The Incredible Human Journey
Episode One
How did we get here? Following a trail of clues from the latest
scientific research, Dr Alice Roberts re-traces the greatest ever
journey taken by our ancestors. Thousands of years ago one small group
of our species, Homo sapiens, crossed out of Africa and into the
unknown. Their descendants faced baking deserts, sweat-soaked jungles
and frozen wildernesses and risked everything on the vast empty ocean.
Out of Africa.
Alice travels to Africa in search of the
birthplace of the first people. They were so few in number and so
vulnerable that today they would probably be considered an endangered
species. So what allowed them to survive at all? The Bushmen of the
Kalahari have some answers - the unique design of the human body made
them efficient hunters and the ancient click language of the Bushmen
points to an early ability to organise and plan.
Humans survived
there, but Africa was to all intents and purposes a sealed continent.
So how and by what route did humans make it out of Africa? Astonishing
genetic evidence reveals that everyone alive today who is not African
descends from just one successful, tiny group which left the continent
in a single crossing, an event that may have happened around 70
thousand years ago. But how did they do it? Alice goes searching for
clues in the remote Arabian Desert.