Neanderthal
Europe, eighty thousand years ago, for countless generations the kingdom of a remarkable and mysterious creature, Neanderthal. A species of human in many ways so similar to us, and yet also very different. Tonight we’ve brought together a crack team of experts to recreate Neanderthal. In unrivalled, anatomical detail. We’ll discover exactly how modern humans would have stood up against our ancient rival in strength and endurance.
And how Neanderthals might have compared to us in intelligence and inventiveness. At the end of it all we’ll be able to answer some of the great questions of human evolution. Was Neanderthal the simple-minded brute of legend? Or a rival to our own species? And why is it that today we are the only species of human alive and the Neanderthal is extinct?
It was the beginning of a legend. What was this ancient creature and when had it lived? Soon, one thing at least became certain, it had not been alone. Remains of the savages were being found all over Europe. From the Atlantic coast in the west almost to the foothills of the Himalayas in the east. They were everywhere.
Like so many of the best stories the saga of Neanderthal began with a chance discovery. In 1848, a strange skull was discovered on the tiny military outpost of Gibraltar. When it was first revealed, it confounded everyone who saw it. There was no doubt it was human, but it also had the heavy features of an ape. (Excerpt from bbc.co.uk)
Watch the full documentary now (playlist)
why are the out of africa africans so non african in appearance?
I can’t watch the documentary. There should be a technical problem…
There is no technical problem Tugrul. The video is fine.
hey stan in africa they have white black brown light brown carmel skin people are from all over africa mabey you should look into it like egypt people arn’t as dark as the paople in mali or south africa has a lot of white folks…… i’m not being rude it’s really kind of cool to learn how many countrys laungues and different cultures are in africa really check it out
peace david
@ David
There are so many White people in In South Africa because of European colonies. And the lesser dark skinned people of Egypt and the like are because of Arabic and Persian influence. Both are more because of cultural aspects and reasons because of conquest and exploration than physical evolution.
Also because 80 thousand years ago the humans from Africa were not yet evolved the way they are now and specialized to the environments they would soon inhabit.
@ David and Stan
Hello, just to build off of what quietsamurai was saying, Africa and black people are diverse so there is no one "look" for Africans, even among the black people, people in South Africa look very different than those in Nigeria, and those in Nigeria look very different from those in Ethiopia. In addition to the diversity of the indigenous Africans there are colonial "Africans" such as the Europeans in South Africa.
Also some people in Egypt have white skin but they are Arabs and as far as history shows they are not indigenous to that region and migrated thousands of years ago. In addition to the Arabs, Romans, Persians, and Turks also conquered that area contributing to the diversity. Yet, closer descendants to the original inhabitants of Egypt are most likely found in southern Egypt among the Nubia regions.
Africa is very diverse continent not just in color but in peoples and cultures.
Its beautiful everyone who has the chance should travel there.
peace.
Thats funny, how our society thinks there is a ‘look’for an individual of a country, other than the blatant Chinese, Japanese, etc. Is there a’look’ for jewish ppl, or are they discriminated against strickly because of false history, or true history for that matter, who cares if the jewish ancestors killed Jesus anyway? How many romans killed jews, and the ‘world’ doesn’t hate Italians? WHy Why WHy???? …and I’m Italian staying nuetral.
I give this movie 6 out of 10.
Kind of a bedroom science and it does not really give and answer at the end.
Really interesting documentary, but the “tests” they do to prove things is just not relevant for the story. One example is the spearthrusting. The only thing the experiment show is that if you use a have object in this particular way, then you should be more muscular on one side. But is say nothing about how they know only this kind of spears were used. Or if there can be any other explanation for the apperance of the sceleton. It feels a little phoney with this b-experimemts surronding experts and scientists.
Btw, if there was something they did not need to throw money on, it was the cold water/loss of heat experiment. Why? We know how cold and bloodflow works. Wasted time on an experiment that again had nothing to do with the real question. It only showed us what we alredy know to be true about the human body, and there were no more questions whether there could be additional explenations
Remains of the “savages” were being found all over Europe? Really? That is horribly moronic. Neanderthals weren’t so far from ourselves. Why is it that sensationalists insist on pretending that these people went around crying “Ook? Ook Ook!”
Neanderthals had complex societies, made complex tools and had language. They also weren’t particularly hairy, nore were ******, so why try and paint them as such? It’s this mentality towards “the other” that maintains racism in our current society – that a society different from our own must be sub human or primitive. They might not be Cro Magnon man, however, they were still a complex and an intelligent people.
They were advanced for their time, like the people of the Renaissance were advanced for their time, and like we are advanced for our time. They also lived /insanely/ long ago, while still being able to do things like make glue out of birch bark and use medicines, and have a society. The complexity of the tools found means that they had to have had language as there would have been no other way to pass this information along to others. There is also evidence they gathered in large groups of 150 people on intervals of time.
Savages? Hardly.
Ok,… so… modern humans had to do away with the Neanderthal because of their loud annoying voices. Although brutish, I think it may have been for the best.
new research has shown that some portion of neanderthal dna (1 to 4 percent)is a part of the modern human genome.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/science/05/07/neanderthal.human.genome/index.html
therefore, some of the loud, stout, large-snouted, halitosis-ridden, overbearing people you’ve met might not be able to help it…
Neanderthal Man + aliens = humans……I’ve cracked it! :)
I think the Native Austrailian Aborigines look quite a bit like the Neanderthal. Does anyone else think they do?
Yes they do a little Nick.