All language subtitles for BBC.Planet.of.the.Apemen.Battle.for.Earth.2of2.Neanderthal.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?

32,000 years ago,

a new species of human
was spreading out across Europe.

The colour of their skin
betrayed their African origins.

Homo sapiens hadn't
been here very long,

and there weren't very many of them.

These people were modern humans.

They were our ancestors.

As they spread out through
the continent, they entered

the territory of another human
species - 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.

Using the latest archaeological
and scientific research,

what follows is a dramatisation

of one of the most crucial periods
in human history.

HISSING CLICKS

HORSE WHINNIES

HE SHOUTS

You missed. Jala threw first.

Jala is young.

You missed.

32,000 years ago,
in what's now modern-day Europe,

the Homo sapiens population hovered
at just about 10,000 people.

They were struggling to survive
because of climate change.

Temperatures were
fluctuating wildly,

four to five degrees Celsius
every 150 years,

going from warm to cold
and back to warm again.

The consequences were catastrophic.

Environments may have fluctuated
between more open

grassland environments
and more forested environments.

So this would have changed
as the climate

got warmer and colder.

These dramatic shifts
between grassland and forests

would have made life extremely
difficult for animals...

and the humans that preyed on them.

For big mammals like
Homo sapiens and Neanderthals,

the way they deal with rapid
climate change is to move.

So rapid shifts in climate
would probably have bring...

have brought Homo sapiens
and Neanderthals in closer contact.

Let Jala throw. Jala?

We need to eat!

Jala...

Do not miss.

SHE SHOUTS

Byana!

Byana!

Why?

We need food.

I want to help.
You cannot throw a spear!

Teach me, Father! Go home!

Jala, take your sister home.

Wait.

You have the mother.

Give it to me. Why?

Give.

My mother gave this to your mother.

It brought your brother, Jala.

It brought you.

My mother,

your mother, Byana.

Mother.

Archaeologists believe that these
objects were fertility symbols.

Although some playfully suggest

that they may have
pornographic overtones.

They have been found at sites
all across Europe.

By the time we get to
40 or 50 thousand years ago,

modern humans are certainly
using symbols to communicate
with each other

and transmitting information between
people, even between generations,

so it's becoming
very important for modern humans.

When we find these things
carved out of ivory,

the hardest substance in a mammalian
skeleton, that tells you

that the symbols are really, really
important. Something like this

carved out of ivory would take
hundreds and hundreds of hours.

That's hundreds and hundreds of hours
taken away from some other
important activity,

like raising the kids or hunting
or these sorts of things.

A shared belief in the
importance in objects like this

can help to bind people together.

And in hard times that's
just as important a survival tool

as a sharp spear.

See, now you.

Teach me.

You throw straight,

but I cannot teach strength.

Come on, home.

Byana.

Look at this.

A man's foot.

A big man's foot.

A big man's foot.

Come, we must go, back to Father.

What, a man has big feet
and you want to turn back?

Don't you want to go hunting?

The ancestors of Neanderthals,
like every other human species,

evolved in Africa, but they quickly
moved out and into Europe

and they'd been living there
for nearly half a million years.

There was one very obvious physical
difference between us and them -

size.

This is a cast of a Neanderthal
femur, thigh bone, and you can see

just by comparing it to
a recent human thigh bone

some pretty clear
and obvious differences.

The Neanderthal thigh bone
is massive. It's huge...

that tells you that these were
big, strong people.

Bone grows in response to strain -
the more you strain bone,
the more it grows.

These were people who solved problems
with brute force.

Doesn't mean they're stupid,
but it means that they're using
brute force intelligently.

That physical power was
complemented by another vital asset.

The brain volume of Neanderthals
and humans is very similar,

in fact Neanderthal average
brain sizes are somewhat larger
than modern humans today.

So as well as having considerably
larger bodies, Neanderthals also had

significantly larger brains, and
that made them a formidable enemy.

The popular image of Neanderthals
and Homo sapiens

bumping into one another is that
the Neanderthals were a pushover,

that Homo sapiens waltzed in
and kicked the Neanderthals out
without a contest.

That's extremely unlikely.

Neanderthals are big people,
strong people, smart people,

and in much of Europe and western
Asia they had home court advantage.

The day this mother
brought me to the world,

it brought death to our mother.

Shh!

Hold her tight - she'll protect you.
TWIG SNAPS

HORSE NEIGHS

Who are they?

Neanderthals were originally
dark-skinned,

but over hundreds of thousands of
years their skin colour

had become lighter in the colder,
darker climate of Europe.

But white skin was an obvious
disadvantage on the hunt.

Neanderthals may have
painted themselves, you know,
with black stripes for camouflage

like many hunters do nowadays, or
soldiers do when they're in combat,

they paint themselves
with camouflage to break up

the appearance of their bodies,
so they don't...

They're not as easily perceived
by an enemy or a predator.

Camouflaged bodies
allowed them to get much closer
to their unsuspecting prey.

Rather than throwing projectiles
they used their bodies as weapons,

so a Neanderthal attack
on its prey would involve

a quick charge and then trying to
knock the animal to the ground.

Kind of like, this is the way, you
know, lions and other predators hunt.

They spring from ambush,
they grab their prey,

they knock it to the ground
and then they kill it.

But that hunting strategy was risky
and extremely dangerous.

Neanderthals have a lot of injuries
on their skeletons.

They do have a lot of
healed fractures

and marks of trauma,
head injuries and so on.

So life was certainly dangerous
for these people,

and it's been argued that this
injury pattern in modern humans,

in modern athletes at least, is most
closely matched by rodeo riders.

So these are people
who are having to get close in
to dangerous wild animals.

Araha. Doh, doh labah!

Doh, doh.

Experts believe that Neanderthals
had unusually good eyesight.

This is because the area
at the back of the skull

where the brain's visual senses
are located

is bigger in Neanderthals
than Homo sapiens.

In the murky gloom of the forest,

that may have given them
a significant advantage.

What's wrong?
I've dropped the mother.

Byana. I'll go...run! No, Jala!

Jala, quick!

No!

Byana, run!

It wasn't just their bodies that
the Neanderthals used as weapons.

They'd also developed an equally
lethal technology - the spear.

This stone-tipped spear is the
kind of spear that Neanderthals made.

It's big, it's heavy,
it's attached to a massive shaft

in order to resist bending.
It's a thrusting spear. Throwing
this is like throwing a brick -

it's not going to go very far, it's
going to drop very, very quickly.

I'm sorry.

This spear was designed for maximum
killing power at close quarters.

Now, you can see
the kind of wound this creates.

A huge gash, enormous gash
in the animal's skin.

This point is enormous.

Once it's inside there,
it's causing all kinds of damage,

but the advantage of
a spear like this with
a thick shaft and a broad blade

is that when it's inside the animal
and the animal's trying to
fight and get away,

if you're really strong
and you hold onto this thing,
it's not going any place.

The trick is you just can't
let go of the spear.

A weapon like this works only
if you're very, very strong.

It's not a throwing weapon.

These spears, the ones made by
Homo sapiens,

are made to be thrown.
They're projectile weapons.

The stone points are narrow and thin
so they maximize impact.

Unlike the Neanderthal spear,

in the right hands this weapon
could kill at a distance.

You see, it's left a very
cylindrical hole.

And it's hit
right in the heart and lung area,

so this is the kind of wound
that would kill almost instantly.

If not instantly, then again it
would bleed out and you'd be able to
track it fairly straightforwardly.

The key advantage
of a weapon like this

is that it is cylindrical,
it has a very narrow cross-section,

so all the energy of this spear,

all the force that's behind it
is concentrated onto a small area,

which means when it hits,
it hits with a lot of power.

It doesn't slash and cut
like the Neanderthal spear,

it hits like a bullet does,
it kills by shock.

Survival is dependent on
more than just brute strength
and powerful weapons.

Communication skills
are also a vital element
in the struggle to stay alive.

And our ancestors were
better equipped with these
than any other human species.

They should be back.

Where could they be?

Byana!

Byana! Where have you been?

Where is Jala?

Where is he?

Where's Jala?!

Jala...is dead.

Monsters...

Monsters! What monsters?

A bear?

A wild cat? Monsters!

Wolves? Monsters.

Like us...but bigger!

What is wrong with you?

If it is wolves, say wolves,

if it is a cat, say cat.

Oh, Father.

Get the men ready.

We must find Jala.

Are you sure he's alive?
To bury him!

Whatever killed him will eat him.

You're afraid? No, but we have...

He's my son!

My son.

We need food.

There are no monsters out there,

but there are wild cats,

wolves, bears.

We have lost one young hunter.

We cannot lose any more.

32,000 years ago,
our ancestors came up with
another crucial invention

which helped to ensure
our survival.

It was something that archaeologists
think Neanderthals
never developed -

the needle.

It meant that we could make
close-fitting and warm clothing,

essential for hunting
in the ever-changing climate.

Why can't we hunt?

Men do the hunting. But why?

What are you doing?

Not this way...

Do it this way.

If we all hunt, we'll get more food.

Man, woman...

this way, that way.

A man hunts...a woman stays.

But why?

You can't hunt with a baby
inside you or in your arms,

or holding onto your leg.

But I don't have a baby. Not yet.

Dividing up tasks
between men and women

was vital to our species' survival.

If the men didn't kill anything
on the hunt, the nuts, berries

and roots that the women gathered
provided a reliable source of food.

It might not seem revolutionary,
but this simple exchange

between men and women
would end up transforming our world.

The invention of
the sexual division of labour

got us into the habit of
specialisation and exchange -

"you do this,
I'll do that and we'll swap."

Once we'd invented it
between the sexes,

we could then think about doing it
between individuals

and we could then think about
doing it between bands.

So you could say, "You guys are
good at fishing we're good at
gathering fruit, we'll swap."

Or, "You're good at making spears,
I'm good at making axes,

"I'll make all the axes, you make
all the spears and we'll swap."

And of course the beauty of that
system is the more you specialise,

the better you get
at your specialised task.

so the more value there is,
the more time-saving there is

in delegating tasks to others
and swapping and specialising
in this way.

That's actually the whole story
of human history ever since,
that's what prosperity is.

Byana!

SHE WHISPERS

Where are the others?

We had a bad winter.

And many died.

We are hungry.

No buffalo,

no horse? Not on the plains.

But they will return.

They always do.

The animals are moving.

If the animals move, we must move.

Follow the food.

It will mean moving camp.

We should wait. We waited too long.

What's this?

Why is it like this?

Always you ask why, Byana.

For the spear...

they go together?

They do...

like man and woman.

Come here. No.

Byana!

She has just lost a brother.

Do you want to lose a husband?

She will bring you many children,
many.

Byana...show him,

show him. What?

The mother.

Show him!

No.

No. I won't.

Byana.

Byana!

Byana!

Together...

..your men, my men,

we are stronger.

Tomorrow we move to a new camp.

Two tribes, together stronger.

In the struggle for survival,
numbers mattered.

Forging alliances allowed
Homo sapiens' villages to grow,

accommodating up to 150 people.

Neanderthal villages
were much smaller,

rarely getting bigger than family
groups of 10 to 15 individuals.

We've got to imagine that
Neanderthals were maybe living

on average in smaller groups
than we were,

and of course what we've got
with modern humans

is that we map relationships
in different ways.

Neanderthals probably operated
mainly on person-to-person contact,

face-to-face contact.

So their interactions were
direct with each other.

With modern humans, we have
much more complex social systems,

and there's no doubt that
modern humans, when we communicate
with each other,

a lot of it is done symbolically.
We exchange information,
we trade objects.

We know that modern humans in Europe
were moving objects

across the continent over much
bigger areas than Neanderthals did.

So with modern humans,
our networks reach much further
in time and space.

The spear-thrower was
a simple device

that allowed spears to be thrown
further and with more power.

Developed 50,000 to 60,000 years
ago, it was such an effective weapon

that Native Americans were
still using a version of it
right up until the 16th century.

In the right hands, this piece of
technology isn't just powerful,

but deadly accurate.

As you can see,
another bullet-shaped wound
right in the heart and lung area.

If this was a person,
they'd be in a lot of trouble.

This would knock them off their feet,
pin them to the ground,
pin them to a tree.

This would be a very dangerous wound,
a wound that would probably
kill somebody outright.

This is a tremendous change
from earlier weapon systems.

This is a weapons system
that swaps speed for power.

By moving the projectile point
very, very fast,

it tremendously increases the amount
of kinetic energy, of force

that one can bring to bear.
A hand-thrown spear doesn't
even approach this.

This weapon was so effective
that it spread like wildfire.

A development that might not seem
particularly special,

but it was unique to our species.

What's wonderful about
a spear thrower is that it's
a brilliant idea and a simple idea,

but it's not an idea that would
necessarily occur to someone.

But on a rare occasion, somewhere
by accident, through serendipity,

somebody works out that actually you
can speed up the power of a spear.

If that happens
in a Neanderthal troop

it stays in the troop, the idea.

The idea never leaves the troop.
You don't get a transfer of ideas

between bands, between tribes, in
the way you do with modern humans.

Whereas what happened with this idea
is that it started spreading
like a virus, through contact,

through trade between people,
and suddenly it's everywhere.

If there was a case where people
armed with weapons like this

went up against people who lacked
them or equivalent technology,

the people who lacked this kind of
technology wouldn't stand a chance.

Where has she gone?

She makes you look foolish,
she makes me look foolish.

She will come back.

And my men will be gone. No!

One more day...please.

We must follow the food.
Together we are stronger!

Then find her.

Now.

Morda!

Find Byana.

You two...

let's go hunting.

There were cave lions in Europe
at this time.

A separate species from
their African cousins,

they were 10% bigger.

Europe at this time was populated
by large numbers

of now extinct animals which have
modern African counterparts.

The mammoth was a cousin
of the elephant.

And the woolly rhino was
a much hairier version
of the African species.

As the climate fluctuated,

these large animals
were forced to move, leaving behind

some much more
dangerous carnivores...

like wolves, which are still
around Europe today,

and the sabre-toothed cat
which is now extinct.

She's a fool,

like her father.

This way.

Come on!

Ramah!

Tador.

Natak!

For Jala!

Jala?

Ndah-derh?

Ndah-der Jala?

Jala?

Jala.

Erha.

Erha!

Scientists believe that
Neanderthals, like us, had language.

They've discovered that we share
a specific gene with Neanderthals

that's vital for developing
an ability to speak.

There's also some compelling
anatomical evidence that indicates
that they could talk.

Jala?

Ndah-derh?

This early Homo sapiens skull
is shaped very much like
yours or mine.

This means this individual could
speak more or less like I'm doing.

It had a very flexed
upper respiratory tract.

That allows one's tongue to move
back and forth very rapidly
and breaks sound up,

like I'm doing now.
But there's a risk involved in that.

The risk is that it's easy to choke
as food particles make their way
around that turn.

They caught behind the tongue
and the back of the windpipe
and people choke every day.

That's an unusual thing
in primate evolution.

Most primates, most mammals,
have a relatively less flexed
upper respiratory tract,

and that's what we see
with these Neanderthals.

Their face is out in front
of their brain,

the bottom of their skull is
less flexed, and in all likelihood,

their upper respiratory tract
made a more gentle curve.

Now, that's advantageous
if you want to get food in there fast
and eat efficiently,

but it's disadvantageous
in terms of speech.

It means they probably didn't speak
as rapidly as our ancestors did.

Jala. Jala.

TWIG SNAPS
What was that?

There is nothing to fear...

only monsters.

Why didn't you kill him?

I couldn't. You want to hunt...

but you cannot kill.

He saved me from the wildcat.
Where is it now?

The wildcat?

Where it died.

Let's go.

Meat!

In the fight for survival,
Homo sapiens had another significant
advantage over Neanderthals.

To fuel their bigger bodies,
Neanderthals had to eat

twice as much as Homo sapiens
on a daily basis.

It's true that if you've got
a big body and a big brain,

you've got to have the energy
to keep that going.

And there's no doubt that this
very heavy body of Neanderthals,

and that muscle mass
and that large brain,

all of that is going to require
a regular input of food
to get them through,

and in a sense, this might have
made them more vulnerable

if resources were fluctuating, if
there were competing human groups -

maybe modern humans
competing with them -

who were a bit more efficient
at extracting material
from the environment

and less demanding
of the environment,

possibly modern humans
might have had the edge
in a competition in that way.

Herarah!

Tetah.

SCREAMS

Neanderthals cared for
their sick and injured.

Archaeologists have uncovered
skeletal remains which show

that a Neanderthal man
with a withered arm

was cared for
for as long as 20 years.

It shows us that Neanderthals cared
about each other. And this extended

not just on a day-to-day basis,
but over months and years.

That this individual had presumably
family that cared about him

and they were regularly provisioning
and supporting him

through what must have been
very difficult times.

The fact that he survived
these injuries in the first place

and then survived for
some time afterwards, when people
must have been bringing him food

right through the year for him
to survive and carry on living

and for these injuries to heal
to the extent they did.

What is it?

This is the place.

Are you sure?

So where's the cat?

Footprints.

Let's go.

No, we turn back.

Tomorrow we leave
and follow the food.

The monsters will follow
and take our food.
They aren't monsters. Byana!

RUSTLING

Where are the others?

Dead.

They're all dead.

Monsters.

They'll kill us all.

We must hunt them down...

or they will hunt for us.

They're not monsters,

they're like us.

Tell us again what they did
to your brother.

The outcome of any physical conflict
between Neanderthals
and Homo sapiens

wouldn't have been
a foregone conclusion.

There were advantages
and disadvantages on both sides.

For Neanderthals, the principal
advantages would have been

in close quarters combat, getting in
close and fighting hand to hand.

In terms of the strength difference,
Neanderthals would probably win.

For Homo sapiens,
taking on a Neanderthal opponent,

the trick is,
don't let them get close.

Stand off,
attack with projectile weapons.

Find a way to flank them,
attack from this and this direction
simultaneously,

so they're hitting at least
two directions at the same time.

Take your men that way.

You, the other side.

The rest will follow me.

Wait for my signal.

These are monsters, not horses.

Come on.

Run! Turn back!

We can't win close up,
we need room to throw the spears.

Come on, let's get to higher ground.

Let's eat.

What is it?

It's another one.

Byana!

Keep away! Byana!

Dead?

Always Byana, I say one thing,
you do another.

Ah!

It is not too bad. Don't worry.

Tomorrow, Byana,
we'll give you to him.

Together...stronger.

No.

She does not want to be a wife.

Do you?

Together...

..stronger.

Come, Byana, eat.

Neanderthals had dominated Europe
for nearly half a million years.

But from the moment our ancestors
entered the continent,

their days were numbered.

The differences between us and them
weren't huge, but they mattered.

Within a few thousand years,
Neanderthal numbers slumped
into a terminal decline.

They ended up being squeezed
into one small corner of Europe.

The last known refuge of the
Neanderthals was here in Gibraltar.

They lived their final years
in these caves.

Archaeologists believe
the last Neanderthal died out

around 24,000 years ago.

As a scientist, one can't help
but wish that Neanderthals
were still around.

It would be wonderful.

We'd learn so much from them,
because they are, as it were,
the other human species.

They're our close...

they would be our closest relative
in the animal kingdom.

We'd learn about things
like language,

because they probably had language
but a different kind of language.

We'd learn what's special about us,

some things we think are special
about us would turn out not to be,
they'd have them too.

Other things that we don't realise
are special about us
would come home.

They show us a different way
to be human, and I think that's...

You know, it's a separate
evolutionary path

that went its own way, shared much
of our own evolutionary history,

shared many features with us,
but also developed their own
distinctive features

and went their own way, with their
own ways of adapting, their own ways
of coping with the environment.

So they're a fascinating experiment
in how to be a human being.

Evolution involves extinction.
Extinction is a part of evolution.

Neanderthals became extinct.

They're gone. They're fascinating,
but they're gone.

At some point in the remote future,
some other documentary will examine

the question of poor old
Homo sapiens, and what did them in.

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