CBC The Nature of Things - The Great Human Odyssey (2015) Part 1 Rise of a Species

Why are we the last of our kind? Anthropologist Niobe Thompson takes a journey of discovery in the footsteps of our human ancestors, and unlocks the mystery of our unlikely survival and miraculous emergence as the world's only global species. We evolved during the most volatile era since the extinction of the dinosaurs. Like the many other kinds of human who once shared our world, Homo sapiens should have died away. Instead, our species survived to populate every corner of the planet. How did we do it? How did humans overcome near extinction in an African super-drought? How did we find a doorway through the Sahara and out of Africa? What happened when we met the Neanderthals? And how did humans master the Arctic and cross the oceans? Dr. Niobe Thompson takes the audience inside groundbreaking scientific research to reveal dimensions of the human journey we once thought was impossible. In a series of expeditions to some of the world's most remote cultures, including the world's last free-diving sea nomads, the Crocodile People of Papua New Guinea, Bushmen of the Kalahari, and reindeer herders of the Russian Artic, Dr. Thompson gives us a never-before-seen window on our species' past. In the process, we discover the fragility of human life and the miracle of our adaptable, imaginative, and curious nature.

Part 1 Rise of a Species

Like other kinds of human who once shared our world, homo sapiens should have died away. Discover how our species faced near extinction in Africa, and then found a place to rebuild. Explore the birth of language and art at archeological excavations scientists are now calling “the cradle of the human mind”.

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