All language subtitles for BBC.Planet.of.the.Apemen.Battle.for.Earth.1of2.Homo.Erectus.PDTV.XviD.AC3.MVGroup.org.eng

This is our world.

We have shaped it in our image.

Made it our own.

We are now the only humans
in existence.

Absolute rulers of the Earth.

But there was a time when we shared
this planet with other,

very different types of human.

By the time our ancestors left
Africa around 100,000 years ago,

most of these "others"
had gone extinct.

But not all.

Other species had made the journey
out of Africa before us.

Smart, strong and well adapted
to their environment,

they were the dominant species
on the planet.

So what happened
when our worlds collided?

Why, despite all their advantages,

were those others
driven to extinction?

Why, against the odds, did we win
the Battle For Planet Earth?

Around 100,000 years ago,

a new species of human
arrived in what is now India.

The colour of their skin
betrayed their African origins.

They had language.

They lived in small,
tightly-bonded family groups.

These were Homo sapiens -
modern people.

They were us.

Their numbers were few,

and from Africa they had begun
to spread slowly across the world.

But Asia was already occupied.

Home to a different human species -

Homo erectus.

Erectus was a fascinating species,
it lasted for a very long time.

It's really the longest-lived
human species we know about.

These are people that are being
very mobile, in open country,

to get to their food,

and often to get to their food
ahead of the competition.

So in that sense,
they're very like us

in terms of their overall body shape
and body build.

No water.

Come.

Although physically similar,

any chance
of a peaceful co-existence

between Homo sapiens
and Homo erectus

was shattered by a cataclysmic event

that took place
over 2,000 miles away.

The eruption of Mount Toba
in south-east Asia.

74,000 years ago,

it erupted on a scale that no human
had experienced before or since.

It's certainly the largest
volcanic eruption

of the last two million years

and erupted a huge amount
of material.

And because of its magnitude,

it's been classed
as a super-volcanic eruption.

The fallout from the eruption
extended as far as the Indian
sub-continent.

We've got areas,
particularly in East India,

where the ash reaches
six metres in thickness.

Ash fall from the eruption
filled the atmosphere
with toxic chemicals...

..turning rain to acid
that poisoned lakes and rivers...

..intensifying the struggle
for survival.

In the aftermath
of the Toba eruption,

you might have increased competition
because, remember,

plants and animals are suffering

and these small groups
of hunter-gatherers

are competing
for diminished resources

and so that may have caused
some situations

where there was conflict
between groups.

Based on the latest archaeological
and scientific evidence,

this is a dramatisation of a world
forged by the Toba eruption.

A time which shaped the fates
of two different
but closely related species.

Us...and them.

Leave it.

Water!

Wait! Baako, wait!

Drink.

Don't drink it! What are you doing?

How do you know the water is good?

People were here. They lived here.

Why do you think they left?

The people, did they go
to the mountains for clean water?

These are NOT people!

As the once-lush Indian landscape
turned to desert,

clean water became scarce
and increasingly hard to find.

We'll find somewhere
for you to rest.

Up there.

The Toba eruption was so vast,
it would have affected
the whole planet.

In the aftermath,
human numbers fell dramatically.

We were threatened with extinction.

In India, the struggle to survive
would have been particularly harsh.

This was erectus territory.

For thousands of years,
erectus had been one of Asia's
most successful predators.

The arrival of modern humans
would have threatened their world.

We're talking
a different species of human.

Erectus was a much more
ancient species of human.

So we've got this very strong
brow ridge at the front,

a long and low skull.
A big face.

Overall bigger teeth than us.
If we had the lower jaw,

there wouldn't be a chin
on the lower jaw.

So overall, much more robust.
The skull is thicker,

muscle markings are very strong.

She's sleeping, but needs water.

What are they
if they're not people?

All I know, I know from stories.

And from my father.

They move fast, like us.

They hunt.

They kill.

If someone comes near...

..they will snap a twig.

And Mother will hear.
You will hear them.

I will come with you!

Stay with your mother,
she needs you.

If I do not return,

keep our family alive.

The first human species
to walk fully upright,

erectus, would have made
formidable opponents.

This is a cast of a thigh bone or
femur of Homo erectus from Africa.

It tells us Homo erectus was similar
to us below the neck.

More particularly, this ridge
on the back of their thigh bone,

this is the pilaster,
and it grows in response to running.

People today who have similar kinds
of ridges on their femurs

and have femurs of similar sorts
of shape like this

tend to be very good runners.

We're talking about people,
Olympic athletes.

If they were around today, chasing
people around, you'd be in trouble.

These guys were like wolves
with knives.

With bodies beautifully evolved
for running,

erectus were the first human species
to hunt big game.

To begin with,
erectus was scavenging,

so picking up the meat from other
animals that had done the killing.

But by the end of their time, they
were certainly big game hunters,

and were capable big game hunters.

Hunting big prey would have
required erectus to work
co-operatively, in packs.

Mother.

SCREAM

Cunning carnivores at the very top
of the food chain,

erectus were armed
with a lethal stone weapon.

It looks just like a rock.

But if you look more carefully,

you can see it has
a very sharp cutting edge

that goes around its circumference.

It's also thin, a cross section,
so you have a very sharp edge.

And from what we can reconstruct
of its use,

it was used mainly for cutting
the limbs off of an animal.

It's the Stone Age equivalent
of a chainsaw.

For cutting through skin.
Cutting through muscle.

Cutting through tendons.

If you're using this as a weapon,
it would create a pretty nasty
slashing wound.

Like that.
Yeah, it's all-purpose knife.

No, go away!

Mother!

Leave us alone! No!

Although we think of necklaces
as a way of dressing up,

for our ancestors, they had
a much more important role.

Recent human cultures used beads
and other personal adornments

to transmit information, in a way.

Certain combinations of shells
can symbolically convey information

about the person wearing them.

Personal adornments,
symbols like this,

can be ways that people
can establish

communications and relationships
across great distances,

so it's kind of like a passport
when you think about it.

Beads like these helped us
to identify friend from foe,

allowing us to form alliances
with others.

Where's your father?
He went to find water.

They took him.

Who took him? Did they see you?

Did they see you? Did they see you?

To the rock. Quick!

The ability to track
evolved with the ability to hunt.

Homo erectus were the first humans
to systematically track their prey,

using scent, sight and sound.

Their large brains
could interpret signs,

work out the movements of their
prey, making them deadly hunters.

Our ancestors, however,
had a significant advantage.

We had learned to anticipate the
thoughts and behaviours of others,

and use that knowledge
to outsmart them.

Find your footprints
where you came down.

Step in them backwards.

Backwards!

Keep going.

Stop!

What are you staring at?

HE ROARS

Go! Stay on the rock.

They have father's spear!

There is no evidence
that Homo erectus made spears.

Even if they had, they couldn't have
used them the way we do.

Their shoulders lacked the ability
to twist, so their palms
faced forwards,

instead of hanging sideways
as with modern humans.

So even if they had invented
the spear, they may not have been
able to throw it.

In the hands of our ancestors,
the spear became a very
effective weapon.

The most important advantage of this
kind of weapon is that it allows
the person using it

to put some distance between them
and the tip of the spear.

Whereas with a hand axe,
you're using the weapon close up.

In this case, you have
a long distance between yourself,
your hands,

and the part of the tool
that's doing the killing.

The spear was also effective
close up.

Here you can see the kind of wound
it makes. A big slashing wound.

You can see the point's inside
the abominable cavity there

and the animal's moving,
the movement of that point
will cause damage,

it will cause haemorrhage,
cause the animal to bleed out
and die more quickly.

The spear wasn't our ancestors'
only weapon.

I will keep you safe.
Not with a spear.

The point is sharp.

Hmm. "The point is sharp."

Throw a spear once, then what?

Keep watch.

At some point in the distant past,
they developed something very new.

One spear. Many stones!

Here.

The slingshot, like the spear,

gave our ancestors the ability
to strike and kill from a distance.

If you hit a small animal with this,
it's like hitting you or I
with a car.

It'll crush bones,
it'll stop it in its tracks.

This is a weapon that allows you
to go after birds in flight,

rabbits on the move, deer,
creatures like this.

It also has value as an
offensive weapon in warfare.

You know, David and Goliath.

These things are really dangerous,
no joke.

Even in modern conflicts,
people armed with these things have
been known to kill other people.

It can cause devastating injuries,
one of these things against
a limb will break a bone.

If it hits your head,
it can kill you.

In the 1.8 million years
Homo erectus had been on the planet,

their weapons technology hadn't
progressed beyond the hand axe.

A highly effective, multi-purpose
weapon, it was portable,

simple to make, easy to replace
and the perfect tool to cut,
sever and smash.

But it was limiting
in one crucial way.

To kill, erectus had to get close.

For the first time, Homo erectus
faced competition from a species

who weren't bigger, stronger
or more numerous,

but who simply thought about things
in a different way.

It's worked. They've gone.

You drank bad water.

You should know better.

Water?

What else?

Fragments of fossilised ostrich egg
shells from the Thar desert
in India

suggest that our ancestors
may have used these eggs
to store and transport water.

Just as the San bushmen in Africa
have been doing for centuries.

This ability to plan ahead was
something our hominid rivals lacked.

Homo sapiens' brain is about a third
larger than Homo erectus' brain,
and that tells you something.

Brains are expensive tissues.

It costs a lot of calories
to grow a big brain.

So there has to be some payoff
for that extra brain.

We think the payoff for Homo sapiens
is more complex thought,

where they are able to plan
more complex activities,
store more information.

Homo erectus wasn't stupid,
but Homo sapiens may have had
some key advantages

as a consequence of having a larger,
more complex brain.

Another advantage we had
was language.

Differences between our and their
linguistic abilities

can be seen by comparing skulls.

The part of the brain that controls
language and speech production

is located right around here.

And you can see these parts
of the Homo sapiens' brain

are very much enlarged.

That part of the skull
bows outward quite a bit,

and so there's more brain
in that part of the head.

On the corresponding part
of Homo erectus' skull,

the brain is relatively small.

So the Homo erectus brain
is not devoting a lot of space

to the parts of the brain
that controls language and speech.

One of the crucial elements
of Homo sapiens' adaptations

is that it combines
complex planning,

developed in the front
of the brain here, with language,

with the ability to spread complex
plans from one individual

to the other individual,
to another individual.

Where's it from? Far from here.

Before they came and chased us out.

Us? You were with others?

My son...

..his wife, their baby boy.

Enough!

Don't drink it all!

There's more water nearby.

No, there isn't.

Here, on higher ground.

There's been no rain.

But father said...
Your father was wrong!

There is no water here.

But away from the rock...

..across the sand, there is water.

More water than you can imagine.

How do you know?

My father told me.

He came from the water.

Inside there is food.

Not in that one, not now.

There is no food on this mountain,

but at the water...

..there is more food
than you can eat.

Imagination, the ability
to visualise what can't be seen,

would prove another defining
advantage for our species.

Like us, erectus are believed to
have lived in small family groups.

There is evidence that they cared
for each other, and looked after
the sick and injured.

There are some hints that they may
have had a sense of compassion.

Comparable to the things
we feel about one another.

There are fossils from the site
of Dmanisi in Georgia

that hint at this.

One fossil in particular
had lost all of its teeth,

either to an infection
or to old age, or to both,

and this individual
was so severely handicapped

that it would have had
to have assistance.

Some other member of its group
would have had to help it

basically chew its food in order
for this individual to survive.

Erectus moved around
in search of food

and rarely settled
for any length of time.

They were using the landscape,
they were travelling from
one place to another.

And they were probably gathering
resources, gathering, you know,

plants and they were occasionally,
obviously, butchering animals.

So these were, in a sense, small
groups of hunters and gatherers.

But after the Toba eruption,
there was not much left to gather.

Ash killed off vegetation,

leaving little in the way of fruit,
nuts and tubers to eat.

They have food.

Meat would have been highly valued.

They have food!

Meat? We must leave.

What about father?
Forget your father!

We must wait for him! Huh, wait!

WHISPERS: There are no animals here.

I know that smell!

Tell him.

Tonight, we stay here. What?!

This is where he will come.

He will not come.

He's a brave man.

He's strong.

At first light, we go.

With or without him.

Father's alive.

I know he is.

WANGARI GRUMBLES IN HER SLEEP

WANGARI SNORES

She even talks in her sleep! Shhh.

Respect your elders.

She talks too much.

I don't like her.

I don't like her,
but she knows things.

And she has water.

We could take the water
and leave her.

Shall we?

Go back to sleep.

HE GRUNTS WITH EFFORT

HE COUGHS

Baako.

Baako!

Father!

HE ROARS

She's gone.

Like other large predators,
erectus were territorial,

hunting within boundaries
and defending their territory
from other competition.

She left this.

Territory based on high ground
would have been especially prized,

because it makes
spotting prey easier.

I saw father on that ridge...

..with the others.

Anything that strayed
into their territory
would have been treated as food.

Don't be afraid.

Footprints.

Everywhere.

Recent studies suggest that erectus
were infected by tapeworms,

which you get from eating raw meat.

It seems that erectus
liked his food red and bloody,

even though he could have cooked it.

HE SNIFFS

They were here. Where are they now?

I don't know.

Just stay here...

..and watch.

Father?

HE GASPS

Mother!

On some occasions,
Homo erectus's hunger for meat

seems to have got
the better of them.

The fossilised remains
of an erectus found in Kenya

shows signs of vitamin A poisoning,

probably caused
by eating too much animal liver.

Excessive vitamin A causes tissue
around bones to tear and bleed.

This person would have
been in agony for months.

To survive as long as they did,
they must have been cared for
by other members of the group.

Baako!

Friend or enemy? Think!

HE SIGHS

Father.

He'll protect you.

It's yours now.

Would Homo erectus haven eaten
a Homo sapiens, given the chance?

My guess is, "Yeah."

They probably didn't view each other
as members of the same species,

and just as humans today
will eat chimpanzees as bush meat,

Homo erectus may have
felt the same way about Homo sapiens.

They may also have been cannibals.

Homo erectus bones
have been discovered

with cut marks, suggesting that the
flesh was prised off the skeleton.

Quick!

Toka?

Ta!

ERECTUS YELLS

HE HOWLS IN AGONY

Go, Mother. Go!

THEY CALL TO EACH OTHER

Keep going!

No!

Up here, quick!

Muka, halla.

HE GROWLS IN FRUSTRATION

Muka.

I can't go any further.

Keep going. No you go, run.

They're coming.

This way. This way! Quick!

A unique and crucial development
of every human species

was to harness the power of fire.

Erectus were the first
human species to use fire.

Time is the currency of evolution.

If you have more time,
you can do more things.

You can do more of the same thing
or you can experiment
and do different things.

But it's all underwritten
by having time,

and fire is one way
of providing that kind of time.

Without fire, you're not human.

Both species used fire for warmth,
and to cook and dry meat.

Cooking makes meat
a more digestible substance

and so it reduces the time
one has to spend time chewing,

frees you up to do other things.

But our ancestors
were the first to exploit
its full range of possibilities.

When they left Africa, our ancestors
most likely followed the coastline

as they moved into Arabia, India,
South East Asia and beyond.

Close to the sea, they were
guaranteed food and fresh water,

flowing from rivers into the sea.

But after Toba,
their ability to range freely
was dramatically curtailed.

Them or us?

Does it matter?

Mother?

To escape from this
eruption-ravaged land,

our ancestors faced a huge problem.

The Thar desert.

It forms a long, natural barrier
between the Indian interior
and the sea.

It has been there for hundreds of
thousands of years,

growing and contracting in response
to the changing climatic conditions.

After Toba,
the desert dramatically expanded.

So this would have brought
colder and drier conditions

into the north east
of India and this would have...

probably enhanced aridity.

So areas such as the Thar desert,
for example, may have expanded,

or areas like the Indo-Gangetic plain
may have been particularly arid.

You might have thought that
a desert, hundreds of miles wide,

would have trapped any humans
in the Indian interior.

But there is archaeological
evidence that people did attempt
to make the journey across it.

How much further?

Keep walking.

How far?

I don't know.

Look!

Follow me.
We'll lose them in the storm.

Faster!

I can't! They're coming.
Keep going.

THEY COUGH

Aro! Heeya-ha!

Wa! Waa!

Walk like this.

Wait! Stop!

We can't stop. Sit!

There's nowhere to hide.

If you want to stay,
stay, we're going.

Here, walk in this
and you walk like a wounded animal.

Round and round, backwards and
forwards, you lose yourself forever.

Do you hear me?

Do you hear me?!

No-one can be quite sure
how our ancestors made it.

Perhaps by finding water
in dry river beds,

as many indigenous people in Africa
and Asia still do today.

Even in apparently dry river beds,
after long droughts,

water can still be found
in underground reservoirs
beneath the sand.

If you know where to look.

Heko?

Heko!

Heko. Heko!

Heko.

Heko.

The ability to find water in
the dry times would have been

invaluable knowledge,
passed down the generations.

And all rivers, dry or flowing,
eventually, lead to the sea.

Come on.

Don't drink it.

Get back!

Archaeologists
working in Jawalpuram in India

have found the sort of stone tools

made by modern humans buried
beneath a thick layer of Toba ash.

Alongside our tools
were those of Homo erectus.

Above the ash,
only our tools are found.

The lack of evidence of erectus
after the Toba eruption

suggests that they might have been
wiped out in India, never to return.

In other parts of Asia,
they hung on.

Fossilised skulls from Indonesia

show Homo erectus living here until
as recently as 30,000 years ago.

A descendent of theirs,
Homo floresiensis, nicknamed
the Hobbits,

lived until about 18,000 years ago.

But then, having successfully
walked the earth

for almost two million years, this
other human species disappeared.

I think it is remarkable that we
have these different human species,

and, you know,
even 100, 000 years ago

we've still got several human
species on Earth

and that's strange for us.

We're the only survivors of all
of those great evolutionary
experiments in how to be human.

They did go extinct.

And that, of course,
was unfortunate for them,

but it made a new opportunity
for species like ourselves.

The passing of Homo erectus
was a tragedy.

We think of ourselves as so unique
and special and all the rest of this,

and we do so because there's such
a huge gulf between ourselves

and our nearest primate relatives -
gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos.

If that gap were populated
by other hominids, if we had others,

we'd see that gap as not so much
a gulf but rather a continuum
with steps on the way.

We'd still think of ourselves as
special but maybe not so special...

A little dose of humility
wouldn't hurt.

If you went back in time
and changed a few parameters

of climate and geography,
then we could have ended up with
a completely different outcome.

Maybe these species
would all still be around,

maybe modern humans would never have
evolved and we'd still have these
other species on Earth and not us.

The Toba eruption may have changed
the destiny of our species,

socially and biologically.

Experts believe that our large
brains, significantly different from

those of our closest relatives, are
the product of an intense process of

natural selection which occurred
during a period of extreme hardship
when population numbers were low.

You're home.

People.

Socially too,
Toba left a mark on our species.

Evidence reveals that
social networking in surviving
humans increased.

Through the exchange of gifts, ideas
and even people between groups,

our social relationships
strengthened and became insurance
policies against bad times,

greatly increasing
our chances of survival.

As climatic conditions improved,

our ancestors spread around
the world, hugging the coastlines,

coming in contact with other
Homo sapien groups,
forging new alliances.

Then 32,000 years ago,

our ancestors finally arrived
in Europe, to confront
the final challenge

in our Battle for the Planet -
The Neanderthals.

The way Neanderthals are treated
in the popular media is very unfair.

I mean, they were highly evolved
humans,

in their own way as evolved
as we are.

There's no other event in human
evolution

that captures the public
imagination like the encounters

between Homo sapiens
and Neanderthals.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk