Channel 4 - Secrets of the Stone Age (1999) Part 3 The Human Story Traces of Humankind's Oldest Relatives

According to the history books, civilization began with the ancient Egyptians. But in this intriguing three-part series, iconoclastic anthropologist Richard Rudgley, author of the provocative “Lost Civilizations of the Stone Age”, argues that it began earlier — much earlier. We view our distant ancestors as nothing more than cave-dwelling savages but 100,000 years ago there were people who walked the earth every bit as gifted as us, who looked and thought just as we do today… In SECRETS OF THE STONE AGE, anthropologist Richard Rudgley offers a lively account of his journey across the continents in search of the lost legacy of prehistoric man. He takes us to Ancient Egypt, where excavations at Abydos have unearthed hieroglyphs belonging to an age before the pharaohs, and to the stone circles and burial chambers in Ireland, which precede Stonehenge by two millennia. In central Turkey, he discovers a Neolithic city over 9,000 years old. In the Alps, we are introduced to the Ice Man, a 5,300-year-old mummy, whose body reveals that acupuncture was practiced in Stone Age Europe, and to the awe-inspiring cave paintings of Ice Age France. In the Czech Republic he reveals a thriving textile industry dating from 24,000 BC. Delving further back still, Rudgley discovers many so-called 'modern attributes' amongst the Neanderthals of the Old Stone Age the beginnings of art, symbolic communication and even seafaring in the days of Homo Erectus, at the very dawn of humanity's existence. In Indonesia, we examine stone tools that prove pre-Neanderthal man undertook raft voyages across the open sea –700,000 years before the Kon Tiki!

Part 3 The Human Story Traces of Humankind's Oldest Relatives

In this program, anthropologist Richard Rudgley presents the results of his research into Neanderthal society, skewering the popular misconception that Neanderthals were subhuman. After a visit to Israel, where Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons once coexisted, Rudgley travels to Portugal, where he talks about the 24,500-year-old skeleton of a child that appears to be a Neanderthal/Cro-Magnon hybrid. Finally, seeking back even farther in time, he examines the few remaining clues to the thoughts and lives of humankind's most distant relatives some ochre stains, shaped stones, and tools crafted with fossils embedded in their handles. Rudgley shows that as many as 800,000 years ago people were able to cross water, probably had rafts and were capable of communication. He speculates on what can be learnt from our Stone Age ancestors.

Full Version Available Upon Request