The Incredible Human Journey is a five-episode science documentary and accompanying book, written and presented by Alice Roberts. It was first broadcast on BBC television in May and June 2009 in the UK. It explains the evidence for the theory of early human migrations out of Africa and subsequently around the world, supporting the Out of Africa Theory. This theory claims that all modern humans are descended from anatomically modern African Homo sapiens rather than from the more archaic European and Middle Eastern Homo neanderthalensis or the indigenous Chinese Homo pekinensis, and that the modern African Homo sapiens did not interbreed with the other species of genus Homo. Each episode concerns a different continent, and the series features scenes filmed on location in each of the continents featured.1. Out of Africa
In the first episode, Roberts introduces the idea that genetic analysis suggests that all modern humans are descended from Africans. She visits the site of the
Omo remains in
Ethiopia, which are the earliest known
anatomically modern humans. She visits the
San people of
Namibia to demonstrate the
hunter-gatherer lifestyle. In
South Africa, she visits
Pinnacle Point, to see the cave in which very early humans lived. She then explains that genetics suggests that all non-Africans may descend from a single, small group of Africans who left the continent tens of thousands of years ago. She explores various theories as to the route they took. She describes the
Jebel Qafzeh remains in
Israel as a likely dead end from a crossing of
Suez, and sees a route across the
Red Sea and around the
Arabian coast as the more probable route for modern human ancestors, especially given the lower sea levels of the past
2. Asia
In the second episode, Roberts travels to
Siberia and visits an isolated community of
indigenous people who still practice
reindeer hunting. With reference to them, she asks how ancient Africans could have adapted to the hostile climate of northern Asia, and why Asian people look so different from Africans.
Roberts then explores an alternative to the
Out of Africa theory, the
multiregional hypothesis that has gained support in some scientific communities in China. According to this theory, the Chinese are descended from a human
species called
Homo erectus rather than from the
Homo sapiens from which the rest of humanity
evolved. Roberts visits the
Zhoukoudian caves, in which
Peking Man, the supposed
Homo erectus ancestor of the Chinese, was discovered. Roberts notes that some Chinese anthropologists and palaeontologists have shown modern Chinese physical characteristics in the fossil skulls, such as broad cheek bones, cranial skull shape and shovel-shaped
incisors that are absent in almost all other humans. She also notes that the stone tools found in China seem more primitive than those elsewhere, and infers that they were made exclusively by
Homo erectus. However, she argues that the skull evidence is only subtle. She interviews an American palaeontologist, who presents his hypothesis that the ancient Chinese humans used bamboo instead of stone, explaining the absence of sophisticated stone tools, despite the absence of archaeological evidence to support this hypothesis. Finally, Roberts interviews Chinese geneticist
Jin Li, who ran a study of more than 10,000 individuals scattered throughout China from 160 ethnic groups. The study initially hypothesised that the modern Chinese population evolved from
Homo erectus in China but concluded that the Chinese people did in fact evolve and migrate from Africa like the rest of world's population.
3. Europe
In the third episode, Roberts describes the various waves of
anatomically modern humans that settled the continent of
Europe. She crosses the
Bosphorus and travels up the
Danube River, following their likely route. She then describes the already resident population of
Neanderthals, and visits
Gibraltar, the last known site occupied by Neanderthals. She suggests that the principal difference between them and
Homo sapiens was the latter's ability to create art, and visits the
cave paintings at
Lascaux. She discusses the theories about why Europeans have
white skin and describes the birth of
agriculture and the societal changes that took place as a result, visiting a spectacular
Neolithic temple in
Turkey.
4. Australia
In the fourth episode, Roberts discusses the evidence of the
Mungo Lake remains, which suggest, unexpectedly, that humans reached
Australia long before they reached Europe, even though Australia is further away from Africa. Roberts attempts to trace the journey. She visits a site in
India that appears to indicate that humans were present there 70,000 years ago, before the
Toba supervolcano deposited ash on the site. She then points to the
Negrito people of Southeast Asia, who look different from other Asian peoples, and who may be descendants of the peoples who first left Africa. She describes the discovery of the tiny
Homo floresiensis on
Flores and suggests that they may have been exterminated by modern humans. She describes the crossing of the
Torres Strait by experimenting with a bamboo raft. She concludes by visiting a tribe in Northern Australia whose mythology describes their mother goddess arriving from across the sea.
5. The Americas
In the final episode, Roberts describes theories about how humans traversed from Asia to the
Americas, asking how they achieved it during the
Ice Age, when the route to North America was blocked by ice walls. She describes the traditional theory that the first Americans were the
Clovis culture, who
arrived through an ice-free corridor towards the end of the Ice Age 13,000 years ago. However, she then visits archaeological sites in
Texas,
Brazil, the
Californian Channel Islands and
Monte Verde in southern
Chile, which show 14,000-year-old human remains, proving that humans must have arrived earlier by a different route. She shows the skull of the
Luzia Woman, found in Brazil, which displays
Australasian features rather than the
East Asian features of modern
Native Americans; an archaeologist explains that these first Americans may have been Asians who migrated before Asians developed their distinctive facial features. Roberts shows that the earliest Americans
may have migrated down the relatively ice-free western coastlines of North and South America. She concludes by noting that, when Europeans arrived in 1492, they did not recognise Native Americans as fully human, but that modern genetics and archaeology proves that we all ultimately descend from Africans.
.jpg)
.jpg)
