All language subtitles for Evolution Ep 6 The Minds Big Bang

(tool scraping,
water dripping)

NARRATOR:
Archaeologist Randy White is
far beneath the hills of France

searching for a special moment
in evolution,

an era cloaked in mystery

when, with hardly a change
in appearance

humans began behaving in ways
they had never behaved before.

He wants to find out how it was

that our ancestors became
truly human.

WHITE:
It's downright scary to be
in these cave environments.

They are cold, dark, damp,
frightening, dangerous places.

When you see people going
a kilometer underground

or two kilometers underground

and you find traces of paintings
and that sort of thing

there's something
much more profound going on

than just an interest
in exploration.

Perhaps this cave
that we're exploring here

opens onto our site,
which could make...

if there were any paintings
in this cave

could make them the oldest
cave paintings on the planet.

NARRATOR:
It's possible Randy White
could one day make a discovery

as startling
as that made in 1994

when others found
underground caverns

adorned with over 300 images,
some painted 34,000 years ago,

the oldest rock art known.

But finding art is not
the only goal.

White wants to find
something bigger

how the human mind was born.

Where once people had looked
at bare walls

and had seen only walls

now others suddenly saw
astounding possibilities.

And with art
came human technology

human communication,
human culture.

The question is, what happened
to make all this possible?

How could it be that a species
opened its mind

and burst into a new realm?

How was it that human ancestors

evolved a whole new way
of seeing themselves

and, in time,
transformed the planet?

NARRATOR:
The Great Rift Valley
of East Africa.

Here is where
the human story began.

For millions of years

Africa was the landscape
of human evolution.

Across this terrain

an ancestral people survived,
reproduced

and passed on their traits
from generation to generation.

Without Africa,
humanity, as we know it,

might never have evolved.

This is an area that was
once inhabited by hominids

before they were truly human.

Now it's a site scientists visit
to understand how people lived

and what they thought about
over a million years ago.

Soon after the rains each year,
Rick Potts leads a team

that scours these badlands,
finding stone tools and fossils.

Potts believes this place was
once a tool-making factory.

POTTS:
It takes really sharp eyes

to find that first fragment
of fossil

or to find that sliver
of stone tool

that says hominids were
right here at this spot.

And so I knew that we were
very close to an ancient soil

that was nearly
one million years old

that had previously produced

lots of fossil bones
and stone tools.

It turned out to be a hand ax,

one of those stone tools
that our ancestors made

for a long, long time,
hundreds of thousands of years.

These hominids were
bringing these rocks

down from the highlands

and they were chipping the edges
of the tool around.

And they could even hold it
in their hand like this

use it for digging
or for knocking off flakes

that they could use
for butchering animals.

In a sense, this is the Swiss
army knife of the Paleolithic.

NARRATOR:
Here, these Paleolithic

(or ancient stone tool) people

made a variety of simple
implements repeatedly

for nearly a million years.

POTTS:
Indeed their minds were...
were oriented towards survival.

They had the ability
to make these tools

which had some sophistication
to them.

But the fact that they kept
making them means

that they had a kind of, um...
a mental template

a regularity of thinking

that kept producing these
same things over and over again.

Chances are they didn't speak
to one another like we do

and, uh... and apparently

they got along just fine
with this single tool.

So a million and a half years,
this was around

which is an immense period of
time, an absurd period of time

when you think of today where
computer programs don't last

for longer than a couple of
years before they're improved

before they diversify
in some way.

And our technology is
the same way.

It's not the way
of the technology

of these ancient people
a million years ago.

They didn't have something
that we have,

the creativity, the innovation,
the diversity of cultures

that, of course,
characterizes our own species.

NARRATOR:
On the tree of life

human evolution began
around six million years ago

when hominids split off

from the common ancestor
they shared with chimpanzees.

They descended from the trees
about four million years ago

and entered a new world.

Two and a half million years
ago, with a modified hand

they fashioned stone tools

and began to depend more
and more on a diet of meat.

The size of their brains
increased dramatically.

And about two million years ago,
some began leaving Africa.

These early travelers
were successful for a while

but, in the end,
they all became extinct.

It wasn't until
about 60,000 years ago

that the first truly
modern humans (our ancestors)

began leaving Africa.

They were hunter-gatherers,

foraging for food,
living in small groups

roaming a wide landscape.

But they were different
from their predecessors.

They had begun
a revolutionary way of life.

This lifestyle had emerged
over millions of years

through the multiple processes
of evolution:

mutation, selection, adaptation,
competition, failure

punctuated by
the occasional success.

It was a story of evolution,
of change over time,

no different from the stories
of so many other species

but, in the end, it produced
results new to the planet.

MAN:
Behavior changed very radically
at around 50,000 years ago.

This is someone
who lived in Israel

let's say roughly
100,000 years ago, this skull.

Now, you might say,
Israel? Is that Africa?

At the time, in a sense, it was.

If you look
at where Israel is today

Israel is on
the very margin of Africa

and there have been times
in the past

when Africa expanded
a bit ecologically

and Israel was effectively
incorporated in Africa.

This is someone
who looks very much like us.

And I think if this person
were alive today

if we put the flesh back on
and dressed this person properly

we wouldn't see
any significant difference.

It would not be somebody

who would cause you
to cross the street

if you saw this person coming
at you from the other direction.

NARRATOR:
And yet this
hundred-thousand-year-old human

did not behave like us.

And then here we have
a fully modern person

someone who lived in Africa
within the last 40,000 years.

Basically, the same kind
of skull

particularly, the same kind
of brain

or same shape to the part of the
skull that contains the brain,

but this was someone who behaved
in a very different way

than the prior person.

This is someone who made

a wider range
of recognizable stone artifacts;

made a lot of artifacts out
of bone and ivory and shell;

produced art.

People like this
would be recognizable

not only in terms
of their appearance

but in terms of their behavior
as fully modern humans.

MAN:
In a sense, we're all Africans.

If you took a bunch
of human babies

from anywhere around the world,

from Australia, New Guinea,
Africa, Europe,

and scrambled the babies
at birth

and brought them up
in any society

they'd all be able
to learn the same languages

learn how to count,
learn how to use computers

learn how to make and use tools.

It suggests

that the distinctively human
parts of our intelligence

were in place

before our ancestors split off
into the different continents.

NARRATOR:
After leaving Africa
some 60,000 years ago

this fully modern species
headed east into Asia

and even to Australia.

Others followed the coast
of the Mediterranean, north

dispersing into the hills

and leaving behind evidence
that their minds were unique.

Here, in Turkey, Mary Stiner and
Steve Kuhn have been excavating

a home that these
early immigrants occupied,

a cave called Ucagizli,

one of the earliest
modern human living sites.

KUHN:
We're standing in the extreme
back of the cave here

and there's been a variety
of activities that took place

in this part of the site.

At a somewhat higher level

than the one we're excavating,
about here,

there was a structure,
a kind of wall of stones

that delimited what
we think was a bedding area.

A little lower down, what you
see is this triangular shape

which is basically
a cone of debris

and this was a garbage dump.

There's this white material,
which is ash

and this sort of yellowish,
ashy sediment.

And every single one
of these white specks

is a bone or an artifact.

This is just chock full
of material.

It's a garbage dump.

Now, that may not seem
very romantic

but as an archaeologist,
it's a wonderful thing

because garbage is
full of evidence

about how people lived and
what they ate, what they did

how they made their tools.

NARRATOR:
The team hoped
they would unearth clues

to the routine of life
40,000 years ago.

They were in for a surprise.

STINER:
Very quickly
after we began excavation here

we realized that
we had something
truly extraordinary.

KUHN:
As soon as we started digging
into the sediments

we started finding
lots of ornaments,

mostly shell beads

but a variety of other kinds
of things.

They look like teeth when
you first encounter them

and my heart rate goes up and
I think, "More human fossils!"

Yep.

STINER:
Yet another.

It'sNassarius?

Oh, yeah,
that'sNassarius.

And it's got the
little hole in it.

It's one of the
local species here.

It's definitely
perforated.

Oh, yeah.

This one's in very
good condition, too,

even some of the
original color of the shell.

KUHN:
It's tremendously exciting
and sort of daunting

because nobody had
reported these before

from this part of the world.

And your first thought is,
what did I do wrong?

NARRATOR:
As they worked
the layers of sediment

they began finding beads
that dated back 43,000 years

making them the oldest beads
found anywhere in the world.

KUHN:
Now we have nearly
a thousand ornaments,

mostly shell beads
of a variety of species

but also things like the claw
of a large raptor

or a large predatory bird
that's been notched

to be suspended in a sort
of necklace fashion.

STINER:
They're always selecting
the same species.

This is an animal that's
relatively rare on beaches

but nonetheless
does occur in the area.

And uniformly,
people selected these.

You can see also that they've
been artificially perforated

by a person so... in order
that they could be suspended.

For the first time

in the Upper
Paleolithic

people found
it necessary
in some areas

to say things
about themselves

using durable
material items.

NARRATOR:
Durable items like beads are
of no use for hunting, gathering

or protection.

They suggest that
those who lived here

had more on their minds
than simple survival.

So why were these beads
so important?

And what can they tell us about
the early days of modern humans?

Beads and artifacts
have been found

along the routes
our ancestors took.

43,000 years ago, humans had
spread north to Eastern Europe.

Then they moved
into the Russian Plain

and Central Europe.

By the time they settled in
Western Europe, 38,000 years ago

they were not just making beads,
they were mass-producing them.

In Southern France, Randy White
has been scrutinizing

these ancient beads.

With powerful magnification

he can tell
just how they were made

and he can reproduce prehistoric
bead-making techniques.

WHITE:
If I were to give you
a piece of soapstone

or a piece of mammoth ivory

and I were to ask you
to put a hole in it

I know exactly how you'd do it:
you'd drill a hole in it.

You'd turn it, you'd rotate it
to make a hole.

But you know what?

That's part of our culture,
believe it or not.

That's the way we've learned
how to do things.

Early modern human people

had a completely different
technique for making holes.

They did it as I'm doing.

They actually dug a hole
into a piece of material

at a very early stage
of production

and it leaves
some pretty ugly traces.

But because the process is
one by which you grind

and you polish afterwards

they were able to remove
all of those ugly traces

and to leave behind
the tiniest of little openings.

I've got a hole, a very, very,
very tiny little hole,

that I've opened up using
a very, very large point.

It's actually
a very emotional experience

to be sitting here,
having finished a... a bead

using exactly
the same techniques

that people did 35,000 years ago

with exactly the same
raw materials

that people used
35,000 years ago

in exactly the same form,
in exactly the same place.

We have, from this rock shelter,
more than 1,000 beads like this.

We know that someone

who was mentally, emotionally
very much like ourselves

sat somewhere in this vicinity
35,000 years ago

and made exactly
what I've just made for you.

People have tended
to look at beads

and suggest people were just
sort of playing around.

But in fact, we know
that here at Castel-Merle

they were spending thousands
of hours making beads

when they could have been
doing other things

that we might think to be
more productive.

NARRATOR:
Beads are artifacts
of the mind's big bang.

They are evidence

of our creative
and cultural beginnings

recalling a time
when bands of humans

began interacting socially
with one another.

WHITE:
Expression in materials

is really one of the hallmarks
of the revolution, if you will.

This is something really new
on the horizon.

This is people
creating social identities

that don't exist in nature.

This is saying,
"I am a Cro-Magnon woman."

Uh, "I've given birth."

Uh, "I have
a particular history;

I have a particular status
within my group"

and anyone who's
a member of that group

will be able to see that
at a glance

by the fact that she's wearing
certain kinds of animal teeth

certain kinds of beads

her clothing is decorated
in certain ways.

It's a mode of visual expression

but it's expressing
social relationships

and I think that's something,
clearly, that's very new

in human evolution.

NARRATOR:
Humans using technology in
the service of social identity,

this was momentous.

The birth of the human mind
occurred in Africa

and left its mark
as far away as Australia.

But the evidence is
most abundant in Europe.

It was here that
these humans encountered

another species of hominid,

a species almost identical
to them, but not quite

and it was this
subtle difference

that influenced who survived.

We call these ancient Europeans
"Neanderthals."

Compared to us,
they were massive.

MAN:
Meeting face to face
a Neanderthal

would be quite
an impressive experience.

They had a very large
body mass,

some 200 pounds of muscles
and bones for a male.

The face is
very projected forward

in its... in its middle part

with almost no cheeks, and
a receding chin and forehead.

And in the middle of this face

there was probably a huge
and projecting nose.

NARRATOR:
Neanderthals and humans were
different in the ways they lived

and, most remarkably,
in the ways they died.

HUBLIN:
The burial of La Ferrassie shows
the body of a male Neanderthal

lying on one side in a pit,
and that's all.

And so far, we have very few
evidence of Neanderthal burials

with any kind of... of complex
construction or organization.

Neanderthals do not display
many signs of symbolic life.

In fact, we don't know any kind
of art or symbols or pictures

used by Neanderthals.

NARRATOR:
In contrast

modern humans appear
to have treated their dead

with extreme care.

In the permafrost of Russia

this man was found
buried in clothing

embroidered with thousands
of delicately wrought beads.

Does this suggest

that modern humans
considered life more precious?

Could it be that
even though human brains

were about the same size
as Neanderthals

they had dramatically
different abilities?

The evidence is controversial

so scientists like John Shea of
the State University of New York

are reenacting the activities
of both species

to understand how their minds
might have differed.

SHEA:
The Neanderthal point
is big and heavy

and the nature
of its heavy handle means

that it could not have
been thrown very far.

In fact, it was probably
not thrown at all.

It was probably
a stabbing weapon

used more or less
like a modern bayonet.

That means that in order
to kill an animal

the Neanderthals
had to get up really close

and stab this thing into
a big, dangerous creature

putting their lives at risk.

NARRATOR:
And if a Neanderthal spear
ever was thrown

its range was limited.

19, 20...

21, 22, 23...

23 meters thrown with a
Neanderthal-type wooden spear.

The modern human weapon,
on the other hand

this piece of antler here,
is very narrow

cone-shaped like a bullet.

It's attached
to a very narrow handle

and this suggests

it was probably thrown
from a great distance.

Making the antler point takes
hours and hours and hours.

You have to soak the antler
until it's just right

and then carve it by abrading it
against a piece of sandstone

something more or less
like this, you know?

It takes a tremendous amount
of patience to impose will

to impose design on this antler.

It takes no great amount of time
to impose one's will on stone;

stone's a very... very
easy material to shape.

The Neanderthal point
could have been made

in a matter of minutes;
it's very, very simple

when you know how
to chip stone correctly.

Quick and dirty is
the name of the game

for Neanderthal technology.

The next thing
you want to do is...
see this ridge here?

Where this ridge
sticks up

hold this up
like I showed you

and then with
your hammer stone

hit right there,
plonk,

and you'll undercut
this whole mass.

SHEA:
What I'm doing in teaching
stone technology here is

I'm trying to re-create
the evolutionary environment.

This is probably
the way modern humans

transferred
these skills

is an older
individual
sitting around

with younger
individuals.

You could share
information.

Neanderthals, we don't have any
evidence of systematic teaching.

It's probably something,
they reinvented the wheel a lot.

Beyond 50,000 years back
in earlier antiquity

it's the same thing
over and over and over again

and that tells you

there's not a lot of information
being transferred

probably just imitation.

But after 50,000

when the modern humans
show up on the scene

every generation,
there's something new.

NARRATOR:
Not simply to duplicate
old technology

but to build on the experience,
knowledge and wisdom of elders;

this, for modern humans, was
a vital strategic advantage.

Now technology could improve
from one generation to the next.

With this new invention,
the spear thrower

a weapon could be launched
even greater distances

reducing the hunter's risk.

Neanderthals: 24 meters...

42 meters.

Advantage: modern humans.

NARRATOR:
Improved technology
suggests a great deal

about humans' emerging ability
to transmit information

over great distances
across time.

HUBLIN:
These pictures are a way
to communicate with someone else

without this person being here.

It can be at the far distance
or it can be in the far future.

And this is what apparently
Neanderthals did not do.

NARRATOR:
Fossils tell us

Neanderthals lived in small,
often isolated pockets

largely cut off
from other Neanderthals.

HUBLIN:
For some reasons

when they could not survive
longer in this part

they would just move away.

The picture we have

of the Upper Paleolithic
modern humans in Europe

is... is quite different.

NARRATOR:
For modern humans

portable art may have served
as a means of communication

some of it traveling
hundreds of miles

from where it had been created.

It's very clear that
these people were involved

in nets of exchanges
at long distance.

They belonged to a big entity,
a big cultural entity

and it's very likely

that Neanderthals
did not have this at all.

NARRATOR:
Perhaps the most compelling
evidence of early culture

is concealed
deep beneath the earth.

While we may not know
exactlywhyhumans painted

in these caves

we now can guess
howthey painted.

Archaeologist Michel Lorblanchet

has studied the techniques
of cave art.

He thinks some of the images
were rendered

by a process he calls
"spit painting."

LORBLANCHET:
Spit painting must have had very
important symbolic significance.

NARRATOR:
Through experimentation

he has been able to reproduce
the technique of early artists.

By mixing pigment with saliva

he believes
they achieved a bonding compound

that lasted long after
the creators were gone.

LORBLANCHET:
It's not at all like painting
on canvas; it's quite different.

The cave is full of shape,
natural shapes.

The cave is extremely,
uh, it's exceptional.

It's beautiful.

NARRATOR:
And what might renderings
of wild goats and sheep

painted in these eerie caverns,
tell us of the mind's big bang?

It is the first manifestation
of human imagination.

Modern men tend to... to make
their imprint on the landscape

on the territory.

So it's why they penetrated in
the deepest part of the earth.

It's like to express themselves

to say that we are the owner
of the earth in some way

and we have some relationship,
personal relationship

with the spirit
living inside the earth.

NARRATOR:
In other corners of these caves

Lorblanchet has found
artifacts made of bone

and a pattern of wear
on the rock

that led him to speculate these
cave explorers also made music.

(note sounds)

(taps out different notes)

I have the feeling to be
in a cathedral here...

a big cathedral,
an important cathedral.

NARRATOR:
So... below and above ground

our ancestors were refining
technology and art

and communicating
in complex ways.

It appears as if these changes
occurred rapidly.

How could it have happened?

KLEIN:
My own view is that
there was a brain change;

that there was a genetic change

that promoted
the fully modern human brain

that allowed the kind of
innovation and invention

the ability to innovate
and invent

that is a characteristic
of modern humans.

If you accept the idea that
there was a neurological change

50,000 years ago, and that
this was rooted in biology

it would just become
the latest, the most recent

in a long series of mutations on
which natural selection operated

to produce the human species
as we understand it today.

It's very likely
that the changes in the brain

didn't happen overnight.

There wasn't
one magical mutation

that miraculously allowed us
to speak and to walk upright

and to cooperate
with one another

and to figure out
how the world works.

Evolution doesn't work that way.

It would be
staggeringly improbable

for one mutation
to do all of that.

Chances are there were lots
and lots of mutations

over a span of tens, maybe even
hundreds of thousands of years

that fine-tuned and
sculpted the brain

to give it all the magnificent
powers that it has today.

The actual organization of
behavior goes on at the level

of the individual nerve cells
and their connections.

We have a hundred billion
nerve cells

probably a hundred trillion
connections.

It's just mind-boggling to think
of all the different ways

in which they are arranged.

And a lot of our evolution
consisted

not just in getting
more of this stuff

but in wiring it in precise ways
to support intelligence.

NARRATOR:
So it may not have been the size
of the human brain

but its "wiring" that endowed us
with powerful new skills.

According to Richard Wrangham,
one of these skills

was the knack for living
a complex social life.

Here in East Africa,
chimpanzees show us

how we might have interacted
with others

before the mind's big bang.

MAN:
Social climbing is the one thing

that really makes
a male's world.

But they do it not in just
a one-to-one way.

They're very sensitive to the
interactions among each other.

So if I have a friend
that I am trying to impress

then maybe what I will do is to
attack the enemy of my friend.

And the enemy of my friend
might be doing something

like grooming with one
of his friends.

So I may detect the
relationships among other chimps

and manipulate them
to my own advantage.

But what we share with
the chimps is an ability to be

very subtle in the way in which
we can understand the meaning

of an interaction that we see

in terms of its threat
to our own social standing.

(chimpanzees hooting)

In humans,
a little word to the father

of a badly behaved adolescent

and all of a sudden,
you can control their behavior.

But no such thing happens
with chimps.

You have to actually
exert physical force

or the threat of physical force.

NARRATOR:
But after about six million
years of separate evolution

humans acquired
a significant social advantage.

WRANGHAM:
How much subtler

how much more satisfying,
if the council of elders

can sit round the fire at night

and say, you know, "Joe, there,
he's behaving really badly.

We've got to do
something about him."

That's what chimps can't do.

NARRATOR:
There's much more
chimpanzees cannot do.

The University
of St. Andrews in Scotland.

Here, Andrew Whiten
considers differences

between chimp minds
and human minds.

With unlikely tools, he
and others have identified

another critical advantage,
and possibly a key

to the human mind's
stunning success...

Okay.

NARRATOR:
Mind-reading.

Will this three-year-old
be able to look at things

from someone else's
point of view?

Can she make inferences
about others' thoughts?

Can she spot deception?

Sally.

WHITEN:
Sally? Watch this.

She's going to go put
the marble in the basket.

Are you ready?

And cover it up.

Okay?

And then Sally's
going to go out to play

like you did,
out in the garden.

Ready, off
she goes.

Okay, she's gone out to play,
and while she's out to play

here's naughty
Ann coming

and she's going
to take the marble
out of the basket...

NARRATOR:
While Sally is away

deceitful Ann will now
hide Sally's marble.

There we go.

Then Ann's going
to come over here.

Do you know what's happening?

Where did Sally go?

She went out to play.

Here she comes.

She's coming back,
and she's going to come

and look for her
favorite marble.

Where's Sally going to look
for her marble now?

I think it's
in here.

Oh, you think Sally's
going to look in there?

Why do you think she's
going to look in there?

I think she'll find it.

That's where it was.

NARRATOR:
Through the age of three,
researchers have found

that a child is unable

to ascribe actions, motives
and beliefs to others.

But by the age of five,
the child's brain has developed

a capacity for stepping
into someone else's mind.

WHITEN:
Sally is coming back
from playing

and Sally's going to go
and look for her marble.

Where is she going
to look for her marble?

She's going, um...

Where's she
going to look?

Basket.

In the basket.

Okay, shall we let her look
in the basket?

Yep.

Hmm! Why did she look
in the basket?

Because the marble
could've been there, but it wasn't.

Okay, so where is the marble,
do you remember?

Yep.

WHITEN:
It varies in different children,
but generally

the four-year stage is thought
of as a kind of watershed

when that particular refined
theory-of-mind ability emerges.

So a three-year-old

would typically
have difficulty with it.

A five-year-old
has generally mastered it.

And so far, no chimpanzee
has passed any test

of the attribution
of false belief

that a five-year-old child
passes.

I suppose theory of mind
makes us as sublime as we are

because we can feel for others
so much, perhaps

you might say, on the one hand.

At the same time, it allows us
to... it allows us to be

that much more sneaky than any
other species on the planet.

In societies of humans

being socially competent
really counts.

Being socially competent
allows you ultimately

to out-compete others,
to gain better access

to resources, the best mates.

And in those kinds of societies

it seems that brain can be
more important than brawn.

So it's potentially a very
powerful evolutionary force

because it's driving
a kind of upward spiral.

Social complexity begets
greater social intelligence.

Social intelligence presents
even greater problems

to the individuals
in the next generation

and they have to become
more socially complex.

NARRATOR:
Complex social relationships;
a theory of mind:

These are abilities we associate
with modern humans.

But how could we express
any of these abilities

without language?

With language, we can recall
the past, ponder the future

teach children, tell secrets,
manipulate crowds.

But imagine a world
without language.

Nicaragua, Central America.

Managua.

Here, as in other places
of the world

there are those who hardly
have any language at all.

Maria No Name... "Mary No Name."

Deaf since birth, she has been
isolated all her life,

both from the people
who could help her

and from others
with her disability.

Her friend,
linguist Judy Kegl

understands the depth
of her isolation.

The two can communicate
just a little

using simple and
primitive gestures.

KEGL:
The first time I met her

she was missing the ability
to tell me who she was.

She was missing
the ability

to tell me how
old she was.

She doesn't
know her name.

In order to tell me
who she was

she had to take me
home and show me

the papers and
pictures of her family.

We had to share
a context.

She can tell me
things... I can
show you a bit.

She can tell me
what happened
to her father.

KEGL:
I asked her about her father
dying, and she said "three."

Okay? What "three" meant was
he was shot three times.

I know this from working
with the other deaf signer

who says he was shot
in three places

and that's how her
father died, right?

(vocalizing)

Yeah.

Right.

And uh, you know, but "three"
is just not enough

to give me access
to the information

that I would
have needed

had I not had prior
knowledge about that.

Papa.

Papa.

Okay.

What she's saying is...
"I had a daughter

"that went away and got
married and that was it.

"She never came back.

"I had a son
that went away

"and I never heard
from him again.

"You know, that's it.

"I'm alone.

That's my life."

She was language-ready.

The problem was, she didn't
get access to language

within that critical period.

And that critical window

for learning language in the way
that we learned it, is closed.

NARRATOR:
This "window for language"
remains open

until we reach age seven.

Then it slowly closes
as we advance towards puberty.

Before the 1980s,
many deaf Nicaraguans

were like Mary No Name.

They never encountered
the window for language

because they never encountered
others with their disability.

But in 1980, after
the Nicaraguan revolution

the new government tried
to enhance deaf people's lives.

It brought deaf village children
into Managua

to end their isolation.

Here, educators tried to teach
them an existing sign language.

The effort failed.

The children showed
little interest

in learning a language
forced upon them.

Instead, they began
communicating with each other

in their own way.

Judy Kegl was summoned
from the United States

to sort out the problem.

KEGL:
I came down thinking wherever
there were deaf people

there was a sign language, and
that obviously there would be

a full-blown sign language
in full swing here in Nicaragua.

And I said, "Well,
you know, I can learn

"a bit of their sign language,
if that's what you want

and work with you
on learning it."

They said, "No, they don't
have a sign language.

"They have'm?micas.'

They have mime gestures."

And they pointed
to a group of kids

and said, "We want to know
what they're talking about."

NARRATOR:
It turned out they were
talking about a lot more

than anyone dreamed possible.

Kegl had arrived in Nicaragua

shortly after the birth
of a new language.

KEGL:
Language needs company.

Language needs a community.

Language needs
some sort of a trigger.

And I think that trigger is...

it's not so much
that it needs a community

in the sense that there
have to be lots of people

but part of being a community

is wanting to share information
with each other.

NARRATOR:
Might this moment
resemble what happened

around 50,000 years ago,
the turning point

that led to the explosion
of human creativity?

Language does not need a voice.

It is our legacy,
an inevitability of being human.

Today, we still don't know
exactly when language evolved...

when it opened the door to our
phenomenal success as a species.

KEGL:
This is a verb
reduplicated, meaning...

NARRATOR:
But language, every language,
depends on strict rules

all of them familiar.

KEGL:
That's a role shift
to man looking at the bird

then back to the man
falling off the mountain

half dreaming that he's
going to fly like a bird...

NARRATOR:
While many species can
communicate, even vocalize,

only human languages
are driven by complex rules.

Every one of our world's
6,300 languages has them.

We call them "syntax."

In her isolation, Mary No Name
never encountered syntax.

But it is commonplace
in the children's language.

Syntax isn't the set of rules

that you learned
in your third-grade grammar

that you had to memorize

so you spoke English
the way you're supposed to.

Syntax is... or language,
the constraints on language

are something
that all human beings share.

They're the constraints
that are imparted to us

by the fact that we share
a single human brain.

They are the...

not just the constraints,
but the ability

to hierarchically organize
information that allows us

to construct sentences,
novel sentences

that have never
been said before.

That allows us to put a...
to tell a story

that allows us to prophesy,
that allows us to lie.

I can sheerly communicate
for communications' sake

when I have syntax.

Then I can truly use a language.

NARRATOR:
And those most gifted
with the tools of language

might have been the ones
to prosper

according to Richard Dawkins.

DAWKINS:
We don't know
when language started

but as soon
as language did start

it provided an environment
in which those individuals

who were genetically
best equipped to thrive

and survive and succeed

in an environment
dominated by language

were the ones
who left the most offspring.

And that probably,
in our forefathers

that probably led
to an improvement

in the ability to use language.

NARRATOR:
What exactly was

the evolutionary purpose
of language?

Was it to discuss water holes,
weapons, what lay over the hill?

Or might it
have had another advantage?

The answer may be surprising.

MAN:
The kind of situations
we're looking for

to study language was just
the sort of natural places

where you would have
a conversation

and a very, informal relaxed
conversation with a friend.

So we kind of looked in places
like bars, trains

anywhere where you
would kind of, um...

have a sort of... a natural,
everyday conversation.

NARRATOR:
Robin Dunbar is an eavesdropper.

He listens in
to other people's conversations

to determine what
we really talk about.

DUNBAR:
I think the conventional view

of all those who
work on language

linguists and all
these kind of people

is that language
is about the transmission

of technically
complex information.

And this is what I kind of call

the "Einstein and Shakespeare"
version of language.

And the answer is,
"Oh, no, it isn't."

If you actually go and listen

to what people talk about
on a day-to-day basis

back there in their homes
or on the street

or over the garden fence

then it's about social
relationships.

The most surprising thing
was actually how much time

people did spend
in social gossip, if you like.

We really hadn't expected it
to be so great.

Social exchange of information

should be important
in people's lives.

We really hadn't
expected it to be

perhaps more than about a third
of total conversation time.

And here we were at two-thirds.

NARRATOR:
Two-thirds of all conversation,
Robin Dunbar believes

is dedicated to gossip.

Throughout human evolution

could nature have selected
not just for the fittest

but for those with the most
acute social skills?

DUNBAR:
What language does,
the bottom line, if you like,

is it just allows us
to hold big groups together.

It's like, kind of,
opening a window of opportunity.

Suddenly there's all sorts of
other things you can do with it.

Because you can use it

to solicit information
about third parties

so you can now see what happened

when you weren't actually
present at the time.

And the problem
all monkeys and apes have

is if they don't see it,
they don't know about it.

They never will.

PINKER:
Gossip is certainly
one of the things

that language is useful for

because it's always handy
to know who needs a favor

who can offer a favor,
who's available

who's under the protection
of a jealous spouse.

And being the first
to get a piece of gossip

is like engaging
in insider trading;

you can capitalize
on an opportunity

before anyone else can.

But language
is useful for other things,

for exchanging
technical know-how:

How do you get poison
out of the gland of a toad?

What's the best way
to make a spear?

Where are the berries?

What's the best time
of year to hunt?

It's also good
for one-on-one negotiations:

"If you give me
some of your meat

I'll give you some of my fruit."

There are all kinds of ways
that language can be useful.

Gossip, I think,
is just one of them.

NARRATOR:
Language, the force that
created modern human culture

and that today tells us
who we are, how we belong

and where we're bound.

Language, according
to Richard Dawkins

is also central to a new
and powerful evolutionary force.

DAWKINS:
As far as a human lifetime
is concerned

the only kind
of evolutionary change

we're likely to see very much of

is not genetic evolution at all,
it's cultural evolution.

And if we put
a Darwinian spin on that

then we are going to be talking

about the differential survival
of memes as opposed to genes.

Memes are ideas, habits, skills,
gestures, stories, songs

anything which we pass from
person to person by imitation.

We copy them.

Now, just as genes are copied
inside all the cells of our body

and passed on in reproduction

memes are copied by our brains
and our behavior

and they're passed
from person to person.

And I think what happens is

just as the competition
between genes

shapes all of biological
evolution

so it's the competition
between memes

that shapes our minds
and our cultures.

So it's absolutely central
to understanding human nature

that we take account of memes.

NARRATOR:
Sue Blackmore believes

memes have been the forces
driving human evolution

especially since the mind's
big bang, some 50,000 years ago.

She sees ideas, prejudices

trends and breakthroughs
behaving much like genes,

self-replicating and
accumulating from mind to mind

society to society,
generation to generation.

Memes are the building blocks
of a new kind of evolution.

DAWKINS:
If units of culture

replicate themselves
in something like the same way

as DNA molecules
replicate themselves

then we have the possibility

of a completely new
kind of Darwinism.

Changes in the human lifestyle
for the last 50,000 years

have had very little to do

with any biological change
in our brains.

The reason that we live
differently today

from the way
that the cavemen lived

is not because
we have better brains

but because we've
been accumulating

all of the thousands
of discoveries

that our ancestors have made

and we have the benefit
of a huge history of inventions

that we communicate
non-genetically

through language, through
documents, through customs.

NARRATOR:
Memes can be more
than passing fads.

They can be titanic.

They can modify the world,
revolutionize life

even suppress the forces
of biological evolution.

Consider insulin, one such meme,
now some 80 years old.

YOUNG MAN:
Before insulin

diabetics weren't
expected to live.

It was really considered
a fatal disease.

I would probably not be here
without insulin.

It's just been a huge...

It's allowed me personally
as a diabetic to live.

NARRATOR:
14-year-old Jared
is on a week-long hike

with others who share his
disease, juvenile diabetes.

An outing like this may not
appear revolutionary, but it is.

With exercise,
a diabetic's blood sugar balance

can plummet dangerously.

JARED:
Hmm, 231.

Normally that's pretty high, but
on the trail we try to keep...

keep our blood sugars up,
just in case we go low.

And, you know,
we just want to make sure

that we've got
plenty of sugar in there

since we're doing
so muchexercise.

NARRATOR:
Jared has his condition
under control

thanks to a device
that supplies him with insulin

the instant it's required.

(monitor beeping)

This may seem mundane today

but before the 1920s,
individuals like Jared

would have died as children

never to reach
the age of reproduction

never to pass on their genes.

Now young diabetics are
no longer condemned to death.

JARED:
Reconnect...

NARRATOR:
Insulin, an idea
that became a cure

is just one more meme
that helps modern humans

elude the forces of evolution.

Like so many other
scientific breakthroughs

it provides us
with new ways to survive.

PINKER:
A lot of the creations
of the brain

can make up
for physical deficiencies

and could actually change
the course of evolution.

Thousands of years ago, someone
who was severely nearsighted

probably wouldn't
have had many descendants;

he would have been eaten

or fallen off a cliff
a long time ago.

But we invented eyeglasses

and now being nearsighted
has no disadvantage at all.

There are some people
who might say

"Well, isn't this interfering
with evolution?

"Wouldn't we be better off
letting the diabetics

"and the nearsighted
die an early death

to improve the physical vigor
of the species?"

That really goes against
the way human evolution works

which is that
for tens of thousands of years

we've depended for our survival

on our own inventions,
on our own creation

and this is simply extending
that process.

NARRATOR:
Our revolt against biological
evolution has taken many forms,

call it "culture,"
call it "memes"

call it "mimetic evolution,"
whatever.

It makes every one of us
this planet's best survivor.

So far.

BLACKMORE:
Nowadays I would say

that mimetic evolution is
going faster and faster

and it has almost entirely taken
over from biological evolution.

Not entirely, in the sense

that the two
are going along hand in hand.

For example, birth control:

the memes of the pill
and condoms and all these things

have effects on the genes.

In fact, they change quite
dramatically across the planet.

Who is... which genes

are getting passed on
and which aren't.

The more educated you are,
the less children you have.

That is memes
fighting against genes.

What's also going on now at the
beginning of the 21st century

is that the memes have suddenly
made themselves a new home:

the Internet.

We thought we created the
Internet for our own benefit.

In fact, if you look
in any office

and you see people sitting
there, slaves of the memes.

(imitating telephone)

"Hello?"

"Fax coming in."

"Yes... Oh, email."

It's going so fast.

I would say what's happened here
is the inevitable consequences

of the mimetic
evolutionary process.

The memes are getting
better and faster

and more and more
and creating as they go

better copying apparatus
for their own copying.

I don't know where
that leavesusin the future.

NARRATOR:
For our species,
as for all others

biological evolution has been
the primary engine of change.

But since the birth of culture
some 50,000 years ago

forces far more powerful
have overtaken human evolution.

The mind's big bang was the
birth of a new kind of change,

not of the body, but of ideas.

For the future of humankind

evolution may be no more
than what we make of it.

Continue the journey

into where we're from
and where we're going

at the Evolution web site.

Visit www.pbs.org.

The seven-part
Evolution boxed set

and the companion book

are available
from WGBH Boston Video.

To place an order, please call: