First Peoples
First Peoples is a five-part PBS documentary series about how Homo Sapiens migrated across the continents and populated the Earth. How did early humans migrate across the Americas? How closely related were these First Americans to today's Native Americans? How did Homo Sapiens migrate across Africa and evolve? What happened when early humans ventured out of Africa and into Asia? Where did they go and whom did they meet along the way? How did early humans arrive in Australia and populate the continent? Did Homo Sapiens interbreed with Neanderthals when they moved into Europe? Featuring new fossil finds and the latest genetic research, this program reveals how Homo Sapiens migrated across the continents and became dominant, emphasizing that the mixing of prehistoric human genes helped our species survive and thrive around the globe.
| Episode 1 - Americas |
Episode 1 - Americas
This episode looks at early human migrations to the Americas. An underwater discovery in Mexico suggests people arrived earlier than previously thought - and by boat, not on foot.
Episode 2 - Africa
While scientists have imagined eastern Africa as a real-life Garden of Eden, the latest research suggests humans evolved in many places across the continent at the same time.
Episode 3 - Asia
What happened when early humans ventured out of Africa and into Asia? Where did they go and whom did they meet along the way?
Episode 4 - Australia
When Homo sapiens arrived in Australia, they were, for the first time, truly alone, surrounded by wildly different flora and fauna. How did they survive and populate a continent?
Episode 5 - Europe
When Homo sapiens turned up in prehistoric Europe, they ran into the Neanderthals. The two types of human were similar enough to interbreed - and both created artifacts of similar complexity.
| Related Links |
| Early Human Migrations - wikipedia Early human migrations and expansions of archaic and modern humans across continents began 1.8 million years ago with the migration out of Africa by Homo erectus. |
| The Great Human Odyssey This is a three-part CBC documentary series hosted by anthropologist Niobe Thompson, exploring the unlikely survival and the miraculous emergence of Homo sapiens as the world's only global species. |
| The Incredible Human Journey This is a BBC documentary series presented by Alice Roberts, explaining the evidence for the theory of early human migrations out of Africa and subsequently around the world. |
| Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey The documentary tells the story of our ancestors' journey out of Africa and into the rest of the world. |
| Human-Climate Interactions and Evolution: Past and Future Our early ancestors evolved on a drying, cooling, and highly variable planet, which has led to competing ideas as to how climate may have shaped human evolution. |
| Planet of the Apemen: Battle for Earth This film tells the story of how Homo sapiens once shared the Earth with other species of hominid, and how, against all the odds, we survived. |
| Walking with Cavemen This is a four-part BBC documentary series narrated by Robert Winston, about the story of human evolution from Australopithecus afarensis to Homo sapiens. |
| Becoming Human: Unearthing Our Earliest Ancestors This is a three-part NOVA's documentary series investigating the recent discoveries transforming our understanding of our human origins. |
| The Human Spark The Human Spark is a three-part documentary series hosted by Alan Alda, exploring what makes humans different from other species. |