Original subtitles

150 ,000 years ago, in Africa, the first modern humans evolved.

They were our direct ancestors.

From an initial tiny population, these new people began to move north into an

unknown world.

Here on the western edge of Europe, archaeologists have made a discovery

shedding extraordinary new light on exactly what happened when the first

humans arrived in the rest of the world.

The first thing we found were the two bones of the forearm, these two here.

Based on the length of the bones, we knew immediately that it was a fairly

child.

Was this a child of the new population of humans who had journeyed from Africa

,000 miles away?

This is where we found the skeleton, right here at this level.

At the time we started digging it, all we knew is that it was older than 20

years ago.

And that's because 20 ,000 years ago was the age of the deposits up here.

Before the moderns arrived, Other kinds of humans had occupied Europe.

So the skeleton could be one of our ancestors or something very different.

We really did not know how much older than 20 ,000. Could have been 25, 30

even 50 ,000.

So at first, we were not sure what species of human we were dealing with in

case.

Caves in this part of southwest France provide some of the most detailed

of early human occupation anywhere in the world.

So we're pretty sure that modern humans evolved in southern Africa around 150

,000 years ago, moved out of Africa around 50 ,000 years ago, and began to

colonize the northern latitudes, and they colonized all of Europe about 35

years ago, including France, where we are now.

What happened when they arrived is the final mystery in the story of human

evolution.

Archaeologists Jean -Philippe Rigaud and Jan Schimek believe they are close to

uncovering the answer.

In the walls of this cave, they found a dramatic change in the archaeological

evidence.

This is the level at which we find the first evidence for modern humans in this

cave. That evidence consists of a new suite of artifacts.

Artifacts that include things like this stone tool made on a blade.

Artifacts made of new materials like bone and heather.

And completely new artifacts that we've not seen before, like this pierced deer

canine.

Artifacts used as objects of personal adornment.

But below the modern human level, further back in time, other evidence has

found.

Modern humans were not the first people in this cave.

Before modern humans arrived in this cave, other people lived here too.

that were actually quite different than us, people we call Neanderthals.

The Neanderthals were the original Europeans The

skeleton kept here is the first Neanderthal

known to science The

Neanderthals had what scientists call a robust build

They were heavy -boned, short and immensely strong physically quite unlike

anyone living today.

Neanderthal skulls are very distinctive.

They have double arched brow ridges, a low forehead,

a long, wide but low brain case, You can see the differences

on me.

The fate of the Neanderthals is closely bound to our own emergence in the world,

because once, before the arrival of modern humans,

Neanderthals were the masters of Europe.

Neanderthals were present in this area for a very, very long period of time.

These levels date to about 70 ,000 years ago. We have evidence of their presence

that goes back over 200 ,000 years.

In the lower levels of this cave, the evidence of Neanderthals is abundant,

many of their trademark stone tools, hand axes.

But then, quite suddenly...

there is a mysterious change in the archaeological record.

The Neanderthal evidence stops here, the point at which modern humans first

appear. And after that point, there's no more evidence for Neanderthals.

For decades, archaeologists have been trying to discover why the evidence for

Neanderthals disappears at just the time that modern humans arrive.

And in Portugal, there were signs that the bones of the child might belong to

exactly this dramatic period in prehistory.

The archaeologists had calculated that the child must have been about four

old when it died.

But they noticed that for a young modern human, its bones were exceptionally

strong and robust.

The overall robusticity and strength of the bones, like for instance the humerus

here,

suggested to us that it might have been an earlier fossil species of human.

This is a typical upper arm bone of Neanderthal, and this is the upper arm

of a modern human.

We clearly can see that the Neanderthal arm bone is much thicker and stronger

than the modern human's arm bone.

So who were the Neanderthals?

What was our relationship to them?

Scientists have struggled to answer these questions ever since the first

Neanderthal fossil was found 150 years ago.

In the early part of this century, Neanderthals were generally seen as club

-wielding ape men, in some ways more animal than human, with hairy skins,

distinctly unintelligent.

Neanderthals were thought to be primitive half -humans who eventually

into us.

But when scientists discovered that our ancestors had emerged independently in

Africa, an entirely new picture of human evolution began to take hold.

The picture of who we are and where we came from has been revolutionized by DNA

analysis.

What we wanted to investigate with the Neanderthal was how the Neanderthals

related to modern humans.

And we wanted to attempt to retrieve DNA from these fossils because by doing so

we could then potentially study real defined genetics.

differences or similarities between the Neanderthals and modern humans, rather

than studying genetics very indirectly by the shapes and forms of bones and so

on.

That's where we took the sample from.

I really hate it. It was like cutting into the Mona Lisa, but it was very

important to get this information about the DNA sequence.

When the DNA from this single Neanderthal gene was analyzed, it showed

substantial differences from the DNA of modern humans.

So from these DNA sequences, we don't see sequences that are similar to the

Neanderthal sequence in us today.

Particularly we don't see it in Europe, for example, where the Neanderthals

existed until 30 ,000 years ago.

So the Neanderthals were not our ancestors.

Far from being primitive versions of us, they were a separate, parallel species

of human.

And they were still very much alive when our true ancestors, the first modern

humans, emerged from Africa and entered the land of the Neanderthal.

In Portugal, Neanderthals survived until 28 ,000 years ago, long after modern

humans had entered Europe.

For a time, two different species of human shared the landscape.

The bones found at Lagar Velho first seemed to have thick Neanderthal -like

features. But then the archaeologists discovered a different part of the body.

We found the jawbone, and the jawbone, which you can see here, had a very

prominent chin.

Other species of human that existed before moderns did not have

this characteristic developed chin.

It seemed they had found an early modern human after all.

The fact that Neanderthals and modern humans were different species from

different places has shattered many old beliefs.

In the old reconstructions, modern humans were often portrayed as pale

people.

Whereas the Neanderthals were often portrayed not only as hairy, but having

rather dark skins.

When in reality, the fact that they'd been living in these European

almost certainly meant that they had paler skins, whereas the modern humans

were coming out of Africa were not only less well adapted biologically to

survive in these cold environments because they'd evolved in the tropical

environments of Africa, but presumably also had dark skins.

It now seems that modern humans, our ancestors, were actually less well

for life in Europe.

And the Neanderthals?

Neanderthals were superbly adapted to surviving in Europe.

They were short, stocky, short -limbed, and that's the best way of conserving

heat and surviving in cold conditions.

The remarkable thing is that even though the Neanderthals were superbly adapted,

they became extinct, and the modern humans, who were not so well adapted to

these environments, survived.

Evidence of the Neanderthals' abilities is revealed in layers below the modern

human levels at Cave 16.

We found evidence of the presence of Neanderthals scattered all through this

cave. They made fireplaces, like the one you see here, and they also produced a

number of tools, like this hand axe worked out of flint.

And what we call a side scraper.

Both of these are pretty typical Neanderthal tools.

There are tools for hunting, butchering and skinning game.

Tools for cutting wood and scraping hides.

These finely made implements are a testament to the Neanderthals'

they also reveal a fundamental weakness.

From an archaeological viewpoint, the most remarkable thing about Neanderthal

technology... is the way it hardly changes significantly over about a

a million years.

You get essentially the same shapes of tools made by the same techniques over

this whole period.

Now as soon as you get modern humans on the scene, you get a whole range of

dramatic changes.

They suddenly start producing new shapes of stone tools, obviously designed for

different functions.

And they start producing tools from bone, antler and ivory, which had never

used before.

Modern humans had the same needs for food and shelter as the Neanderthals.

But these tools show them inventing new and varied ways of meeting those needs.

This ingenuity is key to their success.

Clearly the modern humans had something in terms of certainly adaptation and

behavior, but I believe also something in terms of mental capacities that the

Neanderthals lacked.

Samples of the soil.

One thing is...

absolutely certain the climatic changes that the world underwent at that time

were so large that practically no part of the world and nothing that lived in

escaped its consequences.

The cold transformed the landscape.

On the uplands, the forest died and gave way to bleak moorland.

But that was not the case in the valleys.

which were more sheltered from the wind and frost.

Down in the valley there were trees still, little forests, not very large,

also associated with these forests the sort of wildlife that you expect there,

wild boar and similar forest animals.

The Neanderthals were used to hunting in the forest, and they followed their

traditional game animals into the valleys.

Instead of adapting to the world outside, the Neanderthals retreated to

was familiar.

They withdrew more and more of the time into the valleys and spent less and less

out in the highlands around.

Without realizing it, the Neanderthals were sowing the seeds of their own

destruction.

The archaeologists working in Portugal had now found more evidence that the

bones were indeed those of a young modern human rather than a Neanderthal.

The skeleton was remarkably complete, but children's bones are extremely

fragile. These bones could only have survived if the body had been handled

care after death.

And this is what the next discovery suggested.

The whole skeleton was covered in red ochre, and this was particularly visible

in the skull.

The use of the mineral red ochre in prehistory is always associated with

ceremonial burial, and only one kind of human is known to treat its dead with

such respect.

This is a very typical ritual behavior in early modern human times in Europe.

And then, as the archaeologists continued to search, they discovered

else.

A tiny object of great significance.

As we dug through the deposits, we found an ornament, a shell bead.

And these kinds of ornaments are also associated with early modern human

known elsewhere in Europe.

In archaeology, ornaments are recognized as the defining mark of modern humans.

Beads identical to the Portuguese find have also been discovered in France.

Quantities of ornament have been recovered from the levels where modern

once lived, deep beneath the ground in Cave 16.

At the French Field Lab, Jean -Philippe Rigaud has studied these early works of

human creativity.

They show that despite the harsh climate in Europe, modern humans were thriving,

living and moving freely right across the landscape.

This shell comes from the Atlantic coast, and it has been transported from

the Atlantic to cave 16.

We have also some shells coming from the Mediterranean coast, which is quite a

long distance from where we are now.

Modern humans had even advanced into the freezing mountains of Europe.

This meat is made of steatite, and it comes from the central Pyrenees.

This is more than 200 kilometers.

Polished beads of stone and ivory.

Pierced seashells.

Pendants carved from the teeth of deer and foxes.

Right across the European continent, modern humans left behind an

trail of finely crafted ornaments.

Now, this is a whole new explosion in human technology. It appears we're the

first humans.

These are the first body ornaments, the first interest in personal decoration in

five million years of human evolution.

The child skeleton from Portugal had many modern human features.

A pronounced chin.

It had been buried with care, wearing a seashell ornament.

But the archaeologists were still struck by the primitive Neanderthal -like

thickness of its bones.

Who was this mysterious child?

The skeleton was taken from the excavation site to Lisbon for a more

examination.

Bone samples from the skeleton had already been sent out for carbon dating.

Meanwhile, the child's body was analyzed in minute detail.

The results of the new analysis were startling.

When we started reassembling the skeleton in the lab, we noticed

about the mandible, because in modern humans, the angle between the chin and

gum line is quite wide.

And in this child, the angle is not at all what we would expect. It is much

narrower.

Although the child's chin was modern in shape, the angle of the jaw was

primitive. And then came even more remarkable evidence, this time from the

of the limbs.

If you compare the upper arm bone of the Neanderthal with

my arm proportion,

It's quite similar, but if you compare the lower arm proportion

Clearly can see that the Neandertal lower arm

is much shorter than mine You

realize that there were a few odd things about the proportion of the limb that

is The lower leg bone was too short in proportion to the upper leg bone. The

same pattern was visible in the arm. That is, the upper arm was

longer than the lower arm.

These body proportions are typical of people who have evolved in cold northern

climates. But modern humans were recently out of Africa and had the long

of tropical people.

All these characteristics are characteristics of Neanderthals.

But although the child had Neanderthal features, now the carbon dating revealed

that it had lived 3 ,000 years after the last known Neanderthal had died.

Then from a river valley in France came a dramatic breakthrough, which radically

narrowed the differences between Neanderthals and modern humans.

Long ago, a hoard of ornaments was dug up from caves at Arcy -sur -Cure.

For 50 years, they have been thought to be the work of modern humans.

But then a tiny fragment of human bone found with the ornaments was re

-examined.

Anatomist Fred Spohr has developed new techniques for identifying early humans.

Using medical CT scans, he can now look deep inside fossil bones.

This is the human fossil from RC Secure.

As you can see, it's really small fragments.

We think it's from a one -year -old child.

And it's actually a part of the skull here on the side, the part that contains

the ear.

You can actually see the little ear hole around here.

Now, this piece of bone also contains your organ of hearing and your organ of

balance.

And today we know that there's a difference in the shape.

of the organ of balance in different types of humans.

Because the bone had been found amongst a rich collection of ornaments, it

seemed that the bone was that of a modern human.

But all that was about to change.

When Fred Spohr scanned the bone from Arceus Your Cure, its inner ear became

clearly visible and his diagnosis was instant.

very clear from the outcome immediately that there was no question that this was

a Neanderthal.

For Joao Vilhau, a link between Neanderthals and ornaments was

If true, it would mean that Neanderthals were much more like us than had ever

been thought possible.

Just who had really made these ornaments could only be revealed by examining the

collection in detail.

The ornaments appeared to resemble those found at modern human sites.

However, there were some small but distinctive differences.

The first thing that struck me were these little grooves carved around the

of the teeth.

And this is something that you never see in collections of ornaments made by

early modern humans.

Clearly ornament, these were not pierced like the beads made by the modern

humans, not threaded onto their strings, but tied.

No ornaments like these had been found before.

They were made in a unique way and found lying amongst the bones of

Neanderthals.

There were so many of them, they were so beautifully made, they were so varied,

and they were more than 30 ,000 years old, so they had to be.

the oldest or among the oldest ornaments in the world.

Neanderthals must have been the authors of these ornaments. There is no other

possible explanation for the facts.

So in these French caves, Neanderthals were making ornaments.

Most of the ornaments were found here, against that wall of the cave.

Now, all of these belong to the same period of occupation, and at that time,

surface of the cave was at about this level here.

The revelation that Neanderthals and modern humans were both creating

at this crucial time in prehistory suggests that they had very similar

and only deepened the mystery of the Neanderthal's strange disappearance.

that Neanderthals were essentially no different from us, that changes the

picture we have of the past and gives us a better understanding of what happened

in human evolution and about the definition of our own place in that

evolution. I think that's why the Neanderthal issue has been so important

since the first Neanderthal fossil was found 150 years ago.

But Paul Mellis believes that for modern humans, ornaments had an importance

that Neanderthals did not understand.

In our present day and age, we use ornamentations or jewellery as a way of

telling people about our own identities, about our own status, perhaps about our

wealth, perhaps about our age.

So it's a way of telling other people either what you think about yourself or

what other people should think about you.

The important thing about ornaments is they're of no functional value.

They're entirely of symbolic value.

So if we find people suddenly making and wearing personal ornaments, then it

must be a reflection that something new is happening in their mind.

I think the appearance of this kind of thinking could have had a critical

on the survival capacities of the modern humans in contrast to the Neanderthals.

Unlike the Neanderthals, modern humans traded and exchanged their ornaments

each other right across the European continent.

Perhaps as explorers in this strange land, they felt the need to find and

identify with their own kind.

For modern humans, unlike anyone who had come before them, do seem to have been

aware of who they were.

And for them, ornaments were a new kind of tool, allowing them to build up

complex networks and allegiances across the vast distances of the world they

were now beginning to control.

These objects tell us that there were some sort of relationship between the

groups of people living in different areas.

And this is, in a certain way, a marker for a community on a large

scale.

Ornaments bound modern humans together, but not the Neanderthals.

Ornaments have been found at only three isolated Neanderthal sites.

Perhaps Neanderthals simply copied what they saw.

but didn't realize they're important.

It would just be an extraordinary coincidence to me if Neanderthals

these things independently from themselves at precisely the same time

know modern humans equipped with these ornaments were spreading across Europe.

So on the grounds of coincidence, it seems to me highly unlikely that

Neanderthals invented them for themselves.

The cold that now swept through Europe was decisive.

Modern humans had proved adaptable and resourceful.

They were now to be found all over the landscape.

But the Neanderthals had clung to their familiar valleys, isolated.

They were stranded, and one by one, their groups died out.

As one disappeared, the survivors had fewer communication with each other and

with that one group.

So the groups got smaller in number and smaller in members.

Unable to make contact with other groups of their own kind, for the Neanderthal,

the effects of the climate change were devastating.

The places where they managed to survive, one by one from north to south,

destroyed by the advancing cold.

There was competition from the...

Modern human beings, we don't know how serious that competition was, but it was

certainly there.

And eventually, the last holdouts themselves disappeared, their

adaptability never apparently improved very much, and they were gone.

It seems that only this time of overwhelming change revealed the

between us. Under pressure, we were simply better able to adapt than the

Neanderthal.

But might we ourselves have played a part in the fate of the Neanderthal?

The last dwindling groups of Neanderthals retreated in front of the

modern humans until they could go no further.

This cave is the westernmost Neanderthal site we know of anywhere.

It must have been one of the last places where Neanderthals lived.

When modern humans arrived, these Neanderthals had nowhere else to go.

their backs against the sea.

So they had no option but to interact.

And in the small child skeleton found in Portugal, there may be clues as to what

happened when they met.

Living 3 ,000 years after the last Neanderthals had gone, its skeleton

both modern and primitive features.

The style of its burial was modern, but the proportion of its limbs was

Neanderthal.

The explanation could be startlingly simple.

So the situation is like this.

We have Neanderthals living in Portugal about 28 ,000 years ago. We have this

kid that died about 25 ,000 years ago and has a few very clear

Neanderthal traits.

The only explanation I can think of for this combination of features is that at

about 28 ,000 years ago, when local Neanderthal populations encountered

modern humans that...

crossed the Pyrenees to enter Iberia at about that time, there was significant

interbreeding between the two.

And if that was the case, then you cannot really say that Neanderthals went

completely extinct.

They just were absorbed, they became part, were assimilated by these modern

human populations coming in from the East.

Certainly it's possible that a limited amount of interbreeding has taken place

and that when we go on in the future and study many more sequences in the genome

than we've done so far, we will find evidence of a certain extent of

interbreeding. So it's certainly possible that a few Neanderthal genes

among us today. We just don't know yet.

I do know that there are Neanderthal -like characteristics that we still see

modern populations. My father, for example.

was a heavyset, short -limbed individual who may or may not have had Neanderthal

genes in him.

If he did, it doesn't bother me. It's part of my genetic history.

Our replacement of the Neanderthals was a long and complex process.

It now seems that in some places we even interbred.

But where one species is as successful as ours, there is only one possible

outcome. And what happened with the Neanderthals in Europe was repeated

the world.

I think it's important to realize that when modern humans moved out of Africa,

they didn't just come here to Europe. They colonized all...

corners of the old world. They went to Asia, to the Near East, other parts of

Africa. When they got there, there were other people living there.

The interactions between modern humans and those other people we don't

understand anywhere near as well as we do with the Neanderthals here, but they

were there.

And shortly after the anatomically modern humans arrived there, they became

dominant form.

We were adaptable and inventive.

We had discovered strength in shared communities and culture.

We were phenomenal survivors.

As we traveled the world, there may have been violence or interbreeding with the

earlier humans we met.

But in the end, the results were always the same.

We are here.

And they are gone.

The future began here, when the last Neanderthal died.

And then, for the first time in the five million years of our evolution, there

was just one species of human on the planet.

The prehistory season continues, looking for evidence of the day we learned to

think, a night at nine.

Coming up on UK TV History, what made the German people allow Adolf Hitler to

come to power? The Nazis, a warning from history.

Landmark Television, after the break.