0:00:07 > 0:00:10'They say this is where it all began.
0:00:14 > 0:00:16'That we are all children of Africa.
0:00:20 > 0:00:24'But if so, why do look so different?
0:00:26 > 0:00:32'And how on earth could a handful of African families become a whole world full of people?
0:00:45 > 0:00:49'I'm Alice Roberts, medical doctor and anthropologist.
0:00:49 > 0:00:55'I'm fascinated by what bones, stones
0:00:55 > 0:01:00'and even our bodies can reveal about the distant past.
0:01:00 > 0:01:05'I'm going in search of the traces left by our African ancestors
0:01:05 > 0:01:08'and their journeys to populate the world.
0:01:09 > 0:01:12'This time, Europe.
0:01:13 > 0:01:16'A dangerous journey,
0:01:17 > 0:01:19'and a formidable rival.'
0:01:21 > 0:01:25We're excavating the sea bottom in search of Neanderthals.
0:01:25 > 0:01:30'The unexpected weapons in our battle for survival.'
0:01:30 > 0:01:34I don't think it would have even crossed my mind to mate with a Neanderthal.
0:01:34 > 0:01:38'Spectacular new discoveries.'
0:01:38 > 0:01:41I'm blown away by that. I mean, that is just amazing.
0:01:41 > 0:01:45'And the surprising story of why Europeans turned white.'
0:01:50 > 0:01:54Come with me in the footsteps of our ancestors,
0:01:54 > 0:01:57on the most epic adventure ever undertaken.
0:02:18 > 0:02:23'My journey begins in the remote forests of eastern Europe.'
0:02:25 > 0:02:28OK, so you see the cave is down there.
0:02:30 > 0:02:34'I'm being led to an ancient cave.
0:02:34 > 0:02:41'Its location is only known to a handful of people, including Sylviu Constantin.'
0:02:56 > 0:03:00I'm in Romania, somewhere to the south of Transylvania,
0:03:00 > 0:03:05and I'm just about to enter the cave of Pestera cu Oase.
0:03:05 > 0:03:10It's very remote, about a day-and-a-half's drive from the capital, Bucharest,
0:03:10 > 0:03:12and then a trek through the woods.
0:03:12 > 0:03:17But I've wanted to come to this place ever since I first heard what was found here,
0:03:17 > 0:03:25because just a few years ago, an incredibly exciting discovery was made in this cave.
0:03:34 > 0:03:39'Something had been hidden here for thousands of years,
0:03:39 > 0:03:41'something extremely rare.
0:03:45 > 0:03:52'In 2002, a group of divers exploring the furthest reaches of the cave
0:03:52 > 0:03:54'discovered a hidden chamber.
0:03:56 > 0:04:02'The cave became known as Pestera Cu Oase, the Cave of Bones.'
0:04:06 > 0:04:07And how's it looking?
0:04:07 > 0:04:09Are we going to have to go right under water?
0:04:09 > 0:04:10No.
0:04:16 > 0:04:20'We're following the course of an underground river
0:04:21 > 0:04:23'through narrow tunnels.'
0:04:24 > 0:04:26A bit tight.
0:04:37 > 0:04:42Eventually we get close to where the discovery was made.
0:04:55 > 0:04:57Sylviu, is that the end of the line?
0:05:00 > 0:05:03And Sylviu, when you came to the cave, what did you find here?
0:05:18 > 0:05:19And how old is it?
0:05:21 > 0:05:26And 40,000 years old makes it the first human remains,
0:05:26 > 0:05:31modern human remains, in Europe, and you must have been excited when you got that date.
0:05:52 > 0:05:57And this is what they found, not in one piece like this,
0:05:57 > 0:06:02but in hundreds of fragments which have been painstakingly glued back together
0:06:02 > 0:06:08until we can look at the face of the first known modern European.
0:06:13 > 0:06:17And we can be absolutely sure that this is a modern human.
0:06:17 > 0:06:20The shape of the skull is unmistakable.
0:06:20 > 0:06:25This lovely round brain case just gives it away.
0:06:25 > 0:06:29But there are some bits of it that are distinctly less modern looking.
0:06:29 > 0:06:32It's got enormous teeth.
0:06:32 > 0:06:37They are massive compared with the teeth of people today.
0:06:37 > 0:06:40Now, those huge teeth are also reflected
0:06:40 > 0:06:42in the jawbone from the cave,
0:06:42 > 0:06:47which is from another person, but it's also very robust, very chunky.
0:06:47 > 0:06:50And so, when I look at the jawbone and the skull together,
0:06:50 > 0:06:55I can start to imagine what those early Europeans looked like.
0:06:55 > 0:06:59Much more rugged in the face than people do today.
0:07:06 > 0:07:08'Who was this person?
0:07:20 > 0:07:26'Forensic artist Richard Neave has helped the police solve murder cases
0:07:26 > 0:07:29'by reconstructing faces from skulls.
0:07:31 > 0:07:36'In the hope of discovering more about the first Europeans,
0:07:36 > 0:07:41'we've asked him to reconstruct the face of the Oase skull.'
0:07:42 > 0:07:44So this is Oase.
0:07:44 > 0:07:46This is Oase. There we are.
0:07:50 > 0:07:54It's wonderful to see him or her, we're not quite sure, are we...
0:07:54 > 0:07:56- No. No.- ..Fleshed out.
0:07:56 > 0:07:58A touch androgynous, maybe, this one.
0:07:58 > 0:08:01It's quite strange, actually, because this doesn't particularly
0:08:01 > 0:08:04look like a European or African or Asian.
0:08:04 > 0:08:07It looks sort of almost quite generic,
0:08:07 > 0:08:11but then I suppose that's what you'd expect from one of the earliest Europeans.
0:08:11 > 0:08:15You look at this and you can think to yourself it could go either way.
0:08:15 > 0:08:18It's almost as though it's a face in flux.
0:08:18 > 0:08:21It's got features which could go in any direction.
0:08:21 > 0:08:24It could become negroid,
0:08:24 > 0:08:30it could become south-east Asian, it could become European.
0:08:30 > 0:08:37There's the potential for all those different directions and that's what I find so exciting about it.
0:08:37 > 0:08:40Obviously you've made this in clay and that's why it's brown, but...
0:08:40 > 0:08:45- Yes.- In fact, it's very likely that these earliest of Europeans were
0:08:45 > 0:08:50quite dark skinned, much, much darker skinned than we think of Europeans being today.
0:08:50 > 0:08:54- Yes.- Because at the end of day, you know, they're only just arriving in Europe.
0:08:54 > 0:08:56They're coming from much more tropical places.
0:08:56 > 0:09:01- Yes.- So I think, you know, we may be looking at something which is actually quite lifelike here.
0:09:01 > 0:09:03- We're not too far from the... - No.- No.
0:09:06 > 0:09:11I've been really excited to see what this face would end up looking like,
0:09:11 > 0:09:17and I do feel as though I'm getting much closer to our ancestors.
0:09:20 > 0:09:23'But where did these first European people come from?
0:09:26 > 0:09:30'And why do we find their bones in a Romanian cave?
0:09:39 > 0:09:44'Previously I found evidence that everyone outside Africa
0:09:44 > 0:09:51'descends from one small group of people that left the continent around 70,000 years ago.
0:09:53 > 0:09:57'Some of their descendants must have made it north,
0:09:57 > 0:10:01'through the Middle East towards modern-day Turkey.'
0:10:13 > 0:10:15This is border country.
0:10:15 > 0:10:1930 miles away Turkey meets Syria and the Middle East.
0:10:19 > 0:10:26Today everything in that direction might look alien and hostile, but 50,000 years ago it was Europe,
0:10:26 > 0:10:32the land that lay ahead, which would be more dangerous than they could ever have imagined.
0:10:37 > 0:10:41'Venturing this way, people would have been coming to lands far colder
0:10:41 > 0:10:46'and more challenging than anything they had experienced before.
0:10:48 > 0:10:54'Traces of their journey all that time ago are few and far between.
0:10:58 > 0:11:04'But some important clues have been unearthed in southern Turkey.'
0:11:09 > 0:11:15And this is how we know that people came through Turkey at this point in time.
0:11:15 > 0:11:17Now, it might look utterly insignificant,
0:11:17 > 0:11:21but shells like this one were found at a place called Ucagizli on the Turkish coast,
0:11:21 > 0:11:24and they are vital clues.
0:11:24 > 0:11:29The hole in them suggests that they were pendants, perhaps part of a necklace,
0:11:29 > 0:11:35and the Ucagizli shell beads date back to around 42,000 years ago.
0:11:35 > 0:11:39They are the first pieces of evidence that we have
0:11:39 > 0:11:42as we follow the trail of our European ancestors.
0:11:45 > 0:11:49'There may have been other routes into Europe,
0:11:49 > 0:11:53'but the evidence we have seems to point in this direction.
0:11:57 > 0:12:00'So I'm heading to Istanbul.
0:12:15 > 0:12:18'Here, for a few Turkish lira,
0:12:18 > 0:12:23'taxi drivers like Ishan Akhmer carry their passengers between two continents.'
0:12:23 > 0:12:25- That's Golden Horn.- Right.
0:12:25 > 0:12:27- And...- Tell you what, I'll hold that, you drive!
0:12:27 > 0:12:29No, no, don't worry about that.
0:12:29 > 0:12:34I don't kill anybody yet. Why you don't trust me?!
0:12:34 > 0:12:39So, Ishan, as a taxi driver, do you cross over between Asia and Europe every day?
0:12:39 > 0:12:44Most people live in Asian side, work in that side,
0:12:44 > 0:12:49because most office and business here, more houses there.
0:12:49 > 0:12:52Well, I'm here looking for traces
0:12:52 > 0:12:57of people who crossed the Bosphorus, maybe 50, maybe 40,000 years ago.
0:12:57 > 0:13:00My God, how can I know that time?
0:13:00 > 0:13:02HE SPEAKS IN TURKISH
0:13:02 > 0:13:05This is true. I don't know.
0:13:05 > 0:13:08How can this generation, how can I know that generation, my God!
0:13:08 > 0:13:12May be trouble that kind, but that's OK.
0:13:17 > 0:13:24'I bail out of the taxi and catch the ferry to cross from one continent to another.
0:13:30 > 0:13:36'This is the Bosphorus, and here it separates Asia from Europe.
0:13:47 > 0:13:52'This is one challenge our ancestors would not have faced.
0:13:54 > 0:14:00'When they came this way, sea levels were much lower and they could have walked across into Europe.
0:14:16 > 0:14:24'But can we really retrace their steps using only a few shells and a scattering of artefacts?'
0:14:24 > 0:14:27The good news is, we don't have to.
0:14:27 > 0:14:32The evidence is all around us, or to be more precise, inside all of us.
0:14:33 > 0:14:36'Our DNA tells us something incredible
0:14:36 > 0:14:42'by revealing the existence of one very special woman.'
0:14:42 > 0:14:45We don't know who she was or where she lived and, in fact,
0:14:45 > 0:14:48we have no physical evidence of her at all.
0:14:48 > 0:14:52No bones, no stone tools, no beads.
0:14:52 > 0:14:57But we do know that she existed because of her genetic legacy.
0:14:57 > 0:15:01And some scientists have felt moved to name her Europa,
0:15:01 > 0:15:06because in one sense, hers is the founding lineage of Europe.
0:15:09 > 0:15:15'Today, ten per cent of Europeans can trace their genes back to this one woman.
0:15:15 > 0:15:21'Geneticists estimate that she lived around 40,000 years ago
0:15:21 > 0:15:25'and that fits with the archaeological evidence, like those shell beads.
0:15:26 > 0:15:31'It's incredible to think of Europa's descendants as a small wave
0:15:31 > 0:15:36'of nomads making their way through this region all those years ago.
0:15:40 > 0:15:43'But where might they have gone next?'
0:15:56 > 0:16:01For our ancestors, where I'm going now would have been a journey into the unknown.
0:16:01 > 0:16:06This is the River Danube, and today it flows through capital cities
0:16:06 > 0:16:10like Budapest and Vienna, but 40,000 years ago,
0:16:10 > 0:16:14it would have been a gateway to a whole new world.
0:16:14 > 0:16:18I'm going to follow our ancestors upstream, right into the heart of Europe.
0:16:37 > 0:16:42'North of Istanbul is the Black Sea and the mouth of the Danube.
0:16:42 > 0:16:45'The river runs through Romania,
0:16:45 > 0:16:50'very close to the Oase cave and the earliest known European.
0:16:50 > 0:16:53'It looks like those first few colonisers
0:16:53 > 0:16:59'may have been using the Danube as a superhighway, heading west.'
0:17:08 > 0:17:14But as they followed the Danube's mighty, meandering course, they were in for a shock.
0:17:14 > 0:17:19Something or someone had got there before them.
0:17:29 > 0:17:33'Europa's descendants weren't entering virgin territory.
0:17:42 > 0:17:48'For a quarter of a million years, another species of human had called Europe home.
0:17:51 > 0:17:54'The Neanderthals.'
0:18:01 > 0:18:08This is a reconstruction of a man who lived a very long time ago in Italy.
0:18:08 > 0:18:11He's not a modern human, he's a Neanderthal.
0:18:13 > 0:18:17And I think when you first look at his face,
0:18:17 > 0:18:21the similarities probably strike you more than the differences,
0:18:21 > 0:18:23so he looks quite human.
0:18:23 > 0:18:26Would you notice him walking along in the street?
0:18:26 > 0:18:29But then there are things which do look a bit odd.
0:18:29 > 0:18:33The distance between his eyes, the breadth of his nose just here.
0:18:33 > 0:18:35That looks a bit strange.
0:18:35 > 0:18:39And he's got this amazing brow ridge
0:18:39 > 0:18:41that really sticks out over his eyes.
0:18:44 > 0:18:47'Neanderthals are our distant cousins.
0:18:47 > 0:18:53'Their ancestors reached Europe hundreds of thousands of years before us.
0:18:54 > 0:18:59'They spread across a huge region, from Siberia to Spain.
0:19:01 > 0:19:06'So when Homo sapiens first arrived, around 40,000 years ago,
0:19:06 > 0:19:09'Europe was already taken.
0:19:16 > 0:19:19'What were our ancestors up against?
0:19:21 > 0:19:25'The popular image of Neanderthals is lumbering and slow-witted.'
0:19:34 > 0:19:37What do you think they would have thought of each other?
0:19:37 > 0:19:40I think they would have been really scared of each other.
0:19:40 > 0:19:42It's actually very hard to imagine
0:19:42 > 0:19:44what they would have thought of each other.
0:19:44 > 0:19:47I think it would have been a fascinating experience to watch
0:19:47 > 0:19:51a contact like that between two very closely-related species
0:19:51 > 0:19:54that are also clearly very different from each other,
0:19:54 > 0:19:57both anatomically, as you can see, but also behaviourally.
0:19:57 > 0:20:00And in terms of differences between Neanderthals and modern humans,
0:20:00 > 0:20:04is there anything we can say about how that might have influenced behaviour?
0:20:04 > 0:20:10OK. The one thing to point out is that Neanderthals were actually sophisticated hunters.
0:20:10 > 0:20:11We know that they were top predators,
0:20:11 > 0:20:14and actually they have very large brains.
0:20:14 > 0:20:17On average, larger than ours.
0:20:19 > 0:20:21'As well as big brains,
0:20:21 > 0:20:24'the Neanderthals may have had another advantage.
0:20:24 > 0:20:28'They had been in Europe long enough to adapt to the cold.
0:20:29 > 0:20:35'Their stocky bodies and short limbs helped them to stay warm,
0:20:36 > 0:20:37'and that's not all.'
0:20:39 > 0:20:42This is a reconstructed Neanderthal skeleton,
0:20:42 > 0:20:44and generally speaking,
0:20:44 > 0:20:47the skeleton is very similar to ours.
0:20:47 > 0:20:50Having said that, there are definite differences.
0:20:50 > 0:20:53The shape of all the bones is subtly different,
0:20:53 > 0:20:56and anywhere that muscles attach on this skeleton
0:20:56 > 0:21:00is much more prominent than it would be in a modern human.
0:21:00 > 0:21:04So this would have been a person who was much more heavily muscled,
0:21:04 > 0:21:08generally much more rugged-looking, than us today.
0:21:12 > 0:21:15They would have been formidable competitors.
0:21:32 > 0:21:35So Neanderthals were tougher and better cold-adapted than us.
0:21:35 > 0:21:39And some of them even had bigger brains than modern humans.
0:21:39 > 0:21:45On the face of it, then, it seems quite surprising that our species lasted very long at all.
0:21:46 > 0:21:49'So how did we overcome the Neanderthals?
0:21:52 > 0:21:57'Maybe our tools and weapons were just better than theirs.
0:21:57 > 0:22:01'Well, for decades, that's exactly what the experts thought.
0:22:06 > 0:22:11'But this idea hadn't been thoroughly tested until now.'
0:22:13 > 0:22:14So how are you doing?
0:22:14 > 0:22:16We're doing all right.
0:22:18 > 0:22:22'Bruce Bradley and Metin Eren spent over a year
0:22:22 > 0:22:25'making thousands of basic cutting tools.'
0:22:29 > 0:22:33So you've got these two tools. This one, a basic tool made by a Neanderthal,
0:22:33 > 0:22:38- and this one a basic tool made by a modern human at the same sort of period.- Correct.
0:22:38 > 0:22:40Now, they're obviously very different-looking.
0:22:40 > 0:22:43This one's long and thin and this one's round,
0:22:43 > 0:22:46but are they different in terms of function?
0:22:46 > 0:22:50They were used for the same kind of tasks, mostly cutting tasks.
0:22:50 > 0:22:52So, for example, both are really sharp.
0:22:52 > 0:22:56If you want to use both of those to cut some pretty thick leather here...
0:22:56 > 0:22:58This is a typical Neanderthal tool?
0:22:58 > 0:23:03Exactly. You can see that it just cuts through this really thick leather very easily.
0:23:03 > 0:23:06That is incredibly sharp. Look at that! Wow!
0:23:06 > 0:23:08And this is really tough leather.
0:23:08 > 0:23:11That's really effective, isn't it? That's brilliant.
0:23:11 > 0:23:12Now let's try the blade.
0:23:12 > 0:23:14Hold it very carefully because it's...
0:23:14 > 0:23:18- This sort of thing was made by modern humans?- Exactly.
0:23:21 > 0:23:23If anything, I would say that flake is a bit...
0:23:23 > 0:23:27I mean, that's cutting, but just, you know, just picking up the tool
0:23:27 > 0:23:31and using it immediately, I'd say the flake's actually easier to use.
0:23:31 > 0:23:35When we created thousands of tools,
0:23:35 > 0:23:38we found that the technology of the Neanderthals
0:23:38 > 0:23:42actually produced more cutting edge overall,
0:23:42 > 0:23:43it wasted less raw material,
0:23:43 > 0:23:47and you could produce more tools than the blade cores of modern Homo sapiens.
0:23:47 > 0:23:49That's very new, isn't it?
0:23:49 > 0:23:52That's quite remarkable, because you're telling me that
0:23:52 > 0:23:57the Neanderthal technology is just as good, in fact, if not better, than the modern humans.
0:23:57 > 0:24:02That goes against everything that people have said for the last few decades.
0:24:02 > 0:24:04That's true, and it was a very exciting result.
0:24:07 > 0:24:12'It's just one study on one aspect of tool-making.
0:24:13 > 0:24:16'But I still think it's important.'
0:24:18 > 0:24:24This is fascinating, and it means that the longstanding theory
0:24:24 > 0:24:29about modern human technology being superior to Neanderthal stone tools
0:24:29 > 0:24:31just doesn't stand up.
0:24:39 > 0:24:47'I want to see if there's another explanation for why we survived and Neanderthals didn't.
0:24:51 > 0:24:58'I'm on my way to meet an expert, who thinks the answer may be much less obvious...'
0:25:00 > 0:25:04OK, Alice, let's see if I can find everything.
0:25:04 > 0:25:09'..thanks to some discoveries made here in Germany.'
0:25:12 > 0:25:17This is a very unusual artefact because it's a flute,
0:25:17 > 0:25:21and the strange thing about this is, what's really spectacular,
0:25:21 > 0:25:23is that it's made of solid mammoth ivory.
0:25:23 > 0:25:27It takes between 50 and 100 hours to make one, if you know how to do it.
0:25:27 > 0:25:29Yeah. It's been carved down to that shape.
0:25:29 > 0:25:33Yeah. It really takes talent and really genius, in the same sense that,
0:25:33 > 0:25:36I don't know, Michelangelo or Rembrandt or something like that.
0:25:36 > 0:25:39So it's the first sign we've had,
0:25:39 > 0:25:42the first archaeological evidence we've had,
0:25:42 > 0:25:44- of people making music.- Yeah.
0:25:44 > 0:25:48Music was a part of their lives just like it's a part of our lives today.
0:25:48 > 0:25:52- So what's in here?- OK. This is a very interesting piece.
0:25:52 > 0:25:54This is...
0:25:54 > 0:25:56the representation...
0:25:58 > 0:26:02..of a phallus and it's not delicate at all.
0:26:02 > 0:26:04- It won't break. You can hold it. - Right!
0:26:04 > 0:26:10And if you look at it, the ring around here, you know, makes it, you know, a fairly obvious sexual image.
0:26:10 > 0:26:16- Yeah!- One could, you know, easily imagine using it in ritual functions
0:26:16 > 0:26:21or also, you know, straight sexual functions in one form or another.
0:26:21 > 0:26:25So do you think this is the first archaeological evidence of smut?
0:26:27 > 0:26:29I don't know. I wouldn't rule that out!
0:26:31 > 0:26:36I can't believe I'm an anatomist, and you've made me blush with a bit of prehistoric phallic imagery!
0:26:36 > 0:26:41It seems our ancestors were more like us than we might imagine.
0:26:44 > 0:26:48But this doesn't really answer my question.
0:26:48 > 0:26:53After all, what use is a flute against a Neanderthal?
0:27:01 > 0:27:05'Nicholas takes me to see the cave where the artefacts were found.
0:27:09 > 0:27:12'Our ancestors weren't the only people who lived here.'
0:27:15 > 0:27:19This is the famous south-west entrance of the cave.
0:27:19 > 0:27:23This is actually very close to where the human remains remained,
0:27:23 > 0:27:26but there were definitely Neanderthals here.
0:27:26 > 0:27:29There are a number of deposits in the lower sediments made by Neanderthals,
0:27:29 > 0:27:32so Neanderthals and modern humans were definitely both here.
0:27:32 > 0:27:34Both using these caves?
0:27:34 > 0:27:39Both using this cave, but also using a number of other caves in the Lohner Valley, where we are.
0:27:46 > 0:27:50Many beautiful objects have been found in this region.
0:27:50 > 0:27:55Made by our ancestors, they reveal a crucial difference
0:27:55 > 0:27:59between us and Neanderthals.
0:28:00 > 0:28:06This figure of a lion man was made around 35,000 years ago,
0:28:06 > 0:28:08but it's not a one-off.
0:28:08 > 0:28:13Other strikingly similar pieces have been found in the region.
0:28:16 > 0:28:18What's going on here?
0:28:21 > 0:28:27The modern humans here and for instance in the neighbouring valley make the exact same artefacts,
0:28:27 > 0:28:30and they're definitely part of the same group.
0:28:30 > 0:28:35There's no way that it's chance that you get identical artefacts at sites 20, 30, 40 kilometres away.
0:28:35 > 0:28:42And that tells us that populations with a shared identity were fairly large, covering fairly large areas,
0:28:42 > 0:28:48presumably interacting, mating with one another, helping each other, and Neanderthals don't seem to have had
0:28:48 > 0:28:52that kind of symbolic communication and seemed to have maintained
0:28:52 > 0:28:54smaller social networks than modern humans.
0:28:56 > 0:28:59So it seems that unlike Neanderthals,
0:28:59 > 0:29:02the scattered tribes of our ancestors
0:29:02 > 0:29:06were held together by a strong shared identity.
0:29:13 > 0:29:18The great flowering of art suggests that people were reaching out
0:29:18 > 0:29:23to each other across the landscape in a way they'd never done before.
0:29:23 > 0:29:27Art wasn't just something they were doing in their spare time.
0:29:27 > 0:29:33It was crucial to survival, a way of marking territory and identity.
0:29:33 > 0:29:37A bit like national flags or football shirts today.
0:29:37 > 0:29:41And in that competition with the Neanderthals,
0:29:41 > 0:29:46it seems that art and what it stood for may have given us the edge.
0:29:49 > 0:29:55These links between family groups may have been critical to our success.
0:29:59 > 0:30:06And as we advanced, Neanderthals began to retreat
0:30:06 > 0:30:09to the very edge of the continent.
0:30:17 > 0:30:21'I'm heading to what may have been the last ever Neanderthal colony.
0:30:26 > 0:30:31'And I am hoping to discover why they finally died out.'
0:30:47 > 0:30:50I'm in Gibraltar, a naval stronghold for centuries,
0:30:50 > 0:30:54and new evidence from these rocky shores
0:30:54 > 0:30:59suggests that thousands of years after they disappeared from the rest of Europe,
0:30:59 > 0:31:02the Neanderthals were clinging on here.
0:31:03 > 0:31:09'When Neanderthals lived here, sea levels were up to 100 metres lower,
0:31:09 > 0:31:13'so much of the evidence from that time could be underwater.
0:31:16 > 0:31:20'A team of specialists is probing the ocean floor,
0:31:20 > 0:31:24'looking for traces of the Gibraltar Neanderthals.'
0:31:28 > 0:31:31We've come to a stop now because we are over the archaeological site.
0:31:31 > 0:31:35It's about 20 metres below the surface of the sea below us.
0:31:35 > 0:31:39The divers are all getting ready, and these are divers but also archaeologists,
0:31:39 > 0:31:43so they're going to be excavating the sea bottom in search of Neanderthals.
0:31:49 > 0:31:55'These divers are up against poor visibility with a limited oxygen supply.
0:31:55 > 0:31:59'Underwater archaeology is always challenging.
0:32:02 > 0:32:08'But Clive Finlayson has already made a series of significant discoveries
0:32:08 > 0:32:10'in the sea caves nearby.'
0:32:10 > 0:32:15This is where the last Neanderthals made their last stand, if you like, 24,000 years ago.
0:32:20 > 0:32:24We get the feeling it's the nearest thing to a Neanderthal city you'll find anywhere.
0:32:24 > 0:32:28We've got fossils, stone tools, animals that they'd have been butchering,
0:32:28 > 0:32:31all kinds of evidence, hearts, Neanderthal barbecues, if you like.
0:32:31 > 0:32:33It's a very, very special site.
0:32:41 > 0:32:45'They think that Neanderthals may have held on here
0:32:45 > 0:32:48'long after they had been wiped out in the rest of Europe.
0:32:53 > 0:32:57'But after the Neanderthals finally disappeared from Gibraltar,
0:32:57 > 0:33:02'there was a gap of 5,000 years before we turned up.
0:33:05 > 0:33:10'So it looks as though whatever finally killed Neanderthals off,
0:33:10 > 0:33:12'it wasn't us.'
0:33:15 > 0:33:17What do you think eventually wiped them out?
0:33:17 > 0:33:19It may have been a numbers game.
0:33:19 > 0:33:23There were so few left, as would happen to populations of endangered species today,
0:33:23 > 0:33:24like the panda or the tiger.
0:33:24 > 0:33:28Just random fluctuation in numbers can bring it down to zero,
0:33:28 > 0:33:29and there's no recovery from zero.
0:33:29 > 0:33:32So it could have been that. It could have been disease,
0:33:32 > 0:33:38inbreeding, a whole range of factors that can affect a small population and knock them over the edge.
0:33:45 > 0:33:51I find it very moving to think that one day the last Neanderthal might have been sitting here,
0:33:51 > 0:33:53staring out to sea,
0:33:53 > 0:33:57and perhaps waiting for their companions to return.
0:33:57 > 0:34:02Or maybe he or she knew that they were the last of their tribe or their family.
0:34:02 > 0:34:07But they can't have known that they were the last of their entire species.
0:34:11 > 0:34:14'So that was the end of the Neanderthals.
0:34:16 > 0:34:18'Or was it?'
0:34:21 > 0:34:24New evidence suggests their descendants
0:34:24 > 0:34:26are still walking around today.
0:34:29 > 0:34:32Because our species of human, homo sapiens,
0:34:32 > 0:34:35interbred with Neanderthals.
0:34:41 > 0:34:43Obviously, to Neanderthals,
0:34:43 > 0:34:47a fine Neanderthal man must have been very handsome to a Neanderthal woman,
0:34:47 > 0:34:52and a Neanderthal woman, despite her massive brows and very chunky face,
0:34:52 > 0:34:55must have looked wonderful to a Neanderthal man.
0:34:55 > 0:34:59But I think we look at them and think they look, I don't know...
0:34:59 > 0:35:01yeah, just a bit ugly.
0:35:01 > 0:35:07I don't think it would have even crossed my mind to fancy, or perhaps mate with, a Neanderthal.
0:35:11 > 0:35:15But it seems that something like this must have happened
0:35:15 > 0:35:16after we left Africa.
0:35:18 > 0:35:23Researchers in Germany have sequenced the Neanderthal genome,
0:35:23 > 0:35:27using DNA from bones tens of thousands of years old,
0:35:27 > 0:35:29and compared it with our own.
0:35:31 > 0:35:35The results suggested that many of us are, indeed,
0:35:35 > 0:35:37a small part Neanderthal.
0:35:44 > 0:35:46So the Neanderthals died out,
0:35:46 > 0:35:51but a few of their genes lived on in our species,
0:35:51 > 0:35:56a species which would eventually make Europe its own.
0:36:02 > 0:36:08'Soon, descendants of the first pioneers would be joined by new arrivals.'
0:36:32 > 0:36:35'I've come to the Czech Republic,
0:36:35 > 0:36:39'to the small village of Dolni Vestonice,
0:36:39 > 0:36:43'famous for some big archaeological discoveries.
0:36:45 > 0:36:47'So what do they reveal?'
0:36:56 > 0:36:57Oh, that's beautiful.
0:36:57 > 0:37:01So, we've got several tusks like this
0:37:01 > 0:37:03in central and eastern Europe,
0:37:03 > 0:37:06which always have a very complex type of engraving.
0:37:06 > 0:37:09And one thing that could be suggested
0:37:09 > 0:37:14- is that this thing could be a meandering river.- Right.
0:37:14 > 0:37:20The way how the tusk is decorated could have had some sort of a meaning,
0:37:20 > 0:37:22like accessibility of the field,
0:37:22 > 0:37:25or good for hunting, bad for hunting,
0:37:25 > 0:37:28you can push mammoths through, or you cannot.
0:37:28 > 0:37:29So it was a map?
0:37:29 > 0:37:30A kind of a map.
0:37:30 > 0:37:34And the whole strategy of an action could be planned
0:37:34 > 0:37:37on a piece of ivory like that.
0:37:42 > 0:37:45We'll never know for sure if it was a map,
0:37:46 > 0:37:51but other artefacts found here are much more significant.
0:37:55 > 0:38:00This is the Venus of Dolni Vestonice,
0:38:00 > 0:38:04one of the earliest pieces of pottery in the world.
0:38:12 > 0:38:20But the really exciting thing is that other Venus figurines have been unearthed all over the continent.
0:38:24 > 0:38:28What this means is that for the first time,
0:38:28 > 0:38:33people shared a distinct culture, right across Europe.
0:38:36 > 0:38:40But in the next few thousand years, our European ancestors
0:38:40 > 0:38:44would face a threat that would almost wipe them out.
0:38:49 > 0:38:55Europe was about to experience devastating climate change,
0:38:55 > 0:38:57the peak of the Ice Age.
0:38:59 > 0:39:04Animals disappeared from the landscape and the ground froze over.
0:39:06 > 0:39:10Our ancestors couldn't survive in these Arctic conditions.
0:39:16 > 0:39:21By 24,000 years ago, Britain was uninhabitable,
0:39:21 > 0:39:24covered in ice half-a-mile thick.
0:39:29 > 0:39:34And still the ice sheets pushed further south,
0:39:34 > 0:39:37squeezing life from the land,
0:39:37 > 0:39:41and almost wiping out our ancestors in Europe.
0:39:45 > 0:39:49This is the Vezere Valley in the Dordogne.
0:39:49 > 0:39:56During the last Ice Age, the hills around here would have been bound tight by frost, and with wind chill
0:39:56 > 0:39:59the temperature up there could be as much as 20 degrees
0:39:59 > 0:40:06colder than down here in the valley, where a warmish micro-climate meant life could go on.
0:40:06 > 0:40:14And small bands of hunter-gatherers would have huddled together to survive the long, bitter winters.
0:40:18 > 0:40:23'But they may not have survived at all had it not been for this.
0:40:27 > 0:40:31'The rock shelters and caves that riddle the landscape.
0:40:35 > 0:40:40'And deep underground they left something that we still marvel at today.'
0:41:13 > 0:41:20I'm in a cave called Pech Merle, which is stunningly beautiful naturally, but look at this.
0:41:20 > 0:41:27This is real artistic expression, something that defines us and sets us apart as a species.
0:41:27 > 0:41:32And Pech Merle is unusual because artists were coming here to paint these images
0:41:32 > 0:41:36both before and after the peak of the last Ice Age,
0:41:36 > 0:41:43generations of them returning to the cave as the world outside froze over.
0:41:45 > 0:41:48This is a very beautiful image,
0:41:48 > 0:41:51and it uses the contours of the rock.
0:41:51 > 0:41:56The horse's back sort of curves along a bulge in the rock,
0:41:56 > 0:41:59and there's an echo of the horse's head on this right side there.
0:41:59 > 0:42:02And it's obviously a very stylised horse, as well,
0:42:02 > 0:42:05and I love the way those spots carry on into the background
0:42:05 > 0:42:09as though the horse is sort of camouflaged against the rock.
0:42:10 > 0:42:14And there's a hand placed against the rock just above the horse's back.
0:42:14 > 0:42:18I mean, that is amazing, isn't it? That's an Ice Age hand.
0:42:20 > 0:42:22SHORT, REPEATED SPITTING
0:42:23 > 0:42:31'Michel Lorblanchet has devoted his life to studying the art found in caves like Pech Merle.'
0:42:41 > 0:42:44I think I naively imagined that you'd just take a mouthful of charcoal,
0:42:44 > 0:42:48bit of water and just spit it at the wall, and that would be it.
0:42:48 > 0:42:52But of course all that would happen would be that the mess would run down the wall
0:42:52 > 0:42:54and obscure the stencil that you were trying to do.
0:42:54 > 0:42:58So you have to do it like this, using an almost dry mouth
0:42:58 > 0:43:03and just building it up, very gradually, with a fine spray.
0:43:03 > 0:43:04HE SPITS REPEATEDLY
0:43:09 > 0:43:14Monsieur Lorblanchet did a recreation of the horses at Pech Merle, using this technique.
0:43:14 > 0:43:16It took him a whole week.
0:43:16 > 0:43:17Is it finished?
0:43:17 > 0:43:19- Yes. Yes.- It's finished?
0:43:19 > 0:43:21Yes. That's right.
0:43:21 > 0:43:27'But what drove these people, struggling just to survive, to paint?'
0:43:27 > 0:43:31The vast majority of these images seem to be animals.
0:43:31 > 0:43:34There don't seem to be many representations of humans.
0:43:34 > 0:43:38No. That's true. They are mainly animal figures,
0:43:38 > 0:43:46and for them, of course, animals were not only game but also spirits.
0:43:46 > 0:43:51Symbolic, so the animal figure, are in fact, symbolic figures.
0:43:51 > 0:43:57And going into Pech Merle, I mean, it's such a beautiful cave with all the stalactites hanging down.
0:43:57 > 0:44:02- That's right, yes. - It does feel as though it was, I don't know, almost a temple.
0:44:02 > 0:44:05Yes, that's right. It is a natural temple, if you like.
0:44:05 > 0:44:07They are sacred sites.
0:44:07 > 0:44:11They are not paintings just for fun.
0:44:11 > 0:44:14By painting a cave and having a sanctuary,
0:44:14 > 0:44:21it is a way for them to say, "Here is our sacred place."
0:44:21 > 0:44:25The painted cave is symbolic of the whole tribe.
0:44:28 > 0:44:34Being bound together in this way may have helped our ancestors survive
0:44:34 > 0:44:38the kind of climate change that only haunts our imaginations today.
0:44:46 > 0:44:51Nearly two-thirds of modern Europeans can trace their lineages
0:44:51 > 0:44:55back to ancestors who held on in those southern refuges.
0:45:02 > 0:45:07It would be more than 100 generations before the world would begin to warm again.
0:45:12 > 0:45:17And it may have been around this time that something happened
0:45:17 > 0:45:21which would stamp a new identity on the Europeans.
0:45:21 > 0:45:25Since the birth of our species in Africa,
0:45:25 > 0:45:29our ancestors' skin had almost certainly been dark.
0:45:29 > 0:45:32Protection against the tropical sun.
0:45:32 > 0:45:37But why in Europe did it turn from brown to white?
0:45:40 > 0:45:45The surprising answer may lie with a single vitamin,
0:45:46 > 0:45:48vitamin D.
0:45:48 > 0:45:52A lack of vitamin D may not sound particularly significant,
0:45:52 > 0:45:54but it can be life-threatening.
0:45:54 > 0:46:00It can wreak havoc with the growing skeleton, causing bones to grow bent and misshapen.
0:46:00 > 0:46:03These are all skeletons of patients with rickets,
0:46:03 > 0:46:06and you can see how it's affected the bones.
0:46:06 > 0:46:12These leg bones here are all curved, making walking difficult,
0:46:12 > 0:46:13and the chest is deformed,
0:46:13 > 0:46:16so breathing would be problematic as well.
0:46:16 > 0:46:20And not only that, rickets can affect your chance of having children.
0:46:20 > 0:46:23This is the pelvis of a woman who had rickets,
0:46:23 > 0:46:28and you can see the way that the pelvic bones have collapsed together.
0:46:28 > 0:46:32You just could not get a baby's head through this space.
0:46:32 > 0:46:35It would have been impossible for her to give birth naturally.
0:46:38 > 0:46:46So vitamin D is vital, and we make it in our skin in the presence of sunlight.
0:46:46 > 0:46:49But dark skin blocks out the sun,
0:46:49 > 0:46:52and in Europe, with its weaker sunlight,
0:46:52 > 0:46:54this could have been a problem.
0:46:54 > 0:46:59Our ancestors may have struggled to make enough vitamin D.
0:46:59 > 0:47:04So this could be why Europeans turned white.
0:47:11 > 0:47:18But this change in skin colour was nothing compared with the massive upheaval approaching.
0:47:25 > 0:47:29'I'm heading back to Turkey, because a recent discovery here
0:47:29 > 0:47:32'shows that after the Ice Age,
0:47:32 > 0:47:35'our ancestors abandoned their way of life,
0:47:35 > 0:47:40'one they had followed since our species first appeared in Africa.
0:47:45 > 0:47:49'And what happened here still defines our world today.
0:47:59 > 0:48:02'This final stage of my European journey
0:48:02 > 0:48:07'leads to a remote hillside in the far south of the country.'
0:48:10 > 0:48:13This is Gobekli Tepe,
0:48:13 > 0:48:19an extraordinary site that I'm just so incredibly excited to look at.
0:48:22 > 0:48:25- Hi, Alice.- Are you Klaus Schmidt?
0:48:25 > 0:48:27- Nice to meet you, ya. - Hello, I'm Alice Roberts.
0:48:27 > 0:48:29I heard from your visit, ya.
0:48:29 > 0:48:31- I'm so...- Nice to meet you here in Gobekli Tepe.
0:48:31 > 0:48:33I'm so excited about coming here.
0:48:33 > 0:48:35It's such an amazing discovery you've made.
0:48:35 > 0:48:38- It's amazing, that's true. - You must be very excited.
0:48:38 > 0:48:42And just this season we have a lot of new findings, so it's worth to have a look.
0:48:42 > 0:48:44Oh, come on, then, let's have a look!
0:48:59 > 0:49:04'Gobekli Tepe is 12,000 years old,
0:49:04 > 0:49:07'over twice as old as the pyramids.
0:49:09 > 0:49:14'Already, Klaus has found dozens of standing stones.
0:49:15 > 0:49:19'Each one carved with mysterious symbols.
0:49:23 > 0:49:30'These stone circles are possibly the oldest purpose-built temples in the world.'
0:49:37 > 0:49:42Sometimes there are arms and hands and fingers depicted,
0:49:42 > 0:49:46so it's very clear that the T part is a human head in profile
0:49:46 > 0:49:50and the shaft of the pillar is a human body.
0:49:51 > 0:49:55Here we have an example of the depiction of an arm,
0:49:55 > 0:49:59which is going down here and the fingers, the hand and the fingers
0:49:59 > 0:50:04are not excavated yet, but it's clear they will appear when we continue to work here.
0:50:04 > 0:50:10So you've got a circle of smaller T-shaped pillars and then two enormous ones in the centre.
0:50:10 > 0:50:15It's always the same. There are two in the centre which are very big and freestanding,
0:50:15 > 0:50:18surrounded by smaller but similar ones,
0:50:18 > 0:50:23and we understand it as a meeting or gathering of these beings made of stone.
0:50:31 > 0:50:35Here, now, we have some most interesting reliefs.
0:50:35 > 0:50:36Oh, wow!
0:50:36 > 0:50:40Ibis, snake and a vulture.
0:50:40 > 0:50:42It's a story illustrated by these animals,
0:50:42 > 0:50:44and the story is not a peaceful one.
0:50:44 > 0:50:47A scorpion, snake and so on.
0:50:47 > 0:50:52Our model for the function of all this installation is they have been made for burial reasons,
0:50:52 > 0:50:56to bring the dead bodies to open places,
0:50:56 > 0:51:00and the vultures are eating the flesh and other birds...
0:51:00 > 0:51:03So you think this might have been a site for these sky burials,
0:51:03 > 0:51:06where people are left out in the open to be picked clean by vultures.
0:51:06 > 0:51:10- Ya, that's our model. - And these are the vultures. - These are the vultures, ya.
0:51:10 > 0:51:13It almost looks like hieroglyphics.
0:51:13 > 0:51:18Maybe pre-hieroglyphic messages, or Stone Age hieroglyphics.
0:51:20 > 0:51:24'Klaus is anxious to show me his most spectacular discovery.'
0:51:24 > 0:51:28And here we found, it is nice, animal.
0:51:28 > 0:51:31This is incredibly beautiful.
0:51:31 > 0:51:34I mean, this is sculpture, it's not just a relief, is it?
0:51:34 > 0:51:36Ya, ya, it's true. It's wonderful.
0:51:36 > 0:51:39Yes, it's clearly, it's a masterpiece of work.
0:51:39 > 0:51:42It makes you rethink the Stone Age, doesn't it?
0:51:42 > 0:51:47I mean, you tend to think of hunter-gatherers as being, I don't know, fairly crude in some ways,
0:51:47 > 0:51:51and not necessarily capable of producing...
0:51:51 > 0:51:53- Ya.- ..artefacts that beautiful.
0:51:53 > 0:51:58It's clear that in this society had specialists for stone working, at least.
0:51:58 > 0:52:01So really, people who didn't do anything else has to produce
0:52:01 > 0:52:04sculptures and pillars and reliefs from stone.
0:52:04 > 0:52:07- These are such exciting finds, aren't they?- Ya.
0:52:09 > 0:52:14'This place suggests a society that could support specialist craftsmen,
0:52:14 > 0:52:17'and perhaps even a priesthood.
0:52:19 > 0:52:23'It was the beginning of a totally new way of life.'
0:52:23 > 0:52:25These are sites of settled hunters,
0:52:25 > 0:52:28- so it was a high culture of hunters here...- Yeah.
0:52:28 > 0:52:31..which was nearly exploding in the tenth millennium,
0:52:31 > 0:52:36so it's still a hunter gatherer society in its structure and its buildings, its monuments.
0:52:36 > 0:52:40'But there was another very important difference
0:52:40 > 0:52:43'between these hunter-gatherers and any of their predecessors.
0:52:43 > 0:52:45'They were settling down,
0:52:45 > 0:52:49'abandoning their nomadic lifestyle.
0:52:49 > 0:52:56'A huge shift which would help spark a Europe-wide revolution,
0:52:56 > 0:53:01'and the evidence for this can be found growing in the surrounding fields.'
0:53:05 > 0:53:09Locked inside this single stalk of wheat
0:53:09 > 0:53:13is a story of how the world was transformed.
0:53:13 > 0:53:20Geneticists have analysed DNA from domesticated wheat varieties from across the world,
0:53:20 > 0:53:25and the staggering thing is they can all be traced back to grasses
0:53:25 > 0:53:28which originally grew in this area.
0:53:31 > 0:53:38Which means that farming as we know it in Europe was born around here.
0:53:38 > 0:53:42Communities settled down and populations expanded.
0:53:42 > 0:53:48This could have driven the need to start producing food.
0:53:48 > 0:53:53And as farming spread, the landscape was transformed.
0:53:56 > 0:54:04Forests were cleared and villages, then towns, then cities, would grow.
0:54:05 > 0:54:09Founded by descendants of the small groups of pioneers,
0:54:09 > 0:54:15who first entered Europe around 45,000 years ago.
0:54:17 > 0:54:22Those early Europeans were people just like you and me,
0:54:22 > 0:54:27but it is humbling when you see the challenges they faced.
0:54:30 > 0:54:35They overcame the competition from Neanderthals
0:54:35 > 0:54:38and made it through the Ice Age.
0:54:41 > 0:54:44In fact, at the time it wasn't at all inevitable that
0:54:44 > 0:54:49my ancestors, maybe yours, would have even survived,
0:54:49 > 0:54:52and it makes me wonder what would happen if today's Europeans
0:54:52 > 0:54:56were faced by such a harsh changing climate.
0:54:56 > 0:55:03But having taken this long view, we've seen how ingenious and adaptable we are as a species,
0:55:03 > 0:55:08and it gives me hope that we will be able to survive the changes of millennia to come.