes were not much bigger than vervets, 24 00:02:51,260 --> 00:02:57,020 but slowly, as they colonised the grasslands, they became better adapted to life in the open 25 00:02:57,020 --> 00:02:59,380 and they grew somewhat in size. 26 00:03:00,300 --> 00:03:05,580 About three million years ago, there were several species of them on the African plains, 27 00:03:05,580 --> 00:03:08,940 and this is the reconstructed skull of one of them. 28 00:03:08,940 --> 00:03:12,300 It has several characters which are an inheritance 29 00:03:12,300 --> 00:03:15,660 from the tree-living, ape-like ancestors of this creature. 30 00:03:15,660 --> 00:03:19,860 We can guess that its sense of smell, for example, wasn't very good. 31 00:03:19,860 --> 00:03:22,260 The nasal cleft is quite small. 32 00:03:22,260 --> 00:03:28,020 On the other hand, its vision was very good. It had two large, forward-facing eyes. 33 00:03:28,980 --> 00:03:35,220 Its brain, while quite large, is only about half the size of that of modern man. 34 00:03:35,220 --> 00:03:39,060 Although the teeth are missing in this specimen, 35 00:03:39,060 --> 00:03:42,900 we know from others that they were remarkably even 36 00:03:42,900 --> 00:03:48,660 and lacked the two long downward-pointing fangs which are sometimes present 37 00:03:48,660 --> 00:03:50,740 and which lock the lower jaw in position. 38 00:03:50,740 --> 00:03:56,500 So we can guess this animal could move its lower jaw from side to side 39 00:03:56,500 --> 00:04:02,180 and was able to chew roots and nuts as well as eating flesh and maybe fruit. 40 00:04:04,660 --> 00:04:07,060 Their fossilised bones are very rare. 41 00:04:07,060 --> 00:04:12,340 We still don't know how many kinds there were or how they were related. 42 00:04:12,340 --> 00:04:16,180 But on one thing, all who've studied their remains are agreed. 43 00:04:16,180 --> 00:04:20,980 Those ancient apes included the ancestors of mankind. 44 00:04:20,980 --> 00:04:24,820 They can be called, in fact, apemen. 45 00:04:24,820 --> 00:04:29,420 And grasslands like these must have been the cradle of humanity. 46 00:04:35,380 --> 00:04:41,620 Out on the grasslands, the talents the apemen's ancestors developed to cope with life in the trees 47 00:04:41,620 --> 00:04:43,540 were put to other purposes. 48 00:04:43,540 --> 00:04:46,420 Hands, once used for gripping branches, 49 00:04:46,420 --> 00:04:49,740 were not much use for burrowing or tearing flesh. 50 00:04:49,740 --> 00:04:54,060 But as time passed, they became more precise and dexterous in their grip 51 00:04:54,060 --> 00:04:58,100 than any other primate's, and very like our own. 52 00:04:58,100 --> 00:05:02,420 And these enabled the apemen to pluck not only leaves and fruit 53 00:05:02,420 --> 00:05:07,700 but also to gather relatively fiddly morsels - nuts, seeds and insects. 54 00:05:14,780 --> 00:05:19,220 The apemen were still quite small and largely defenceless. 55 00:05:19,220 --> 00:05:22,100 This was a serious handicap, 56 00:05:22,100 --> 00:05:24,980 for life on the open plain was dangerous. 57 00:05:24,980 --> 00:05:28,340 As well as the harmless herds, there were hunters around. 58 00:05:28,340 --> 00:05:30,700 - LION GROWLS 59 00:05:44,340 --> 00:05:47,220 - The only way of escaping such enemies 60 00:05:47,220 --> 00:05:51,060 was either to run fast, which the apemen weren't very good at, 61 00:05:51,060 --> 00:05:54,420 or to climb a tree, of which there were not many. 62 00:05:54,420 --> 00:06:01,620 So it obviously was of the greatest importance to get the earliest possible warning of danger. 63 00:06:01,620 --> 00:06:06,420 Their ancestors' life in the trees led to a reduction in their sense of smell 64 00:06:06,420 --> 00:06:08,820 but extremely good vision. 65 00:06:08,820 --> 00:06:14,500 So the apemen must have reared up to get a good view of their surroundings. 66 00:06:18,100 --> 00:06:23,500 And the vervets, faced with a similar problem, adopt just the same solution. 67 00:06:34,100 --> 00:06:38,860 It's unlikely the apemen stood erect as a way of increasing speed, 68 00:06:38,860 --> 00:06:42,700 for running on four feet is a much swifter way of getting around. 69 00:06:42,700 --> 00:06:45,900 A vervet can outpace any two-legged primate. 70 00:06:48,420 --> 00:06:52,940 But if you habitually rear on your hind legs, you can use hands for other things, 71 00:06:52,940 --> 00:06:56,780 and one modern ape, the chimpanzee, does just that. 72 00:07:02,500 --> 00:07:07,660 Chimps are the only animals that defend themselves with weapons like this. 73 00:07:09,380 --> 00:07:11,020 - ANGRY CHATTERING 74 00:07:33,100 --> 00:07:38,380 - There's every reason to suppose those early apemen could throw sticks and stones 75 00:07:38,380 --> 00:07:40,300 just as modern chimps can. 76 00:07:40,300 --> 00:07:44,620 Indeed, they would be in need of every form of defence they could get 77 00:07:44,620 --> 00:07:49,420 because their teeth were small and they had no claws. 78 00:07:49,420 --> 00:07:52,780 So, if threatened by a predator, they would pick up a stick 79 00:07:52,780 --> 00:07:57,580 to try and defend themselves out on these African plains, as indeed I would. 80 00:07:57,580 --> 00:08:00,460 And, what's more, with this in their hands, 81 00:08:00,460 --> 00:08:04,780 they would stand some chance of driving off a predator from its kill 82 00:08:04,780 --> 00:08:07,780 in order to claim the meat for themselves. 83 00:08:12,980 --> 00:08:16,300 And eating meat has a lot to be said for it. 84 00:08:16,300 --> 00:08:20,900 Getting all your sustenance from leaves is laborious and time-consuming. 85 00:08:20,900 --> 00:08:25,780 They have comparatively little nourishment in proportion to their bulk. 86 00:08:25,780 --> 00:08:30,220 So zebras are compelled to spend nearly half of their days grazing 87 00:08:30,220 --> 00:08:33,140 in order to get all the food that they require. 88 00:08:34,820 --> 00:08:38,980 The flesh-eaters, on the other hand, have a much lazier life. 89 00:08:47,340 --> 00:08:52,140 Meat is so nourishing that lions only need to eat every two days or so, 90 00:08:52,140 --> 00:08:55,020 and then only for about half an hour. 91 00:08:55,020 --> 00:08:58,340 Doubtless, leisure had its appeal to the apemen too. 92 00:08:58,340 --> 00:09:02,180 Whereas lions simply sleep, maybe the inquisitive apemen 93 00:09:02,180 --> 00:09:06,540 used their spare time to socialise, to play, to create. 94 00:09:07,620 --> 00:09:12,100 A kill on the plains, no matter who makes it, attracts all kinds of flesh-eaters. 95 00:09:14,020 --> 00:09:20,180 A whole pride of lions may find more than they need in a single zebra carcass. 96 00:09:42,860 --> 00:09:46,100 One way or another, everything is consumed, 97 00:09:46,100 --> 00:09:48,260 even the tail. 98 00:09:55,780 --> 00:09:59,620 And when the biggest and most powerful have taken all they want, 99 00:09:59,620 --> 00:10:02,940 there are plenty of scavengers to clear up the remains. 100 00:10:20,020 --> 00:10:25,780 Well, I only had vultures to deal with that time, and I didn't even need a stick. 101 00:10:25,780 --> 00:10:30,580 If there'd been hyenas, I guess I would have needed it, but I could have got rid of them. 102 00:10:30,580 --> 00:10:36,180 And maybe if I'd had a few companions, I could have shifted a pride of lions. 103 00:10:37,300 --> 00:10:43,060 But having got here, how could an apeman with small teeth 104 00:10:43,060 --> 00:10:45,460 manage to get into a carcass like this? 105 00:10:45,460 --> 00:10:49,300 Well, he could take a stone and... 106 00:10:54,940 --> 00:10:59,740 And it's already cutting, and this is really a quite ordinary stone, 107 00:10:59,740 --> 00:11:06,460 but one that has just been chipped here on either side to produce a cutting edge. 108 00:11:06,460 --> 00:11:11,740 And just such stones have been found with the skeletons of the earliest apemen 109 00:11:11,740 --> 00:11:14,300 of about two million years ago. 110 00:11:14,300 --> 00:11:21,020 So, with a chipped stone, a stick and a pair of manipulative hands, 111 00:11:21,020 --> 00:11:25,020 the apemen could have survived out on the plains as hunters. 112 00:11:25,020 --> 00:11:28,860 This state of affairs lasted for several million years. 113 00:11:28,860 --> 00:11:31,740 Slowly, the apeman became better at walking. 114 00:11:31,740 --> 00:11:35,100 His legs lengthened to increase his stride, 115 00:11:35,100 --> 00:11:38,940 and he grew to a height of about five and a half feet. 116 00:11:38,940 --> 00:11:42,780 To mark his new stance, science has given him a new name. 117 00:11:42,780 --> 00:11:46,340 Homo erectus - "upright man". 118 00:11:46,340 --> 00:11:50,100 The foot acquired an arch to give a spring to his stride, 119 00:11:50,100 --> 00:11:53,780 and his first toe grew to take the thrust of the foot. 120 00:11:54,900 --> 00:11:58,500 The name "man" here has no sexist implications. 121 00:11:58,500 --> 00:12:03,780 It's the scientific name for the genus to which these women, children and men belonged. 122 00:12:03,780 --> 00:12:07,900 And a million years ago, they spread widely over the African plain. 123 00:12:09,060 --> 00:12:11,460 Their fossilised remains are very rare, 124 00:12:11,460 --> 00:12:15,300 for bodies lying out in the open are eaten by scavengers 125 00:12:15,300 --> 00:12:17,700 and bones weather into dust. 126 00:12:17,700 --> 00:12:23,460 But stone is much more durable, and in some places, the tools made by upright man 127 00:12:23,460 --> 00:12:25,860 still litter the ground in huge numbers. 128 00:12:25,860 --> 00:12:32,220 From them, we can see he was using his dexterous hands with increasing skill. 129 00:12:32,220 --> 00:12:38,460 Almost every one of these stones, which have washed out from that bank over there, 130 00:12:38,460 --> 00:12:41,820 have been worked by man in one way or another. 131 00:12:41,820 --> 00:12:47,100 Some of them are far more elaborate than anything produced by the apemen. 132 00:12:47,100 --> 00:12:49,980 Like this one, for example. Beautifully chipped. 133 00:12:49,980 --> 00:12:56,220 This was probably a hand axe, used for digging up roots. 134 00:12:56,220 --> 00:13:01,980 And then there are cleavers like this with a flat cutting edge. 135 00:13:01,980 --> 00:13:08,700 They may have been used in butchering animals, cutting flesh and stripping skin. 136 00:13:08,700 --> 00:13:11,460 These aren't the only tools. 137 00:13:14,420 --> 00:13:20,660 This rounded stone has not been rounded by a stream, which would produce smooth surfaces, 138 00:13:20,660 --> 00:13:22,580 but carefully chipped, 139 00:13:22,580 --> 00:13:28,820 and it's probable that these rounded stones, of which huge numbers have been found here, 140 00:13:28,820 --> 00:13:33,620 were used either for pounding vegetables of some kind 141 00:13:33,620 --> 00:13:35,540 or as weapons. 142 00:13:35,540 --> 00:13:38,900 And the reason we suppose they were used as weapons 143 00:13:38,900 --> 00:13:44,660 is because also on this site have been found great numbers of animal bones. 144 00:13:44,660 --> 00:13:51,380 This and most of the bones found on this site belonged to an extinct baboon 145 00:13:51,380 --> 00:13:54,740 that was even bigger than the living baboon. 146 00:13:54,740 --> 00:14:00,980 Most of these bones, like this fragment from the lower jaw, there are the teeth, 147 00:14:00,980 --> 00:14:05,900 have actually been split open in order to get out the marrow. 148 00:14:09,180 --> 00:14:14,180 This remarkable site provides a lot of evidence about the nature of upright man. 149 00:14:14,180 --> 00:14:20,420 The stone from which tools are made, and there's around a ton of them, 150 00:14:20,420 --> 00:14:23,780 doesn't occur naturally within 30km of here. 151 00:14:23,780 --> 00:14:28,820 So all these stones must have been brought here deliberately by the people, 152 00:14:28,820 --> 00:14:32,180 and that suggests foresight and planning. 153 00:14:32,180 --> 00:14:36,500 For another thing, the baboon they hunted must have been a ferocious animal. 154 00:14:36,500 --> 00:14:41,780 I don't imagine there are many men who would fancy the idea of going out 155 00:14:41,780 --> 00:14:46,580 and trying to hunt a baboon armed with a few cobblestones. 156 00:14:46,580 --> 00:14:51,380 And yet the extinct baboon was even bigger and presumably more ferocious. 157 00:14:51,380 --> 00:14:56,660 So it seems likely that the early people hunted in teams. 158 00:14:56,660 --> 00:15:00,020 Teamwork, foresight, planning. 159 00:15:00,020 --> 00:15:05,660 That argues that they had some considerable skill in communicating among themselves. 160 00:15:05,660 --> 00:15:08,260 - SHOUTING 161 00:15:32,660 --> 00:15:37,180 - Letting others know how you feel is a basic part of communication. 162 00:15:38,420 --> 00:15:41,780 No creature in the world does so more eloquently than man, 163 00:15:41,780 --> 00:15:45,660 and no organ is more visually expressive than his face. 164 00:16:07,860 --> 00:16:13,620 Even in repose, the human face sends a message, and one we tend to take for granted. 165 00:16:13,620 --> 00:16:17,460 Each face proclaims individual identity. 166 00:16:17,460 --> 00:16:21,780 In teams, recognition of other members is of great importance. 167 00:16:21,780 --> 00:16:26,580 A hunting dog in a pack proclaims its identity by its own smell. 168 00:16:26,580 --> 00:16:30,900 Primates, with their reduced sense of smell but very acute vision, 169 00:16:30,900 --> 00:16:34,500 do it by the infinite variety of their faces. 170 00:16:37,540 --> 00:16:41,620 We have more separate muscles in our faces than any other animal. 171 00:16:41,620 --> 00:16:45,300 So we can move it in a variety of ways no other animal can equal. 172 00:16:45,300 --> 00:16:49,260 And not only convey mood but send precise signals. 173 00:16:49,260 --> 00:16:54,020 By the expression on our face, we can call people and send them away, 174 00:16:54,020 --> 00:16:57,620 ask questions and return answers without a word being spoken. 175 00:17:06,820 --> 00:17:09,900 Eyebrows are particularly eloquent. 176 00:17:09,900 --> 00:17:12,780 We can use them as question marks and as greetings. 177 00:17:14,100 --> 00:17:19,180 But are our gestures recent conventions we've learned from one another? 178 00:17:19,180 --> 00:17:23,180 Or are some inherited from our remote ancestors? 179 00:17:23,180 --> 00:17:28,180 Did upright man formulate his hunting plans by pointing and nodding 180 00:17:28,180 --> 00:17:31,060 and express his delight with a smile? 181 00:17:31,060 --> 00:17:35,380 If we could meet modern men who have never been in contact with our world 182 00:17:35,380 --> 00:17:38,260 and discover whether we had signals in common, 183 00:17:38,260 --> 00:17:40,660 then we might find clues to the answer. 184 00:17:40,660 --> 00:17:44,580 Ten years ago, I had the chance to do just that. 185 00:17:44,580 --> 00:17:47,940 A patrol led by an Australian government officer 186 00:17:47,940 --> 00:17:52,260 was going to cross one of the last patches of unexplored country in central New Guinea. 187 00:17:52,260 --> 00:17:54,540 And I went with it. 188 00:17:57,580 --> 00:18:02,460 The tribesmen who came with us said there were people living in these forests. 189 00:18:02,460 --> 00:18:06,820 They saw them rarely and knew only one word of their language, their name. 190 00:18:06,820 --> 00:18:08,660 Biame. 191 00:18:08,660 --> 00:18:11,060 But no European had ever seen them. 192 00:18:11,060 --> 00:18:12,700 Biame! 193 00:18:13,660 --> 00:18:18,180 We walked for about a week without meeting anyone, and then one morning 194 00:18:18,180 --> 00:18:20,820 the Biame quietly appeared. 195 00:18:32,580 --> 00:18:34,020 Biame! 196 00:18:38,820 --> 00:18:43,940 With gestures, they seemed to be saying we were in the middle of their territory. 197 00:18:51,220 --> 00:18:55,260 They nodded in agreement, they smiled to give reassurance. 198 00:19:35,100 --> 00:19:38,540 We wanted them to bring down other members of their group 199 00:19:38,540 --> 00:19:43,660 and tried to convey this complicated message with gestures. 200 00:20:11,140 --> 00:20:15,940 Although our two societies had never come into contact before this moment, 201 00:20:15,940 --> 00:20:19,660 it seemed that many of our gestures did have the same meaning. 202 00:20:19,660 --> 00:20:23,500 These nods and smiles, frowns and headshakes 203 00:20:23,500 --> 00:20:28,060 were surely not mere conventions but deep in us. 204 00:20:28,060 --> 00:20:33,100 It seemed they used the same name for their rivers as the tribesmen who were with us. 205 00:20:33,100 --> 00:20:36,100 Their leader counted them for us. 206 00:20:36,100 --> 00:20:38,900 To do that, he used a quite different gesture, 207 00:20:38,900 --> 00:20:44,620 not a deep-seated one like a nod or a smile, but a conventional one, that has been learned, 208 00:20:44,620 --> 00:20:48,460 and here, our cultural backgrounds divided us. 209 00:20:48,460 --> 00:20:52,380 He used the fingers of one hand for numbers up to five. 210 00:21:00,460 --> 00:21:04,300 Above five, the Biame clearly have their own individual code. 211 00:21:05,660 --> 00:21:08,540 It's easy to follow it in sequence like this, 212 00:21:08,540 --> 00:21:13,340 but the Biame also use these gestures individually, in bargaining, for example. 213 00:21:13,340 --> 00:21:17,540 And then how would we know this gesture meant "eight"? 214 00:21:20,540 --> 00:21:22,660 This one "nine"? 215 00:21:30,580 --> 00:21:34,420 But before he got to 11 he used two of those facial expressions 216 00:21:34,420 --> 00:21:37,780 that were immediately understandable to us. 217 00:21:37,780 --> 00:21:40,660 Bafflement, because we got the names wrong, 218 00:21:40,660 --> 00:21:43,260 and amusement at our stupidity. 219 00:21:48,780 --> 00:21:51,340 Although we belonged to such different societies 220 00:21:51,340 --> 00:21:54,860 and the only words we had in common were some names, 221 00:21:54,860 --> 00:22:01,100 we had exchanged complicated messages using gestures inherited from our common past. 222 00:22:01,100 --> 00:22:05,420 Gestures that may well have been used before the emergence of our own species 223 00:22:05,420 --> 00:22:08,900 by our distant ancestors, upright man. 224 00:22:10,700 --> 00:22:13,580 For a long time, upright man lived only in Africa, 225 00:22:13,580 --> 00:22:16,940 as far as we can tell from evidence found so far. 226 00:22:16,940 --> 00:22:22,220 But slowly his numbers increased and he began to extend his territories. 227 00:22:22,220 --> 00:22:26,140 About a million years ago, he moved north into the Nile valley 228 00:22:26,140 --> 00:22:28,060 and up into the Middle East. 229 00:22:28,060 --> 00:22:31,900 His bones have been found in Asia dating from about the same time 230 00:22:31,900 --> 00:22:34,300 in a hill near Peking. 231 00:22:34,300 --> 00:22:38,140 Others have been dug up farther south, in Java. 232 00:22:38,140 --> 00:22:42,940 And about 800,000 years ago, judging from fossil remains, 233 00:22:42,940 --> 00:22:45,860 upright man was in Europe in some numbers. 234 00:22:49,180 --> 00:22:51,580 Now the climate of Europe changed. 235 00:22:51,580 --> 00:22:55,900 It got so cold, the ice caps on the mountains and in the north expanded, 236 00:22:55,900 --> 00:22:59,260 locking up so much water that the sea level dropped, 237 00:22:59,260 --> 00:23:02,620 exposing bridges of land across the Mediterranean 238 00:23:02,620 --> 00:23:05,980 and making it easier for man to spread. 239 00:23:05,980 --> 00:23:08,180 Then the weather warmed again. 240 00:23:08,180 --> 00:23:10,580 Four times this happened. 241 00:23:10,580 --> 00:23:15,380 The ice, even at its worst, never got as far as these valleys in central France 242 00:23:15,380 --> 00:23:20,180 but at the peak of a glaciation, this land, now so verdant and fruitful, 243 00:23:20,180 --> 00:23:22,980 must have been bitterly cold. 244 00:23:25,460 --> 00:23:28,820 And in response to that changing climate, 245 00:23:28,820 --> 00:23:33,140 men took to caves like this one. 246 00:23:33,140 --> 00:23:36,980 There are literally hundreds of caves along this valley, 247 00:23:36,980 --> 00:23:41,300 and there's scarcely one that doesn't have some sign of habitation. 248 00:23:41,300 --> 00:23:46,100 Because of lots of excavations in them, we now have a clear picture 249 00:23:46,100 --> 00:23:48,460 of the sort of lives these people led. 250 00:23:49,500 --> 00:23:53,340 They wore clothes made out of skins 251 00:23:53,340 --> 00:23:57,620 which they sewed with bone needles like these. 252 00:23:57,620 --> 00:24:01,940 They went down and fished in the river with bone harpoons 253 00:24:01,940 --> 00:24:06,620 and they hunted with spears and harpoons in the woods. 254 00:24:10,820 --> 00:24:13,700 Their skill in working stone reached new heights 255 00:24:13,700 --> 00:24:18,020 and they had a marvellous material to work on - flint. 256 00:24:18,020 --> 00:24:20,660 Instead of making three or four blows, 257 00:24:20,660 --> 00:24:26,140 some 400 to 500 precise actions were required to get the best out of a piece of flint. 258 00:24:26,140 --> 00:24:29,220 It must have taken a lot of learning. 259 00:24:40,660 --> 00:24:44,300 To chip an edge accurately, it has to be made even. 260 00:24:53,700 --> 00:24:57,060 A razor-sharp knife made in about ten minutes. 261 00:24:57,060 --> 00:24:59,940 And a deadly weapon in the hands of these people. 262 00:24:59,940 --> 00:25:02,820 They were brave and skilful hunters, 263 00:25:02,820 --> 00:25:06,340 and we know from blackened stones that they had control of fire, 264 00:25:06,340 --> 00:25:12,580 which must have been a precious possession, not just to keep warm but to cook their meat. 265 00:25:12,580 --> 00:25:16,700 This is the skull of a man 266 00:25:16,700 --> 00:25:19,580 that was excavated from just near here. 267 00:25:19,580 --> 00:25:24,380 You can see his teeth for chewing that meat are now relatively small, 268 00:25:24,380 --> 00:25:27,260 so cooking was a very valuable technique. 269 00:25:27,260 --> 00:25:31,660 But it's not just the teeth that have changed. So has the cranium. 270 00:25:31,660 --> 00:25:35,500 The parts of the brain that control speech are fully developed, 271 00:25:35,500 --> 00:25:40,780 so this man had probably a fluent and complex language. 272 00:25:40,780 --> 00:25:44,620 In fact, there are virtually no significant differences 273 00:25:44,620 --> 00:25:48,940 between this man's skeleton and skull and mine. 274 00:25:48,940 --> 00:25:54,700 So anthropologists have called him, somewhat immodestly, Homo sapiens. 275 00:25:54,700 --> 00:25:57,740 "Wise man". 276 00:25:59,740 --> 00:26:02,620 The huge difference that separates this man 277 00:26:02,620 --> 00:26:05,980 leaving such a cave as this and going down to fish in the river 278 00:26:05,980 --> 00:26:12,700 and a smartly-dressed executive in Tokyo or London or New York stepping into his car 279 00:26:12,700 --> 00:26:17,500 and driving off to his office to consult the latest computer printout 280 00:26:17,500 --> 00:26:21,340 is not due to any change in the brain or the anatomy. 281 00:26:21,340 --> 00:26:26,620 It's due to the emergence of a completely new evolutionary factor. 282 00:26:26,620 --> 00:26:32,620 And the first dazzling signs of it are miraculously preserved right here. 283 00:26:43,020 --> 00:26:48,780 From the back of many of these caves, tunnels lead down into the depths of the earth. 284 00:26:48,780 --> 00:26:50,700 And into this blackness, 285 00:26:50,700 --> 00:26:56,180 finding their way by lamps with a rush for a wick and animal fat for fuel, went early man. 286 00:27:16,900 --> 00:27:21,220 They made these long and, surely for them, most important journeys 287 00:27:21,220 --> 00:27:25,060 in order to do this, to paint. 288 00:27:25,060 --> 00:27:28,420 This for me is one of the most moving of their paintings. 289 00:27:28,420 --> 00:27:34,660 It represents a stylised horse, here its small black head with a long black mane. 290 00:27:34,660 --> 00:27:39,460 And these spots on it, which appear to be dapples, probably have some other meaning 291 00:27:39,460 --> 00:27:43,300 because they extend beyond the outline of the horse. 292 00:27:43,300 --> 00:27:47,140 And here, perhaps most intimate and vivid of all, 293 00:27:47,140 --> 00:27:50,020 a hand-print of one of those people. 294 00:27:50,020 --> 00:27:53,380 Made probably by taking a mouthful of black paint 295 00:27:53,380 --> 00:27:57,340 and blowing it over the hand like a stencil. 296 00:28:01,940 --> 00:28:04,820 These early people were superlative artists 297 00:28:04,820 --> 00:28:09,620 and drew the animals of their world with great sensitivity and such accuracy 298 00:28:09,620 --> 00:28:14,260 that often we can identify the species they had in mind. 299 00:28:14,260 --> 00:28:20,420 These are bison, no longer to be found in France but still surviving farther east. 300 00:28:20,420 --> 00:28:25,140 Aurochs, a kind of giant cattle now totally extinct. 301 00:28:29,860 --> 00:28:32,580 This gallery contains a procession of animals, 302 00:28:32,580 --> 00:28:36,340 among them mammoths, shaggy with long hair. 303 00:29:05,940 --> 00:29:10,260 The oldest of these paintings is thought to be about 30,000 years old. 304 00:29:10,260 --> 00:29:13,140 The youngest maybe 10,000. 305 00:29:13,140 --> 00:29:15,060 That's an immense span of time. 306 00:29:15,060 --> 00:29:19,500 Five times the length of the entire history of western civilisation. 307 00:29:20,620 --> 00:29:24,460 So it's unreasonable to suppose they all, throughout this time, 308 00:29:24,460 --> 00:29:27,340 served exactly the same purpose. 309 00:29:27,340 --> 00:29:31,780 Some, however, may well have been connected with a hunting magic. 310 00:29:31,780 --> 00:29:37,100 By painting images of animals they sought, the hunters tried to control them. 311 00:29:37,100 --> 00:29:41,820 Certainly, most of the images represent animals that were hunted for food. 312 00:29:44,020 --> 00:29:48,940 It's tempting to interpret these signs as arrows or spears. 313 00:29:48,940 --> 00:29:55,660 Perhaps they were drawn during a ritual when the men mimed the hunt they prayed for. 314 00:29:59,780 --> 00:30:05,060 And among these sensitive and accurate drawings of animals, 315 00:30:05,060 --> 00:30:07,940 there are much more mysterious designs. 316 00:30:07,940 --> 00:30:12,420 This has been interpreted as a human figure, perhaps even a sacrifice 317 00:30:12,420 --> 00:30:16,220 with spears in its flanks. 318 00:30:16,220 --> 00:30:20,060 As well as these, and this is significant for what is to come, 319 00:30:20,060 --> 00:30:24,620 there are geometrical symbols like these paired dots. 320 00:30:29,580 --> 00:30:33,940 There are other odd shapes that occur again and again. 321 00:30:40,140 --> 00:30:43,980 What these abstract symbols signify we have no idea, 322 00:30:43,980 --> 00:30:48,300 but the fact they occur at all is significant for what is to come, 323 00:30:48,300 --> 00:30:51,500 even though we don't know exactly what they mean. 324 00:30:54,540 --> 00:30:57,420 In one place in the world, however, 325 00:30:57,420 --> 00:31:03,180 we can discover why a nomadic hunting people paint on rock in caves 326 00:31:03,180 --> 00:31:08,140 because here, in northern Australia, the aborigines still do so. 327 00:31:09,300 --> 00:31:12,660 They too portray the animals they hunt for food. 328 00:31:12,660 --> 00:31:16,540 Some are drawn as part of rituals to maintain the animals' fertility. 329 00:31:16,540 --> 00:31:21,820 Others are made during ceremonies where people recount stories of their creation. 330 00:31:21,820 --> 00:31:25,500 For this cave is a sacred place for them. 331 00:31:25,500 --> 00:31:32,660 On the back of it, they've painted the image of one of their great creator spirits. 332 00:31:32,660 --> 00:31:38,180 It lies on its side, its head to the left, its legs stretching out to the right. 333 00:31:41,980 --> 00:31:45,820 And aborigines also draw abstract symbols. 334 00:31:45,820 --> 00:31:49,340 These lines and dots are not aimless doodles. 335 00:31:49,340 --> 00:31:51,260 They represent particular things. 336 00:31:51,260 --> 00:31:57,700 Homo sapiens, "wise man", has made a huge step forward in his ability to communicate. 337 00:31:57,700 --> 00:32:01,820 He's discovered how to represent objects not by their likeness 338 00:32:01,820 --> 00:32:04,060 but by symbols. 339 00:32:07,940 --> 00:32:12,260 In this great frieze, the educated eye of a man of the tribe 340 00:32:12,260 --> 00:32:14,020 can read a sacred legend 341 00:32:14,020 --> 00:32:18,820 telling how the great creator spirit moved across the land in the beginning of time 342 00:32:18,820 --> 00:32:23,660 and showed men how to make spears and go hunting. 343 00:32:28,300 --> 00:32:31,660 The ability to distinguish the edible from the poisonous, 344 00:32:31,660 --> 00:32:36,820 to track and kill animals, to discover food in all but the most sterile of lands, 345 00:32:36,820 --> 00:32:40,180 enabled "wise man" to spread throughout the world. 346 00:32:40,180 --> 00:32:45,620 Many groups of people today still live entirely by these ancient skills. 347 00:32:47,300 --> 00:32:53,060 The aborigines, by understanding their land with an intimacy that baffles outsiders, 348 00:32:53,060 --> 00:32:58,660 can survive in desert country where strangers would die of starvation in days. 349 00:33:03,700 --> 00:33:07,540 In the Kalahari desert, the bushmen too live in a similar way, 350 00:33:07,540 --> 00:33:10,340 with the help of similar skills. 351 00:33:25,980 --> 00:33:28,540 They are the most expert of hunters. 352 00:33:28,540 --> 00:33:31,900 They know how to prepare poison to tip their arrows 353 00:33:31,900 --> 00:33:35,660 and with them bring down big game, like a giraffe, 354 00:33:35,660 --> 00:33:40,620 though the hunt may take many days and demand the greatest bravery and endurance. 355 00:33:51,020 --> 00:33:54,620 Bushman women can recognise the characters of a leaf 356 00:33:54,620 --> 00:33:58,260 that tells the knowledegable that this spindly stem 357 00:33:58,260 --> 00:34:03,900 leads to a tuber in the ground that is loaded with water in the most severe of droughts. 358 00:34:08,260 --> 00:34:13,020 As "wise man" spread through the world, so his body responded to his surroundings. 359 00:34:13,020 --> 00:34:16,620 The rays of the sun in excess can be harmful 360 00:34:16,620 --> 00:34:21,660 and many dwellers in the tropics acquired black pigment in their skins 361 00:34:21,660 --> 00:34:23,860 which protected them from it. 362 00:34:28,980 --> 00:34:31,540 But too little sunshine can also be bad for you. 363 00:34:31,540 --> 00:34:34,380 The body needs it for vitamins, 364 00:34:34,380 --> 00:34:40,380 so in northern lands, in Lapland, for instance, races possess fair skins. 365 00:34:43,380 --> 00:34:48,020 In Asia, there developed a race with olive skins and slanting eyes. 366 00:34:48,020 --> 00:34:52,620 Some of them migrated across the Bering Strait into the New World 367 00:34:52,620 --> 00:34:56,900 and down to the rainforests of South America, where they still live. 368 00:35:10,100 --> 00:35:14,340 They too are skilled hunters, and some still find all they need 369 00:35:14,340 --> 00:35:17,260 from the wild animals and plants of their forests. 370 00:35:26,540 --> 00:35:31,980 This was the way all human beings in the world existed until comparatively recently. 371 00:35:31,980 --> 00:35:34,380 Nowhere were they numerous. 372 00:35:34,380 --> 00:35:36,820 Their expectation of life was short. 373 00:35:36,820 --> 00:35:39,500 Their birth rate and the survival of their children 374 00:35:39,500 --> 00:35:43,900 kept in check by the scarcity of food and the hazards of their lives. 375 00:35:49,100 --> 00:35:54,660 But then came a revolution, one that was to start that explosion of man's population. 376 00:35:54,660 --> 00:35:58,500 And the trigger was this. 377 00:35:58,500 --> 00:36:02,340 A wild form of wheat or barley 378 00:36:02,340 --> 00:36:07,060 that grew then as now on the fertile deltas of the Middle East. 379 00:36:07,060 --> 00:36:13,100 It's got a lot of seeds, easily separated from the husks and full of nourishment. 380 00:36:13,100 --> 00:36:16,500 About 10,000 years ago, man realised 381 00:36:16,500 --> 00:36:20,820 he no longer need go searching for the wild plant. 382 00:36:20,820 --> 00:36:23,460 He could take these seeds and plant them. 383 00:36:23,460 --> 00:36:28,740 And then he would no longer be compelled to follow the wandering life. 384 00:36:28,740 --> 00:36:30,700 He could settle down. 385 00:36:39,380 --> 00:36:44,180 Some animals too could be domesticated and kept permanently around his settlements, 386 00:36:44,180 --> 00:36:46,380 to be slaughtered when he wanted meat. 387 00:36:52,380 --> 00:36:57,660 So human beings were able to build permanent homes in groups close by one another. 388 00:36:57,660 --> 00:37:00,540 And around the eastern end of the Mediterranean, 389 00:37:00,540 --> 00:37:04,380 in the Middle East and India, small villages appeared. 390 00:37:04,380 --> 00:37:06,500 The villages grew into towns, 391 00:37:06,500 --> 00:37:11,780 and by 5,000 years ago, there were great cities like this one, Uruk, 392 00:37:11,780 --> 00:37:15,140 whose ruins have been excavated from the sands of Iraq. 393 00:37:15,140 --> 00:37:19,740 It held several thousand people. Its citizens built walls around it for protection, 394 00:37:19,740 --> 00:37:24,060 ordered their streets, dug canals to protect from floods. 395 00:37:24,060 --> 00:37:29,340 And in the centre of their city, they built their temple, the ziggurat, 396 00:37:29,340 --> 00:37:32,700 an artificial mountain made out of brick, 397 00:37:32,700 --> 00:37:35,740 bonded together with layers of reeds. 398 00:37:35,740 --> 00:37:41,500 Clearly, to build such a carefully designed monument as this on such a scale, 399 00:37:41,500 --> 00:37:45,340 the people had to have real organisation. 400 00:37:45,340 --> 00:37:48,700 And they must have led complicated lives too, 401 00:37:48,700 --> 00:37:51,580 for not only were they skilled architects, but they were farmers, 402 00:37:51,580 --> 00:37:54,940 they made pottery, fragments of it are all over this site, 403 00:37:54,940 --> 00:37:58,780 they were traders and they probably also paid taxes. 404 00:37:58,780 --> 00:38:01,180 At all events, they found it necessary 405 00:38:01,180 --> 00:38:05,020 to have some way of recording their affairs and transactions, 406 00:38:05,020 --> 00:38:08,580 because in this very site has been found this. 407 00:38:08,580 --> 00:38:11,460 The earliest known piece of writing. 408 00:38:15,300 --> 00:38:19,380 It's thought to be some sort of tally recording the issue of rations 409 00:38:19,380 --> 00:38:22,060 over a five-day period. 410 00:38:26,980 --> 00:38:31,740 Each column represents one day, and, incidentally, reads vertically. 411 00:38:36,540 --> 00:38:40,020 The symbols are a mixture of pictorial representations 412 00:38:40,020 --> 00:38:42,380 and abstract designs. 413 00:38:43,540 --> 00:38:48,900 This triangular one is purely abstract and is believed to mean "bread". 414 00:38:48,900 --> 00:38:52,740 Whereas this sign looks like and may mean a wheatsheaf. 415 00:38:52,740 --> 00:38:58,060 The different-shaped dots in front refer to the quantities of each commodity. 416 00:38:58,060 --> 00:39:02,100 This tablet was baked over 5,000 years ago. 417 00:39:02,100 --> 00:39:05,460 But that, in the timescale that we've been thinking on, 418 00:39:05,460 --> 00:39:09,780 is comparatively recently, a mere 100 or so generations. 419 00:39:09,780 --> 00:39:12,660 When he marked and baked this, 420 00:39:12,660 --> 00:39:17,460 man turned the surge of evolution into a new course. 421 00:39:17,460 --> 00:39:20,820 Now, for the first time, it was possible for a person 422 00:39:20,820 --> 00:39:27,540 to transmit information quite independent of his own existence or presence. 423 00:39:27,540 --> 00:39:32,340 And so an individual man was able to pass on information 424 00:39:32,340 --> 00:39:36,180 about his failures and successes, his insights, his strokes of genius, 425 00:39:36,180 --> 00:39:38,580 his accumulation of humdrum facts, 426 00:39:38,580 --> 00:39:40,980 from one individual to the community, 427 00:39:40,980 --> 00:39:45,380 from a community to a generation, and for generations beyond. 428 00:40:01,700 --> 00:40:06,540 The discovery of writing was made independently by many people worldwide. 429 00:40:31,020 --> 00:40:33,900 So the question inevitably arises - 430 00:40:33,900 --> 00:40:39,180 are we fundamentally and crucially different from all other living organisms? 431 00:40:39,180 --> 00:40:45,100 Or is there an overall pattern into which we and all other animals naturally fit? 432 00:40:51,460 --> 00:40:56,260 All living things are continually influenced by information from the past. 433 00:40:56,260 --> 00:41:01,060 And the more information they get, the better they can solve their problems. 434 00:41:01,060 --> 00:41:05,860 Every animal receives that information inherited from its parents, 435 00:41:05,860 --> 00:41:10,660 and coded not in letters but in chemicals - DNA. 436 00:41:10,660 --> 00:41:15,940 These are models of just one section of that giant molecule of DNA, 437 00:41:15,940 --> 00:41:17,860 vastly enlarged. 438 00:41:17,860 --> 00:41:20,740 Many molecules go to make genes, 439 00:41:20,740 --> 00:41:25,540 and genes together can be regarded as a library of instructions to an animal 440 00:41:25,540 --> 00:41:28,860 on how to solve the problems of survival. 441 00:41:39,420 --> 00:41:42,300 Clusters of genes in the primordial seas 442 00:41:42,300 --> 00:41:47,580 began to reproduce some 3,500 million years ago. Bacteria. 443 00:41:47,580 --> 00:41:52,380 If we represent the immense period of time between then and now by one year, 444 00:41:52,380 --> 00:41:54,780 and this stage is its first moment, 445 00:41:54,780 --> 00:41:58,140 then more complex micro-organisms like these 446 00:41:58,140 --> 00:42:02,940 didn't develop until the middle of August, over 1,000 million years later. 447 00:42:13,020 --> 00:42:18,260 As time passed, organisms accumulated more genes that could carry the instructions 448 00:42:18,260 --> 00:42:21,620 necessary for building bigger and more complex bodies, 449 00:42:21,620 --> 00:42:25,140 which in turn could solve more difficult problems of survival. 450 00:42:25,140 --> 00:42:28,380 And so animals found new ways of living in the seas. 451 00:42:31,940 --> 00:42:36,100 At the beginning of November, the first backboned creatures appeared. 452 00:42:40,220 --> 00:42:43,740 Towards the end of that month, the first animals left the water 453 00:42:43,740 --> 00:42:46,340 and colonised the land. 454 00:43:05,420 --> 00:43:08,300 And now the pace quickened. 455 00:43:08,300 --> 00:43:11,740 The backboned animals also invaded the land. 456 00:43:11,740 --> 00:43:15,620 By the beginning of December, some had acquired waterproof skins 457 00:43:15,620 --> 00:43:18,140 and broken their dependence on water. 458 00:43:21,620 --> 00:43:25,820 During the middle of December, one group could generate heat in their bodies, 459 00:43:25,820 --> 00:43:28,940 and had elaborated their scales into feathers. 460 00:43:34,340 --> 00:43:38,660 The first furry warm-blooded creatures appeared around the same time, 461 00:43:38,660 --> 00:43:42,820 but it wasn't until 25th December that the dinosaurs disappeared 462 00:43:42,820 --> 00:43:45,220 and the mammals came into their own. 463 00:43:45,220 --> 00:43:48,940 The information and instructions carried by the DNA in the sex cells was supplemented. 464 00:43:51,620 --> 00:43:55,460 The young mammal, dependent on its mother for milk and protected by her, 465 00:43:55,460 --> 00:43:58,980 begins to learn from her how to deal with the world around it. 466 00:44:12,780 --> 00:44:16,940 So animal communities developed traditions, cultures, 467 00:44:16,940 --> 00:44:20,700 and were able to transmit them from one generation to another. 468 00:44:20,700 --> 00:44:24,340 Now the skills acquired during an individual's lifetime 469 00:44:24,340 --> 00:44:26,740 need no longer die with it. 470 00:44:26,740 --> 00:44:32,940 Some at least could be handed on, supplementing the inborn genetically programmed skills. 471 00:44:39,540 --> 00:44:42,500 In the early morning of December 31st, 472 00:44:42,500 --> 00:44:45,300 apes and apemen appeared. 473 00:44:48,900 --> 00:44:53,420 And we arrived about two minutes before the end of that last day. 474 00:44:58,300 --> 00:45:03,580 No creature is so dependent upon its mother for such a large proportion of its life 475 00:45:03,580 --> 00:45:05,500 as is the human baby. 476 00:45:05,500 --> 00:45:10,500 And through language, none learns so much from her or so quickly. 477 00:45:10,500 --> 00:45:13,700 - Come on. You're not very awake, are you? 478 00:45:14,820 --> 00:45:19,140 - Our spoken language is enormously more subtle and informative 479 00:45:19,140 --> 00:45:22,500 than any other system of communication in the animal world. 480 00:45:22,500 --> 00:45:26,460 It's almost impossible to prevent a baby from acquiring it. 481 00:45:26,460 --> 00:45:28,460 Are you going to open that? 482 00:45:32,060 --> 00:45:37,820 By the age of five, every child will have mastered the meaning of 6,000 words 483 00:45:37,820 --> 00:45:43,060 and is able to operate 1,000 rules of grammar, an astonishing feat of learning. 484 00:45:48,260 --> 00:45:52,100 As their world expands, they learn not only from their parents 485 00:45:52,100 --> 00:45:54,140 but other children and adults, 486 00:45:54,140 --> 00:45:59,300 so that the whole accumulated experience of the community can become theirs. 487 00:46:04,180 --> 00:46:10,940 By means of words, skills can be rapidly taught and problems quickly explained and solved. 488 00:46:10,940 --> 00:46:14,780 - Make sure it's nice...and strong 489 00:46:14,780 --> 00:46:16,900 and helps the pot. 490 00:46:19,340 --> 00:46:22,740 - Nitrogen...dioxide. 491 00:46:22,740 --> 00:46:28,020 - And they learn, too, to comprehend symbols that not only represent spoken words 492 00:46:28,020 --> 00:46:30,380 but completely new concepts. 493 00:46:30,380 --> 00:46:32,780 - Di-nitrogen oxide. 494 00:46:32,780 --> 00:46:37,580 Now, as in our previous experiment, we're going to heat lead nitrate here. 495 00:46:37,580 --> 00:46:41,980 We're getting a nice flow of colourless gas in the gas jar. 496 00:46:41,980 --> 00:46:44,340 Notice the residue... 497 00:46:44,340 --> 00:46:48,180 - ..Specimen to get this orientation, and this is achieved by 498 00:46:48,180 --> 00:46:50,580 this here, this control here. 499 00:46:50,580 --> 00:46:53,140 - Over the past 1,000 years, 500 00:46:53,140 --> 00:46:56,420 cultures have devised ways of duplicating those symbols 501 00:46:56,420 --> 00:47:00,500 so that one individual could communicate with thousands. 502 00:47:00,500 --> 00:47:02,060 Printing. 503 00:47:29,980 --> 00:47:33,820 A great library can be seen as an extension of the human brain. 504 00:47:33,820 --> 00:47:40,060 But it contains far more information than any single human memory could do. 505 00:47:40,060 --> 00:47:46,780 Here are stored the insight, the experience, the wisdom of past generations 506 00:47:46,780 --> 00:47:52,060 so that we can consult it, benefit from it and, in turn, contribute to it. 507 00:47:52,060 --> 00:47:58,300 So we're no longer dependent on the very slow processes of physical evolution. 508 00:47:58,300 --> 00:48:01,660 If we need to fly, we don't have to wait millions of years 509 00:48:01,660 --> 00:48:04,540 while our arms turn into wings. 510 00:48:04,540 --> 00:48:09,340 Over a few generations, we can study the problems of physics and metallurgy 511 00:48:09,340 --> 00:48:11,740 and mathematics and aerodynamics, 512 00:48:11,740 --> 00:48:14,140 and build ourselves aeroplanes. 513 00:48:14,140 --> 00:48:18,940 As this information increases with growing speed, 514 00:48:18,940 --> 00:48:23,220 so we've developed radically new methods of storing and retrieving it all. 515 00:48:32,980 --> 00:48:37,020 The computer, the transistor, the microprocessor and the silicon chip, 516 00:48:37,020 --> 00:48:40,180 all developed within the last decade or so, 517 00:48:40,180 --> 00:48:44,500 now give us greater power to sort our knowledge, to link fact to fact 518 00:48:44,500 --> 00:48:48,820 so that our understanding of the nature of the world we inhabit 519 00:48:48,820 --> 00:48:51,620 becomes ever more detailed and subtle. 520 00:48:53,260 --> 00:48:56,740 With the help of electronics, we can recall information 521 00:48:56,740 --> 00:49:00,100 from data banks, no matter where they are, 522 00:49:00,100 --> 00:49:03,980 and we can communicate directly and instantaneously with one another 523 00:49:03,980 --> 00:49:06,220 right round the globe. 524 00:49:11,100 --> 00:49:13,980 We can predict the behaviour of our machines 525 00:49:13,980 --> 00:49:19,060 and make calculations which were once quite beyond the human brain. 526 00:49:25,980 --> 00:49:29,020 And with the existence of worldwide communications 527 00:49:29,020 --> 00:49:31,500 and the use of powerful computers, 528 00:49:31,500 --> 00:49:36,900 we can forecast with greater precision that most unpredictable of events on our planet, 529 00:49:36,900 --> 00:49:38,820 its daily weather. 530 00:49:45,980 --> 00:49:49,940 20,000 years ago, man drew messages for the gods in caves. 531 00:49:49,940 --> 00:49:54,540 Now he sends them to extraterrestrial beings in the sky. 532 00:49:57,020 --> 00:50:01,820 In his rockets, he puts images to greet other beings in other galaxies 533 00:50:01,820 --> 00:50:04,220 in case they exist. 534 00:50:07,100 --> 00:50:11,020 Images of himself in the gesture of welcome. 535 00:50:13,980 --> 00:50:16,860 Details of his discoveries. 536 00:50:23,500 --> 00:50:27,860 And photographs that he hopes may give other intelligences elsewhere 537 00:50:27,860 --> 00:50:31,380 some impression of what life is like on Earth. 538 00:51:19,300 --> 00:51:22,660 This is the last programme in this natural history, 539 00:51:22,660 --> 00:51:24,580 and it's very different from the others 540 00:51:24,580 --> 00:51:27,940 because it's been devoted to just one animal - ourselves. 541 00:51:27,940 --> 00:51:31,300 And that may have been a misleading thing to have done. 542 00:51:31,300 --> 00:51:36,580 It may have given the impression that man was the ultimate triumph of evolution, 543 00:51:36,580 --> 00:51:40,420 that all those thousands of millions of years of development 544 00:51:40,420 --> 00:51:44,260 had no purpose other than to put man on Earth. 545 00:51:44,260 --> 00:51:48,100 There is no scientific evidence whatsoever for such a belief. 546 00:51:48,100 --> 00:51:55,300 No reason to suppose that man's stay on Earth should be any longer than that of the dinosaurs. 547 00:51:55,300 --> 00:51:57,700 He may have learned to control his environment, 548 00:51:57,700 --> 00:52:01,060 to pass on information from one generation to another, 549 00:52:01,060 --> 00:52:06,340 but the forces of evolution that brought him into existence here on these African plains 550 00:52:06,340 --> 00:52:08,740 are still at work elsewhere in the world 551 00:52:08,740 --> 00:52:12,100 and if man were to disappear, for whatever reason, 552 00:52:12,100 --> 00:52:16,420 there is doubtless somewhere some small, unobtrusive creature 553 00:52:16,420 --> 00:52:22,180 that would seize the opportunity and, with a spurt of evolution, take man's place. 554 00:52:22,180 --> 00:52:28,420 But although denying a special place in the world may be becomingly modest, 555 00:52:28,420 --> 00:52:35,140 the fact remains that man has an unprecedented control over the world and everything in it. 556 00:52:35,140 --> 00:52:38,980 And so, whether he likes it or not, 557 00:52:38,980 --> 00:52:42,980 what happens next is very largely up to him.