The Real Eve Page #6

This was found at the beginning

of the last century in France...

and it shows us very well what the

head of the Neanderthal looked like.

There's a strong browage

over the eye sockets.

The whole face is pulled forward

and there's an enormous nose.

There's no chin

on the lower jaw.

We now think that the Neanderthals

were, perhaps, cold adapted.

They evolved for hundreds

of thousands of years in Europe...

under conditions colder

than the present day.

And their physique; they were short

and stocky, very powerfully built.

This nose may have been

part of the mechanism...

for breathing in

cold and dry air.

The Neanderthals were often

thought to be dimwitted brutes.

But they were fully human.

Their brains were as large as ours.

I think they're a different species.

But a closely related species...

a sibling species. 0ne that had

common ancestors with us...

maybe only half a million years ago.

0n that basis, they're fully human.

They're ten times closer to us

than chimpanzees are.

If they interbred with modern humans,

their genes have died out.

There's no trace of their

presence in our world.

Within 10,000 years,

the Neanderthals were extinct.

Modern humans would wipe out

all trace of their rivals...

and fill the space left behind.

The reason for their

disappearance is not clear.

They lived alongside modern man for

thousands of years. But in the end...

Neanderthals probably couldn't

adapt fast enough to the new world...

and their new resourceful rivals.

Neanderthals used their bodies

to mediate with nature...

modern humans

used their brains.

Into the void grew waves

of modern humans...

from the Middle East and Russia,

spreading throughout Europe.

Scientists think that with these waves

came 4 mitochondrial DNA lineages...

4 granddaughters

of our Out of Africa Eve.

They arrived between 45,000

and 10,000 years ago...

and most modern Europeans can

trace their lineage back to them.

Neanderthal technology had hardly

changed for over 200,000 years.

As soon as modern humans arrived,

a whole range of different tools...

suddenly appeared,

as well as ornamentations.

Archaeologists regard these ornaments

as a defining mark of modern humans.

And the first interest in ornament

in the 5,000,000 years of evolution.

Here, our most famous of these

statuettes from the Czech Republic...

made in baked clay and

about 27,000 years old...

from a site called Dolni Vestonice.

A beautiful little piece of work.

Some of them are covered with ocher

and others, polished for handling...

perhaps over many generations. These

were treasured valuable objects.

and obviously have ritual and

symbolic significance for its people.

Perhaps religious significance.

And here, one of the

most delicate pieces of art.

This is carved from mammoth ivory,

a really difficult material to work.

This is from the French site

of Brassempouy.

This is a beautiful representation

of the head of a woman...

with, again, an elaborate hairstyle

or perhaps a woven hat.

This is a really delicate

beautiful piece of work.

It's difficult to tell whether they

are representations of real people.

0r whether they're

in some way idealized...

to represent some

sort of ideal beauty.

In some cases, our data suggests

that they're based on real people.

And we find with these people the

arrival of evidence of sown clothing.

Here's one of the most direct bits

of evidence, it's a bone needle.

So, these people were sewing

cloths, sewing skins.

With evidence they were

even weaving fabrics.

This level of complexity would give

them quite a range of adaptation...

to climate, and more opportunities

for personal expression...

for things like fashion to develop.

We see this in some of the burials.

They have been buried with

garments, in some cases...

covered with thousands of beads

made from mammoth ivory.

And each of those beads represented

hours and hours of work.

So, we have evidence here of a real

richness and complexity of life...

that we don't find

with the Neanderthals.

This is an engraving of a mammoth

on a piece of mammoth tusk...

from a French site

that's about 15,000 years old.

But the Cro-Magnum didn't just

carve on pieces of bone and tusk.

They also sculpted, engraved,

and made models in clay.

And, of course, they painted

on the walls of their caves.

And this art goes back,

at least, to 35,000 years ago.

They depicted a variety of things,

often the animals they were hunting.

In some cases, dangerous animals

such as lions or woolly rhinoceroses.

In some cases, we can't recognize

what creatures are represented.

The creatures seem to be magical

symbols, imaginary creatures.

It's possible that some of this art

was being used in ceremonies...

and initiation rites.

Possibly even some of it was

created in a trance-like state...

linked with shamanism,

with magic.

Modern humans have come as far

as we could come on Europe.

Behind us, we have left

clear genetic footprints...

leading back to the one Out of

Africa movement 80,000 years ago.

10,000 miles away on the

other side of the globe...

and 6,000 years later, the invasion

of the new world would begin.

The world was cooling down again.

As the new ice age began...

modern humans have

found one place to settle.

Our genetic line's

now spread in all directions.

From the one southern

out of Africa route.

and the last remaining

frontier of America...

now has us trekking north from

India, Southeast Asia and China...

and east from the steppes in Siberia,

converging at the Bering Straits...

that fragile strip of land

joining Asia with America.

For a long time, archeologists

insisted no one had reached America...

before 15,000 years ago. But new

information from the DNA trail...

has our American ancestors crossing

the Beringia land bridge...

from Asia,

25 to 20 thousand years ago.

This is the last great journey

to populate the world.

And the genetic lines

all lead to one goal.

These are the first Americans.

25,000 years ago...

the world was moving into one of the

worst ice ages we'd have to endure.

In places the ice

was three miles thick.

But as the ice closes in...

this is the last possible moment

before it shuts off the land route...

from the Bering Straits into Alaska

and the rest of North America.

It would be another 8,000 years

before it'd open up again.

We know the first native Americans

got in about 20,000 years ago...

because we know which founding

types they brought with them.

Which mitochondrial founding types

they brought with them from Asia.

We have types in Asia similar to

the American, therefore we know...

the ones that actually

came into America...

as opposed to those which derived

since the arrival in America.

Now, on average,

the founders in America...

have accumulated

one mutation...

and since we know the mutation rate

for our genetic system...

is one mutation every 20,000 years,

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