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Early Humans: Ice, Stone, and Survival

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Who were our long-ago ancestors? Where and how did they live and die? And how are we even able to learn about these humans, some of whom became extinct millions of years ago? In 20 captivating lectures, Professor Suzanne Pilaar Birch shares her expertise and passion for discovery as she peels back the years to expose the emergence and lives of early humans.
202320 afleveringenTV-PG
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Afleveringen

  1. S1 AFL. 1 - What Does It Mean to Be Human?
    20 december 2023
    25min.
    TV-PG
    Discover when humans developed and consider the questions we need to ask to explore early life. In setting the framework for our species’ development, you’ll learn about some of the large-scale changes in Earth’s climate, sea level, and land masses in the past several million years.
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  2. S1 AFL. 2 - Stones and Bones: The First Fossil Families
    20 december 2023
    26min.
    TV-PG
    Meet Homo habilis, the earliest known species of our genus. Discovered in 1960, at that time it was the first species known to have used tools. We have since discovered tool use in many animal species. But what does distinguish H. habilis from all previously evolved organisms? It’s the brain that allowed them to survive in a variety of locations.
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  3. S1 AFL. 3 - Bio-Cultural Adaptation and Homo erectus
    20 december 2023
    27min.
    TV-PG
    Meet Homo erectus, the first of our genus to walk completely upright. Being one of the longest-lasting hominin species—more than 1.5 million years—H. erectus learned to adapt to a wide range of environmental challenges. But how did H. erectus get all the way from Africa, where they most likely originated, to Java, where their remains were first discovered?
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  4. S1 AFL. 4 - How Homo sapiens Left Africa
    20 december 2023
    26min.
    TV-PG
    How did H. sapiens adapt to new environments by changing our diet and using technology as we spread across the Old World? Learn how the study of prehistory through molecular genetics has both transformed and confounded our understanding of the human fossil record.
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  5. S1 AFL. 5 - X-Woman! Meet Our Ancient Relatives
    20 december 2023
    24min.
    TV-PG
    Discover the complexity of early human history by meeting “Denny”—a female specimen whose mother was an H. neanderthalensis and whose father was an H. denisova. We also now know that early H. sapiens also interbred with H. neanderthalensis and produced fertile offspring. In fact, both Denisovan and Neanderthal DNA have been found to be present in modern human populations.
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  6. S1 AFL. 6 - Did the Neanderthals Really Go Extinct?
    20 december 2023
    25min.
    TV-PG
    Explore the culture-rich lives of the Neanderthals, who existed for more than 300,000 years across a vast geographic space—from Siberia and Central Asia to westernmost Europe and the Near East. They thrived with multifaceted lives in a time of massive climate change with multiple ice ages, both before and after the arrival of modern humans in Europe. Why did they go extinct … or did they?
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  7. S1 AFL. 7 - Sailing to Australia 60,000-Plus Years Ago
    20 december 2023
    27min.
    TV-PG
    How were Homo sapiens able to get to Australia 60,000-plus years ago without a land bridge to travel? Discover the evidence that exists for their travel by water and the scientific methods used to date the earliest H. sapiens discovered in Australia. To what extent were the First Australians responsible for the extinction of the continent’s megafauna?
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  8. S1 AFL. 8 - The Origins of Language and Music
    20 december 2023
    22min.
    TV-PG
    Learn about the combination of fossil and DNA evidence that have helped us understand when and how human language evolved. But what about the full range of human communications—including music and singing? Explore the difficulties archaeologists have in trying to discover whether or not our predecessors developed music and how and when it shows up in our own past.
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  9. S1 AFL. 9 - Handprints in Time: Early Art and Objects
    20 december 2023
    23min.
    TV-PG
    Consider the earliest evidence for human modification of physical material for aesthetic purposes: art. What can we learn from the fact that artwork surfaced everywhere early humans were found, not just in one region? From cave paintings to rock art and figurines to human-made pigments, who were the people who created these artifacts and what were they wanting to accomplish?
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  10. S1 AFL. 10 - Ancient Jewelry as Extensions of the Mind
    20 december 2023
    25min.
    TV-PG
    We might not like to think about body lice as a source of information about our history, but it is genetic evidence from this insect that points to humans wearing clothes as early as 170,000 years ago. Discover what we can learn about our early cognition by exploring the ways we adorned ourselves, from clothing to jewelry to tattoos.
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  11. S1 AFL. 11 - Death and Burial in the Prehistoric World
    20 december 2023
    25min.
    TV-PG
    When did people first start to bury their dead and grapple with the meaning of death? Explore the many varied burial practices of our ancestors and how those practices reveal their social structures and relationships with their environment. Was H. sapiens the only species to use ritual burials long ago, or did the Neanderthals also develop this practice?
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  12. S1 AFL. 12 - Feast or Famine? The Paleolithic Diet
    20 december 2023
    25min.
    TV-PG
    Explore the varied human diet that existed even before the domestication of plants and animals. Learn about the research tools—including proteomics and DNA analysis—that have allowed us to not just generate lists of the species our ancestors ate, but to reconstruct entire ancient economies.
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  13. S1 AFL. 13 - Why There’s No Such Thing as Cavemen
    20 december 2023
    23min.
    TV-PG
    While our ancestors did utilize caves in some capacity—as we know from cave paintings and multiple artifacts—there’s little evidence that they lived in caves, contrary to the ideas that have been popularized in our culture. Instead, discover the earliest evidence for built structures and the materials early humans used for bedding.
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  14. S1 AFL. 14 - Early Technology: Axes, Harpoons, and Hooks
    20 december 2023
    23min.
    TV-PG
    Changes in tool form and function are among the foremost markers of the arrival of the modern mind. Explore the materials used and the many new tool forms that appeared tens of thousands of years ago. From fishing hooks to sewing needles, evidence shows an explosion of new technologies developed by our ancestors well before the appearance of agriculture.
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  15. S1 AFL. 15 - Coming to the Americas 20,000-Plus Years Ago
    20 december 2023
    26min.
    TV-PG
    The Bering Land Bridge between modern-day Russia and Canada, also called Beringia, was a temporary 240,000 square miles of land that allowed the first people to enter the North American continent. Not covered in ice, the land supported steppe vegetation and fauna. But when did early humans arrive?
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  16. S1 AFL. 16 - Living Dangerously as the Last Ice Age Ended
    20 december 2023
    22min.
    TV-PG
    Explore the world of 15,000 years ago as the last ice age ended, and the vast ice sheets began to melt. Discover the scientific advances that have allowed us to describe that world in detail, a world with H. sapiens living on every continent except Antarctica. How did those people—very much like us today in appearance and thought—cope with such drastic change in their environment?
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  17. S1 AFL. 17 - Brewing Beer and Baking Bread in the Levant
    20 december 2023
    20min.
    TV-PG
    About 15,000 years ago, people began to settle down and adopt certain aspects of sedentary agricultural lifestyles in the eastern Mediterranean region. Explore the exciting discoveries of this time period, including the purposeful brewing of beer and the domestication of dogs.
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  18. S1 AFL. 18 - The Hunter-Gatherers Begin to Settle Down
    20 december 2023
    17min.
    TV-PG
    As the world began to warm and vegetation changed, people turned to new dietary options instead of having to follow large migratory herds across the landscape. Discover the scientific methods used to reveal exactly what our ancestors ate during this period.
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  19. S1 AFL. 19 - Secrets of Cave Art, Ceramics, and Cattle
    20 december 2023
    19min.
    TV-PG
    Explore the recent scientific discoveries that have revealed more nuanced lifeways about the last Ice Age than were previously known. Learn why the narrative about life in North Africa has also shifted. Learn about the ritual practice of dental evulsion that seems to reveal population and cultural exchanges between North Africa and the eastern Mediterranean, the Levant, throughout this period.
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  20. S1 AFL. 20 - Was Agriculture a Revolution or an Accident?
    20 december 2023
    23min.
    TV-PG
    Although agriculture was historically framed as a “revolution,” we now know it was the result of thousands of years of process. Learn about the recent archaeological evidence showing that the phenomenon of domestication occurred independently in many places around the world, unfolding sometimes with and sometimes without accompanying Neolithic cultural shifts.
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Gegevens

Meer informatie

Audiotalen
EnglishEnglish Dialogue Boost: MediumEnglish Dialogue Boost: HighDeutsch
Ondertitels
English [CC]Deutsch [UT]
Producenten
The Great Courses
Cast
Suzanne Pilaar Birch
Studio
The Great Courses
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