Early Humans

For almost a million years, homo habilis would live in social colonies across the plains and savannahs of Eastern and Southern Africa, and were our earliest human ancestors.

As the era of Homo habilis drew to a close, new species of humans were beginning to colonise Africa. It's strange to imagine living in a world with multiple species of human, but for much of the Pleistocene Epoch of the Cenozoic Era, this is exactly what was happening. Join us as we discover the amazing story of Homo erectus.

Today, we will be taking an in-depth look at Homo neanderthalensis, some of our closest cousins in the hominid world. We will look at many aspects of neanderthal life as we do so - their culture, their lifestyles, their evolution, and their appearances. Join us, as we take an intriguing trip into the lives, loves and legacies of Homo neanderthalensis - the neanderthals.

Gigantopithecus, a huge, extinct ape is a strict vegetarian and stands tall and proud in his forest home - he is one of the most remarkable animals living in these forests, and there is little that can do him harm. He, and his kind, are the largest primates ever to live.

Homo floresiensis was quite unlike anything else in the human fossil record and today we will be dissecting what we know about them. We will travel back in time to the Indonesian island of Flores to discover what this strange being looked like, how it lived, how it evolved, and, ultimately, how it became extinct.

Today we will be exploring the domestication of several different species - focusing mainly on domesticated species that are common across the world today. Sit back and relax, as we take a journey through time to explore the earliest domestication of animals.

In today's video, we will be taking a whistle stop tour of the globe during the early years of humanity - specifically the years when Homo sapiens began to spread out across the continents. We will be focussing on a time roughly situated between twenty thousand and sixty thousand years ago, when members of our own species had begun to arrive in each and every corner of the world's continents.