The Incredible Human Journey: The Americas

Sunday 14 June, 9pm BBC2

Dr Alice Roberts travels the globe to discover the incredible story of how humans left Africa to colonise the world - overcoming hostile terrain, extreme weather and other species of human. She pieces together precious fragments of bone, stone and new DNA evidence and discovers how this incredible journey changed our African ancestors into the people we are today.

This week, for Stone Age people, reaching North & South America seems impossible: On each side, vast oceans and to the north, an impenetrable ice sheet that covered the whole of Canada. So how did the first Americans get there?

Alice discovers evidence for an ancient corridor through the Canadian ice sheet that may have allowed those first people through. But there are problems - in particular some very ancient finds in southern Chile seem to suggest a very different way in to the Americas. Amazingly, an ancient human skull discovered in Brazil even points to an Australasian origin of the Americans. Could a route from Australia across the Pacific have been possible? A surprising answer to the problem eventually comes from a Canadian forensic scientist, more used to solving murder cases.

The Incredible Human Journey: Australia

31st May BBC2, 21:30

Dr Alice Roberts travels the globe to discover the incredible story of how humans left Africa to colonise the world - overcoming hostile terrain, extreme weather and other species of human. She pieces together precious fragments of bone, stone and new DNA evidence and discovers how this incredible journey changed our African ancestors into the people we are today.

This week, a journey that seems almost impossible: to Australia. Miraculously preserved footprints and very old human fossils buried in the Outback suggest a mystery: that humans reached Australia almost before anywhere else. How could they have travelled so far from Africa, crossing the open sea on the way - and do it thousands of years before they made it to Europe?

The evidence trail is faint and difficult to pick up - but Alice takes on the challenge. In India, new discoveries among the debris of a super volcano hint that our species started the journey much earlier than previously thought, while in Malaysia, genetics points to an ancient trail still detectable in the DNA of tribes today. Alice travels deep into the Asian rainforests in search of the first cavemen of Borneo and tests out a Stone Age raft to see whether sea travel would have been possible thousands of years ago, before coming to a powerful conclusion.

Directed and Produced by Ed Bazalgette
Series Producer - Paul Bradshaw
Executive Producer - Kim Shillinglaw

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00klf6j

The Incredible Human Journey: Europe

Sunday 24 May, 9.30pm BBC2

There are seven billion humans on earth, spread across the whole planet. Scientific evidence suggests that most of us can trace our origins to one tiny group of people who left Africa around 70,000 years ago. In this five-part series, Dr Alice Roberts follows the archaeological and genetic footprints of our ancient ancestors to find out how their journeys transformed our species into the humans we are today, and how Homo sapiens came to dominate the planet. When our species first arrived in Europe, the peak of the Ice Age was approaching and the continent was already crawling with a rival: stronger, at home in the cold and even (contrary to their popular image) brainier than us. So how did the European pioneers survive first the Neanderthals and then the deep freeze as they pushed across the continent?

Alice Roberts reconstructs the head of the 'first European' to come face to face with one of our ancestors; she discovers how art became crucial for survival in the face of Neanderthal competition; and what happened to change the skin colour of these European pioneers from black to white. Finally, spectacular new finds on the edge of Europe suggest that the first known temples may have been a spark for a huge revolution in our ancestors' way of life - agriculture.

Director: Philip Smith
Producer: Paul Bradshaw
Executive Producer: Kim Shillinglaw

The Incredible Human Journey : ASIA

17th May BBC2, 21:30pm

There are 7 billion humans on earth, spread across the whole planet. Scientific evidence suggests that most of us can trace our origins to one tiny group of people who left Africa around 70 000 years ago. 'The Incredible Human Journey' is a five-part series in which Dr Alice Roberts follows the archaeological and genetic footprints of our ancient ancestors in a quest to find out how their journeys transformed our species into the humans we are today and how Homo sapiens came to dominate the planet.

Asia: In this programme the journey continues into Asia, the world's greatest land mass, in a quest to discover how early hunter-gatherers managed to survive in one of the most inhospitable places on earth - the arctic region of Northern Siberia. Alice meets the nomadic Evenki people, whose lives are dictated by reindeer, both wild and domesticated and discovers that the survival techniques of this very ancient people have been passed down through the generations. Alice also explores what may have occurred during human migration to produce Chinese physical characteristics, and considers a controversial claim about Chinese evolution: that the Chinese do not share the same African ancestry as other peoples.

Directed and Produced by Charles Colville
Series Producer - Paul Bradshaw
Executive Producer - Kim Shillinglaw

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00klf6j

The Incredible Human Journey: Out of Africa

Sunday 10th May BBC2, 21:30

Dr Alice Roberts travels the globe to discover the incredible story of how humans left Africa to colonise the world - overcoming hostile terrain, extreme weather and other species of human. She pieces together precious fragments of bone, stone and new DNA evidence and discovers how this incredible journey changed our African ancestors into the people we are today.This week, 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'd 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 us efficient hunters; and the ancient 'click language' of the Bushmen points to an early ability to organise and plan.So we survived here - but Africa was to all intents and purposes a sealed continent. So how and by what route did our ancestors make it out of Africa? Astonishing genetic evidence reveals that everyone alive today who isn't 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.

Directed and Produced by David Stewart
Series Producer - Paul Bradshaw
Executive Producer - Kim Shillinglaw

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00klf6j