Survival Andrew Marr's History of the World


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For thousands of years,

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the Ayoreo tribe have lived in the forests of South America.

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They're still leading much the same hunter-gatherer lifestyle

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as the very first humans on Earth.

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But in June 1998, they came face to face with the 20th century.

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KNOCKING

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This was a chance encounter between two worlds,

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both equally human but completely divided by history.

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In this series, I'm going to tell the story

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of the adventures and events that divided them...

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Thousands of years of explosive change.

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70,000 years of human history -

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stories that we thought we knew and others we were never told.

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None of us can hope to know all of the human story

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but it does help to have the big picture

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because it's really the story of who we are now,

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our own ancestors' long walk,

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the tiny things that changed the world...

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EXPLOSION

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..nature biting back,

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old glories,

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winners...and losers,

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truth seekers and astonishing discoveries...

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GUILLOTINE FALLS

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..revolutions in blood and in iron...

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EXPLOSION

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..modern madness and the wonders of the digital age.

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We have been brilliantly clever at reshaping the world around us -

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almost as clever as we think we are, though not perhaps as wise.

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There will be challenges, triumphs and surprises,

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all the essentials of the story -

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except, of course, how it ends.

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Africa, around 70,000 years ago.

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These people are fully developed modern humans, just like us,

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Homo sapiens - it means "wise man".

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As hunter-gatherers we were driven by familiar basic needs -

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food, water, shelter.

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And for over 100,000 years, we'd been changing, adapting

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and struggling to survive.

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Climate was a big part of this -

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the Earth shivered its way through ice ages,

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the skies were darkened by vast volcanic eruptions,

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the planet grew hotter and drier, and then colder and wetter again,

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and each change challenged mankind to find new ways to survive.

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Those who did survive

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emerged tougher, cleverer and better organised.

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And in this particular tribe, there was someone special.

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She was part of one small group

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of probably fewer than a thousand people,

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slowly moving towards the north-east coast of Africa.

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For early people, life really was a journey.

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It was an endless trek after game and fruit and seeds.

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Settle down, call anywhere home, and you would starve to death.

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Criss-crossing Africa over tens of thousands of years,

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dealing with the changing climate

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and animals rather bigger and faster than they were,

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people learned the essentials of survival -

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language, clothing and cooked food...

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..and, above all, working together to stay alive.

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Africa nourished us,

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but she was always difficult and always dangerous.

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WIND HOWLS

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SHE BREATHES HEAVILY

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Over tens of thousands of years,

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there's evidence that other tribes

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made the same dangerous journey out of Africa.

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But after studying the evolution of human DNA,

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scientists have concluded that only one tribe lasted

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long enough outside Africa to leave a lasting legacy.

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This is the tribe that made it.

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HE YELLS

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They probably hopped from island to island,

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across what is now the Red Sea,

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arriving in today's Arabia around 65,000 years ago,

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and, amazing as it sounds,

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almost all of us alive today are related to one woman in this tribe.

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Of course, we don't know her name but she was a survivor,

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and we could call her simply "Mother",

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because there is a tiny genetic mutation

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in every single person alive today who isn't from Sub-Saharan Africa,

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and scientists have tracked it back

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to one migration out of Africa,

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one tribe, one woman.

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WOMAN CRIES OUT

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It seems impossible,

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but whether you're from Aberdeen or Islamabad, Tokyo or New York,

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Scandinavia or the Pacific Islands,

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she is your universal African mother.

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BABY CRIES

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And the journey didn't end in Arabia because her tribe kept on moving.

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Step by step, mile by mile, generation by generation,

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modern humans spread out and slowly colonised the rest of the planet.

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First, we travelled east along the coast towards India and East Asia.

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It's reckoned that some of us may have reached Australia

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50,000 years ago.

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The land bridge that then connected Asia and America wasn't crossed

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until around 15,000 years ago,

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but then quickly people spread right down through the Americas

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to the far south.

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All these journeys were slowed or accelerated by cold or heat

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or climate change.

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From the Middle East, another branch of humans headed north-west,

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arriving in Europe around 45,000 years ago.

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By the time we arrived in Europe we were already deeply tribal,

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living and co-operating together in groups much larger than families,

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which was very important to our success as hunters,

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but it had another side.

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Our tribal loyalties meant we had an ingrained hostility to outsiders -

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anyone who looked a little different, spoke differently,

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dressed differently or perhaps even smelt differently.

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Truer still of people who really WERE different

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because when we got to Europe, we discovered that we were not alone.

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Another variety of human had been living here

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for an almost unimaginable period of time...

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The Neanderthals.

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Stocky and tough,

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they'd survived ice-age conditions we can barely comprehend

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and now they faced a rather more dangerous challenge - us.

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TWIG SNAPS SHOUTING

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Scientists argue about this

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but we probably co-existed with the Neanderthals in Europe

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for between 5,000 and 10,000 years,

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and during that time

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the Neanderthals went into rapid decline.

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NEANDERTHAL CRIES OUT

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Nobody knows for sure what happened to them.

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They were tough survivors

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who had been around for at least 250,000 years -

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rather longer than we've managed.

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It's probable that we pushed them out of their hunting grounds.

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It's also possible, I regret to report, that we liked to eat them.

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HE CRIES OUT

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HE YELLS

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NEANDERTHAL YELLS

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30,000 years ago the Neanderthals became extinct,

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and modern humans - clever, clannish and remarkably violent -

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were ready to rule the planet.

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Except that now our ruthless determination

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came up against something rather more formidable

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than the Neanderthals.

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Around 20,000 years ago, temperatures plunged even further.

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We were forced once again to adapt or die.

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Adversity favours the versatile,

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and this time a very homely piece of technology

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would make all the difference.

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This is a needle, made out of bone.

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This is the real thing.

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It's about 17,000 years old.

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It's got a beautifully made little eye in it,

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very similar to the needles you may have at home,

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and what a needle allows you to do

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is to wear not animal skins, but clothes that actually fit.

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The invention of the needle would help revolutionise human life.

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Wearing sewn clothing in layers,

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we could huddle and judder our way through the harsh ice-age winters.

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We could be out, tracking animals further, hunting for longer -

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better predators.

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We had arrows, yes, and spears of course,

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but the needle was the great, unexpected

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life-or-death breakthrough.

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Modern humans were proving to be

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one of the most resilient species on the planet,

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something new under the sun.

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But it's in the French Pyrenees we find evidence

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that Homo sapiens might live up to the boastful "wise man" label,

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and hope for something more than survival.

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We are already trying to mark ourselves out,

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to understand our place in the world.

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Here at the Gargas caves in the South of France,

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we can see our ancestors' determination to leave a record.

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What's down here isn't exactly art and it's not graffiti.

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It's something more personal

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and, I think, more emotional.

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These marks were made by people like us

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27,000 years ago.

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Mouth and hand - it doesn't get more personal than that.

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There is something so common,

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so ordinary about making a hand print -

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children in primary schools all over the world still do it -

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that you can't help

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but feel oddly connected to these people

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who were standing here at the very beginning of the human story.

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These hand prints are some of the oldest human markings in the world.

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Similar prints have been discovered

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in South Africa, Australia, North America and Argentina.

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It's the first example of what you might call recorded history -

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a universal statement saying, "We are here."

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Around 16,000 years ago,

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the northern hemisphere began to warm up.

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After tens of thousands of years living as hunter-gatherers

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at the mercy of nature,

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this transformation of the world's climate

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helped our ancestors to do something radically new.

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The river Tigris, Eastern Turkey, in the Fertile Crescent.

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Humans can eat 56 kinds of wild grass,

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and 32 of them grew here,

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compared, for instance, to just four in America.

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Fertile indeed.

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This is where

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the single biggest change that humans have ever made to the planet,

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even in our age of science and great cities...

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The one thing that has changed Earth more than any other,

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started here in the "land of the rivers".

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The people who lived in this blessed place ate wild plants,

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kept a few tame animals, and hunted,

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but they were also lazy enough to not to want to keep walking further

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to find more tasty seeds to eat.

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Laziness turns out to be an underestimated force

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in human history.

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So, if you don't want to go to find your food,

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you can hardly make your food come to you. Or can you?

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These are the great anonymous inventors,

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and it's from this breakthrough that everything follows.

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It's a crucial moment in shifting the balance between humankind

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and the rest of nature.

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THEY CONVERSE IN NATIVE LANGUAGE

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It's not an obvious thing to do.

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You gather the grains - the food that you're hungry for

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and your family is hungry for -

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but instead of eating it, you keep some of it back...

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..and you take it and you plant it back into the dirt.

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And then you wait.

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WIND HOWLS

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THUNDER CLAPS

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To take a seed and plant it seems such an obvious idea now

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but 13,000 years ago it really was a gamble.

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It shows thinking ahead,

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it shows planning,

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it shows a certain faith.

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But by making that simple change,

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foragers who live throughout the landscape

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picking things up all over the place

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are starting to become farmers

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who have an investment in ONE piece of earth.

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And by choosing the biggest seeds to grow,

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people reshaped the plants, as well.

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Bigger seeds and, eventually, bigger everything.

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Later on,

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people in China, India and South America

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would invent farming for themselves.

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Three grasses triumphed in ancient times - wheat, rice and corn.

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12,000 years on, and they are still the bedrock of the human diet.

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Farming was the great leap forward, but progress came at a price.

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When people settled down to farm, life got harder.

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The archaeologists are clear.

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Farmers became smaller and they died younger than hunter-gatherers.

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Labour in the fields led to joints inflamed by arthritis,

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and the diet of sticky porridge

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brought tooth decay for the first time.

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So why would people farm when the world was still teeming with game?

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More to the point, why would they carry on farming?

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Well, part of the reason is that they got trapped

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by their own population explosion.

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Once people were settled down with more food,

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the numbers in the families grew.

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Hunter-gatherers had to limit the number of children

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to those who could be carried with them, but farmers didn't.

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As human numbers rose, and people started to work together,

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farmers began settling down in larger groups.

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Scattered across the plains of Anatolia in Turkey

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are mysterious mounds.

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Hidden inside them is the earliest evidence of that next big step -

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towns.

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HE CHANTS

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9,000 years ago, a community,

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a small town of up to 8,000 people,

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lived here at Catalhoyuk.

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And it's here that we meet one of the first individuals

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to emerge from our early history.

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Her skeleton was excavated in 2004.

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She was only in her twenties

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when she was buried underneath the floor of her home.

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She was found curled up, tightly holding a skull,

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forehead to forehead like this.

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The skull had been plastered

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and, in fact, it had been plastered and re-plastered quite a few times,

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suggesting that it had been used for one burial and then another,

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buried again and dug up and used again.

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It was almost certainly an ancestor, somebody who mattered to her family.

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What we seem to be seeing here is ancestor worship -

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worship of the ground that you stand in and the people you come from.

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The young woman was buried wearing a rare leopard-claw necklace.

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What's going on here is the opening up of another human frontier.

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As a town, Catalhoyuk is a little conquest of physical space,

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the here and now,

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but the leopard lady's grave

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is an attempt to take control of time, too,

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to link the dead, the living and those still to be born.

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These were people who, if asked, "Who do you think you are?"

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could give a very clear answer.

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Their town was a compact network of mud-brick houses,

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almost like a human beehive,

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and not so different from modern shanty towns in today's world.

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People walked across the town on flat roofs

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and they entered their homes via ladders through the rooftops.

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First of all, it is recognisably a house,

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not so different in the way it's laid out

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to innumerable flats and apartments and homes today.

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Through here is, if you like, the pantry

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with great big clay buckets originally,

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where they kept all kinds of grains and seeds.

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Through here there is what was probably some kind of bedroom.

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Five to ten people probably lived in this place,

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so a familiar design. But the second thing about it

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is that the people who lived here were scrupulously clean

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and they couldn't wash the floors and walls

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because they were made of earth

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but what they did was they whitewashed them, endlessly.

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Over here you can see these little lines

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and that was layer upon layer of whitewashing,

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and this wall, archaeologists tell us,

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was whitewashed more than 400 times.

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So here we are, right at the beginning of human society,

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in a place and surrounded by the ghosts of people

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that we already recognise.

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The Leopard Lady grew up in a well-ordered and stable community

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where men and women were equally well fed

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and enjoyed the same social status.

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This seems to have been a peaceful place with no defensive walls

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and no signs of social division or conflict.

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There are no temples, there's no palace,

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there are no warriors' areas or special women's quarters -

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just families living alongside one another and co-operating,

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almost like the modern anarchists' fantasy

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of a world without rulers, a society without bosses,

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and the problem, of course, with that

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is that these kinds of arrangements always fall apart very quickly.

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The people of Catalhoyuk could only manage it for 1,400 years.

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SHE TUTS

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But this was no Garden of Eden.

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Like farming, living in towns brought new dangers.

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Thousands of people and goats, cows and ducks

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living in close quarters

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created perfect conditions for diseases to spread,

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and there's evidence that

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tuberculosis passed from cattle to humans at about this time.

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THUNDER CLAPS

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Most of the worst threats to human health -

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smallpox, measles, flu - came first from farm animals.

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Maybe that's why the Leopard Lady died an early death,

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before being buried beneath the floor of her home,

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like her ancestors.

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Farming and town-living had both brought new dangers

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but the trap had closed.

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There was no going back.

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Across the world, many of our ancestors were now living

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in independent settled communities.

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But what would possibly bring them together into bigger groups?

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Again, we have to look to nature - not simply its opportunities

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but also its threats.

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All around the world people have told stories about a great flood,

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and it really does seem that something happened

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about 4,000 years ago

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which caused devastation to many of the first civilisations,

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including China.

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But what makes China different

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is that they still tell stories,

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part myth but part, probably, history, too.

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In China, it really does all start with the Flood.

0:33:130:33:18

THUNDER

0:33:180:33:20

WIND HOWLS

0:33:240:33:26

According to the ancient chronicles, there were nine years of heavy rain,

0:33:280:33:33

causing the Yellow River to change its course with devastating effects.

0:33:330:33:38

WIND HOWLS

0:33:380:33:40

SHE CRIES OUT

0:33:400:33:42

The Yellow River is also known as "China's Great Sorrow".

0:33:430:33:48

For thousands of years it regularly burst its banks,

0:33:480:33:52

wiping out entire villages, destroying everything in its path.

0:33:520:33:56

THUNDER SHE CRIES OUT

0:33:560:33:58

The 3,000-mile-long river

0:34:120:34:14

flooded an area greater than the entire United Kingdom.

0:34:140:34:18

The old legends say that one of the clan leaders

0:34:230:34:27

appointed a man named Gun to devise a way to tame the river.

0:34:270:34:31

The stakes were rather high.

0:34:390:34:42

If Gun succeeded, he'd be richly rewarded.

0:34:420:34:45

If he failed, he'd pay with his life.

0:34:450:34:49

He built huge earth dams.

0:35:000:35:03

But time and again, they were brushed aside by the floodwaters.

0:35:100:35:14

Gun was unable to save his people...

0:35:140:35:19

or himself.

0:35:190:35:21

The father's burden would now fall upon his son, Yu.

0:35:220:35:27

After Gun's execution,

0:35:430:35:44

the clan leader ordered Yu to come up with a new idea

0:35:440:35:48

about how to control the floods,

0:35:480:35:50

and Yu dedicated his life to the job.

0:35:500:35:53

According to old Chinese legends,

0:35:530:35:56

he said he wouldn't return to his pregnant wife

0:35:560:35:58

until the river was tamed.

0:35:580:36:01

The ancient chronicles say that Yu decided to begin

0:36:080:36:12

by surveying the entire length of the river.

0:36:120:36:16

On this epic trek he came up with a radically different plan.

0:36:200:36:25

No more confrontations with nature, no more dams.

0:36:270:36:30

Instead of trying to confront the raging waters like his father,

0:36:340:36:39

he would divide them.

0:36:390:36:41

Yu planned to create a vast network of channels.

0:36:500:36:53

During the flood season,

0:36:540:36:56

they would divert the full force of the river

0:36:560:36:59

and reduce its destructive flow,

0:36:590:37:02

but that meant a colossal work of engineering...

0:37:020:37:06

..and a huge diplomatic challenge - because in order to succeed,

0:37:120:37:18

he'd have to convince hundreds of rival clans

0:37:180:37:21

to set aside centuries of hostility.

0:37:210:37:24

We're going back to the old strength of pre-historic humanity, tribalism,

0:37:310:37:36

which was now becoming a weakness,

0:37:360:37:39

because only by working together

0:37:390:37:42

could the clans possibly solve the problem of the Yellow River.

0:37:420:37:48

Yu's epic engineering project began.

0:37:540:37:57

Myth or not, there were major river-taming projects at this time.

0:38:040:38:10

The story goes that over the next 13 years,

0:38:200:38:22

Yu passed his home three times,

0:38:220:38:25

but he remained true to his vow of self-sacrifice

0:38:250:38:29

and never went inside.

0:38:290:38:31

Finally, his vast network of channels was complete.

0:38:580:39:03

THUNDER

0:39:150:39:17

And the rains came again.

0:39:220:39:25

Yu's great feat of engineering would be put to the test.

0:39:250:39:28

But the channels calmed the floods.

0:39:480:39:51

Yu's story tells us an important historical truth

0:39:530:39:57

about how natural challenges

0:39:570:39:59

brought river-dwelling people together.

0:39:590:40:02

Da Yu had united the clans of the Yellow River for the first time

0:40:120:40:18

because only by coming together, under a single authority,

0:40:180:40:23

could they solve this problem.

0:40:230:40:25

As a reward, the clan leader made Yu his heir.

0:40:270:40:30

Some people argue he founded the first Chinese dynasty,

0:40:320:40:36

and certainly Chinese history begins on the banks of the Yellow River.

0:40:360:40:41

Yu is known to this day as Da Yu - the Great Yu -

0:40:430:40:48

and it's interesting that the first Chinese hero

0:40:480:40:52

was a civil engineer and a civil servant.

0:40:520:40:56

All around the world,

0:40:590:41:01

history is shaped by the desire to shape nature to suit us.

0:41:010:41:06

BABY CRIES

0:41:080:41:10

That means working together,

0:41:100:41:12

but it's also competitive and violent.

0:41:120:41:17

Each move forward brings fresh problems.

0:41:200:41:25

Farming brings more people, but it brings more disease,

0:41:250:41:31

and in more complex societies, leaders and priests will emerge.

0:41:310:41:37

It's all a shaggy-dog story of unexpected consequences.

0:41:390:41:43

From the sweat and success of the first farmers,

0:41:450:41:49

all the world's hierarchies,

0:41:490:41:51

from landlords and popes to emperors would grow,

0:41:510:41:54

and they only thought they were planting next year's porridge

0:41:540:41:58

or trying to keep dry.

0:41:580:42:00

Egypt, 3,200 years ago.

0:42:100:42:15

The Nile is the longest river in the world.

0:42:150:42:18

It flows from south to north,

0:42:180:42:21

but the prevailing winds go the other way,

0:42:210:42:24

making it a wonderful two-way transport system

0:42:240:42:27

and a lush green corridor.

0:42:270:42:30

So it's not so surprising

0:42:390:42:41

that the world's first great civilisation started here,

0:42:410:42:45

with its temples, writing, priests,

0:42:450:42:48

its awesome rulers.

0:42:480:42:50

The pharaohs thought that their stony, river civilisation

0:43:010:43:06

would last for eternity,

0:43:060:43:09

and, of course, all of this is only possible

0:43:090:43:12

because of the huge numbers of people planting, and cursing,

0:43:120:43:17

and lifting and cutting -

0:43:170:43:20

all the workers on whose backs these great edifices were raised

0:43:200:43:26

and you never hear about them.

0:43:260:43:28

You never know what THEY thought of it all.

0:43:280:43:31

Well, except sometimes, you do hear.

0:43:320:43:35

FAINT SHOUTS

0:43:350:43:38

Thanks to one remarkable invention,

0:43:460:43:50

we know exactly what life was like for ordinary Egyptians.

0:43:500:43:54

This was once the town of Set Ma'at, "the Place of Truth".

0:44:070:44:13

The stonemasons and carpenters who built the pharaohs' tombs

0:44:130:44:17

in the nearby Valley of the Kings lived here.

0:44:170:44:20

22,000 years after we splashed our hand prints onto the walls of caves,

0:44:270:44:33

our enthusiasm for leaving our marks on the world

0:44:330:44:36

had reached a new level.

0:44:360:44:39

Writing had developed in Egypt around 5,000 years ago,

0:44:390:44:44

and at first it would have been the preserve of specialist scribes

0:44:440:44:49

but the people of Set Ma'at

0:44:490:44:50

are among the first working people in the world to learn how to write.

0:44:500:44:57

The ordinary villagers sent letters and messages,

0:45:020:45:05

rather as we fire off texts and e-mails today,

0:45:050:45:07

but they wrote them down on little pieces of limestone

0:45:070:45:12

or on broken pieces of pottery.

0:45:120:45:14

They're called ostraca.

0:45:140:45:16

And they were discovered in their thousands

0:45:160:45:19

where they'd just been chucked away,

0:45:190:45:22

so that we can eavesdrop on village life from more than 3,000 years ago.

0:45:220:45:27

SHE SIGHS

0:45:330:45:34

SHE SIGHS

0:45:410:45:43

One of the voices we hear is from an old woman called Naunakthe.

0:45:430:45:49

As we hear her speak,

0:45:490:45:50

a civilisation that seemed distant and alien

0:45:500:45:53

suddenly becomes surprisingly familiar.

0:45:530:45:57

'I have raised eight children and brought them up well,

0:45:580:46:02

'given them everything they need.

0:46:020:46:04

'Now look, I have become old and they don't care for me.

0:46:050:46:09

'The ones who put their hands in mine and looked after me,

0:46:090:46:13

'I will leave them my property.

0:46:130:46:16

'But as for the others, they will get nothing.'

0:46:160:46:20

The records are packed with all human life -

0:46:260:46:29

children's homework, laundry lists, a remedy for piles -

0:46:290:46:33

green beans, salt, goose fat and honey

0:46:330:46:36

on the backside for four days.

0:46:360:46:39

Oh, yes, and the story of Paneb,

0:46:390:46:42

a married man with a son and two daughters.

0:46:420:46:46

A builder with a sideline -

0:46:500:46:52

because Paneb was also a tomb raider.

0:46:520:46:56

His story is told in the court records of a scandalous trial.

0:47:110:47:17

HE SPEAKS THE LOCAL LANGUAGE

0:47:170:47:20

Paneb was the talk of the village.

0:47:210:47:24

He was accused of "plundering the tomb of the Pharaoh

0:47:240:47:28

and stealing burial goods".

0:47:280:47:30

The judge also charged him with drunk and disorderly behaviour...

0:47:300:47:34

HE SPEAKS THE LOCAL LANGUAGE

0:47:340:47:37

..and with a violent assault against his stepfather.

0:47:400:47:45

HE YELLS

0:47:450:47:47

Bad enough - Paneb, thief and hooligan - but there was more.

0:47:590:48:05

Paneb...

0:48:070:48:09

He'd slept with the wife of his fellow builder Kenna,

0:48:090:48:13

and, no, it didn't stop there.

0:48:130:48:17

To make matters worse,

0:48:220:48:24

Paneb then went on to sleep with Kenna's daughter.

0:48:240:48:28

THEY GASP

0:48:290:48:31

THEY GIGGLE

0:48:310:48:32

It's beginning to sound like an early draft of EastEnders.

0:48:390:48:44

An outbreak of wild Nile naughtiness.

0:48:450:48:48

But what's really interesting is the court itself.

0:48:510:48:56

Each Egyptian community had one.

0:48:570:48:59

What's happening here is another major development

0:49:050:49:08

in early human history.

0:49:080:49:10

They're trying to impose order on society.

0:49:100:49:14

In villages and towns, the instinct for fairness is producing law.

0:49:150:49:21

This is good news for human civilisation,

0:49:230:49:26

although, on the whole, pretty bad news for Paneb.

0:49:260:49:31

Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.

0:49:310:49:35

Life wasn't easy for ordinary Egyptians,

0:49:350:49:38

but order was infinitely better than disorder.

0:49:380:49:41

We all remember the pyramids and pharaohs,

0:49:410:49:43

but advances which were, in the long term, just as significant

0:49:430:49:47

were being made behind humbler walls.

0:49:470:49:50

But it wasn't just ancient Egypt. All around the Mediterranean,

0:49:510:49:55

you start to see people learning to read and write.

0:49:550:49:59

They trade little luxuries. They eat better food.

0:49:590:50:03

They consume spices and herbs.

0:50:030:50:05

They drink beer and they drink wine.

0:50:050:50:07

And things are just going to get better and better.

0:50:070:50:11

Or maybe not.

0:50:130:50:15

Writing helped speed up the spread of ideas.

0:50:180:50:22

Trade accelerated the growth of towns and cities,

0:50:220:50:25

and civilisation was spreading.

0:50:250:50:28

But the battle with nature never stopped.

0:50:280:50:31

The Greek island of Crete sits in an area

0:50:370:50:40

prone to volcanic eruptions and earthquakes

0:50:400:50:44

and this was the home of what's been described

0:50:440:50:47

as Europe's first civilisation - the Minoans'.

0:50:470:50:52

So what does that mean, "civilisation"?

0:50:540:50:57

Literally, "people living in towns and cities"

0:50:570:51:00

but it implies more style, more polish

0:51:000:51:04

and few civilisations have seemed as stylish as the Minoans'.

0:51:040:51:09

3,700 years ago,

0:51:200:51:23

the Minoans were pioneers of international trade.

0:51:230:51:27

They shipped wine, olive oil and timber

0:51:270:51:30

throughout the eastern Mediterranean.

0:51:300:51:33

At the heart of the Minoan civilisation

0:51:370:51:39

stood their great Palace of Knossos.

0:51:390:51:43

In the early 1900s,

0:51:490:51:51

Knossos was excavated by the British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans.

0:51:510:51:55

He discovered a sophisticated city

0:51:560:51:59

that had frescos, aqueducts and even rudimentary plumbing.

0:51:590:52:04

The frescos and figures of women holding snakes up to the sky

0:52:050:52:10

suggest that women held a dominant position in Minoan culture.

0:52:100:52:15

Evans was entranced by the Minoans,

0:52:160:52:19

and he decided to reconstruct their city.

0:52:190:52:22

There's something interestingly cool and modern about the Minoan style,

0:52:260:52:30

something very 1920s,

0:52:300:52:34

and that's because it IS very 1920s.

0:52:340:52:38

Reinforced concrete.

0:52:390:52:41

The stonework is new and, as for the world-famous frescos,

0:52:410:52:45

well, they're based on fragments of Minoan art

0:52:450:52:49

but they've been very, very seriously worked up.

0:52:490:52:55

The beauties shimmying down to a beach party

0:52:550:52:58

with their flagons of wine

0:52:580:52:59

were famously described by the novelist Evelyn Waugh

0:52:590:53:03

as being rather like the covers of Vogue magazine.

0:53:030:53:07

Evans excavated and rebuilt

0:53:110:53:14

at a time when Europe was being torn apart by the First World War,

0:53:140:53:19

and he presented the Minoan civilisation as a peaceful utopia.

0:53:190:53:24

Evans imagined the Minoans

0:53:350:53:38

ruling over a gentler, more peaceful Europe,

0:53:380:53:44

far from the blood-soaked Europe of his own time.

0:53:440:53:48

The Minoan culture seemed idyllic,

0:54:000:54:03

but first impressions are as dangerous in history

0:54:030:54:07

as anywhere else.

0:54:070:54:08

In 1979, a darker side to the Minoans was revealed.

0:54:090:54:15

MAN YELLS

0:54:160:54:19

And that dark underside was first uncovered here at a little temple

0:54:190:54:24

a few miles inland from Knossos.

0:54:240:54:26

It seems a tiny, quiet fragment of paradise today

0:54:260:54:30

but when archaeologists started digging through the rubble,

0:54:300:54:33

they made a satisfyingly gruesome discovery.

0:54:330:54:37

MAN YELLS

0:54:400:54:43

SNAKE HISSES

0:54:490:54:52

Now, on these stones, there was some kind of altar

0:54:540:54:58

and on that the skeleton of a young man, about 18 years old,

0:54:580:55:02

and across him was lying a bronze ceremonial dagger.

0:55:020:55:08

The bones on the upper part of his body were white

0:55:150:55:18

and on the lower part black,

0:55:180:55:20

indicating to archaeologists that his heart had still been beating

0:55:200:55:25

as the blood was draining from his body.

0:55:250:55:28

He'd bled to death. He was a human sacrifice.

0:55:280:55:31

WOMAN CHANTS

0:55:310:55:34

Two other bodies were discovered,

0:55:360:55:38

here and over here.

0:55:380:55:41

One was the body of a woman,

0:55:410:55:43

just over five foot high, of medium build,

0:55:430:55:48

and her hands were trying to protect her face.

0:55:480:55:52

Now we know that women had high status in Minoan society,

0:55:520:55:55

and it's possible, even probable, that she was a priestess.

0:55:550:56:00

Minoan society was highly developed,

0:56:050:56:08

but they lived in fear of the natural forces surrounding them,

0:56:080:56:11

and their desire to control nature wasn't matched by their ability.

0:56:110:56:18

So they responded with the ultimate religious ritual

0:56:180:56:22

in an attempt to appease the gods

0:56:220:56:24

they believed controlled the natural world.

0:56:240:56:27

KNIFE SLASHES

0:56:300:56:31

RUMBLING

0:56:430:56:45

Around 3,700 years ago,

0:56:450:56:48

during this gory sacrifice,

0:56:480:56:52

nature struck again.

0:56:520:56:54

CRASHING

0:56:570:56:59

LOUD RUMBLING

0:57:060:57:08

Trying to police nature has always been the ultimate human challenge.

0:57:280:57:34

It still is.

0:57:340:57:36

All their attempts to placate the gods having failed,

0:57:360:57:40

the Minoan civilisation was devastated.

0:57:400:57:44

The Minoans will always be a mysterious people...

0:57:440:57:47

..and yet they do remind us of a fundamental truth,

0:57:480:57:53

which is that although the journey from caves to civilisation

0:57:530:57:57

had been awesome,

0:57:570:57:59

there would be no final victories -

0:57:590:58:02

certainly not over nature,

0:58:020:58:05

nor over the darker side of human nature.

0:58:050:58:09

THEY YELL RHYTHMICALLY

0:58:190:58:21

In the next episode...

0:58:210:58:22

HE YELLS

0:58:220:58:23

..the first great Age of Empire...

0:58:230:58:26

..bold new ideas in East and West...

0:58:270:58:30

..and Alexander the Great.

0:58:320:58:33

HE YELLS

0:58:330:58:35

If you'd like to know a little bit more about how the past is revealed,

0:58:360:58:40

you can order a free booklet called How Do They Know That?

0:58:400:58:45

Just call...

0:58:450:58:47

Or go to...

0:58:500:58:51

..and follow the links to the Open University.

0:58:550:58:58

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0:59:140:59:17

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