The Incredible Human Journey BBC2 21:30 Sundays

[Flashman]

Dr Alice Roberts travels the globe to discover the incredible story of how humans left Africa to colonise the world - overcoming hostile terrain, extreme weather and other species of human. She pieces together precious fragments of bone, stone and new DNA evidence and discovers how this journey changed these African ancestors into the people of today.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00kfqps

I like Alice Roberts, she's a clever and cool doc, was good in that Coast thingy.

This looks quite interesting and starts tonight.

 

[London_Calling]

Her 'West Country posh' brings back fond memories for me. I also v much like the subject matter - anyone want to meet up at the IPlayer?

 

[jæd]

Dr Alice Roberts travels the globe to discover the incredible story of how humans left Africa to colonise the world - overcoming hostile terrain, extreme weather and other species of human. She pieces together precious fragments of bone, stone and new DNA evidence and discovers how this journey changed these African ancestors into the people of today.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00kfqps

I like Alice Roberts, she's a clever and cool doc, was good in that Coast thingy.

This looks quite interesting and starts tonight.

Brilliant documentary...! This, and the the series on the Pacific immediately before it, are two reasons why I'm happy to pay the license fee...!!

 

[London_Calling]

Not as enthusiastic. Felt it explained some things well but a little too gimmicky. Her script was pretty naff, imo.

Why was the tribe whose remains were discovered in Israel a "dead end"?

 

[wiskey]

thought it was a bit dull tbh, she annoyed me and I found her patronising in places

 

[nuffsaid]

I was really looking forward to this, but she was really quite annoying.

I mean do you really have to spend a night in the bush describing grunting sounds to prove that it was scary for our ancestors when the sun went down. A simple sentence would have sufficed.

I like the subject matter but boy she needs to be a bit more grown up.

Edited to say - She was jogging in 40+ degrees......wearing flares!!! WTF!

 

[camouflage]

Liked the doc but agree, it was abit patronizing, and kind of suffered from "and it was all to lead to us" syndrome (as exemplified for example when at the end an African man is magically transformed into an inanely grinning European woman- herself). Sshe constantly smiled like that physicist that looks like a 12 year old boy in a recent doc about the LHC.

I liked some of the graphics, reminded me of Civ4 actually, ( a game I've played precisely once) and very interesting subject. Kind of made me feel a little excluded as an African though, from like... the entire rest of the species.

 

[jæd]

I was really looking forward to this, but she was really quite annoying.

I mean do you really have to spend a night in the bush describing grunting sounds to prove that it was scary for our ancestors when the sun went down. A simple sentence would have sufficed.

That was a bit silly. I would preferred it they had included more of the calls she heard...

Edited to say - She was jogging in 40+ degrees......wearing flares!!! WTF!

Light trousers like what she was wearing will retain moisture and cool down your legs. If she had shorts her sweat would evaporate faster which in-turn dehydrates her. The bush-man were fine since they were used to the heat.

I'd have preferred if they had subtitled the conversation in the village:

Guide: Hey chief, this mad white bitch wants to into the bush at midday hunting after some old bones...
Chief: Yeah... Take her out and lose her. She won't last 30 mins. Take some security with you. Its frigging dangerous out there with wild animals...
Security Guy: Look...! I've got a gun...! Lets shoot some shit...!

 

[camouflage]

They preffer to be called Saan.

 

[danny la rouge]

I enjoyed it.

 

[Idaho]

It was very much in the vein of modern documentaries. Spend 50% of the time repeating the same question without answering it, another 40% of the time on sweeping flypast camera work, 10% on actually telling you something.

 

[danny la rouge]

It was exactly what I expect from a documentary, especially one on a topic I've read numerous books on (it's an interest of mine): a nice Sunday evening entertainment, with pretty shots, and Dr Alice Roberts was in it.

 

[goldenecitrone]

The Omo River looked great. Wish I'd had time to visit when I was in Ethiopia. Maybe next time. I wonder if Dr.Roberts got it on with the biker dude paleontologist.

 

[danny la rouge]

I wonder if Dr.Roberts got it on with the biker dude paleontologist.

No.

 

[London_Calling]

So how did they cross into Arabia, after all the unquantifiable climate simulations I may have missed the water crossing part?

 

[London_Calling]

I wonder if Dr.Roberts got it on with the biker dude paleontologist.

Bit surprised he was from Oxford Brookes Poly, sorry Uni.

 

[danny la rouge]

So how did they cross into Arabia, after all the unquantifiable climate simulations I may have missed the water crossing part?

There was less water then. The land went further out.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

So how did they cross into Arabia, after all the unquantifiable climate simulations I may have missed the water crossing part?

There was a spell when it was fertile and not desert

and then there was a spell when there was a drop in the water level making the crossing by water much shorter.

As I was on computer at same time, I forget which land masses these were

I think the one where they crossed into Israel was where the water in some gulf/strait dropped, but I'm probably wrong

or was it Iran? (Not very good at geography!)

 

[London_Calling]

I know that. The point is they still had to cross water, even if it was 'only' 5 miles/8kms - unless she was saying there was a land bridge into Arabia which there wasn't and she didn't.

So how did they cross, or did I miss that like I missed Attenborough's slight oversight a while ago with his 'tree of life' of how the first single cell entities formed and where water came from?

 

[danny la rouge]

So how did they cross

On boats/rafts, we assume. These guys were like us, only a long time ago.

 

[camouflage]

They had boats init. Perhaps not a fully fledged shipping industry, but being modern humans they would have been able to make rafts at least. It's how us busy little monkeys colonized Polynesia. Kon Tiki man anyone? A short channel ride would have been relatively easy.

 

[London_Calling]

On boats/rafts, we assume. These guys were like us, only a long time ago.

Thanks Alice. You might have mentioned it somewhere in the hour, though.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

I know that. The point is they still had to cross water, even if it was 'only' 5 miles/8kms - unless she was saying there was a land bridge into Arabia which there wasn't and she didn't.

Maybe they were good at swimming

 

[danny la rouge]

Thanks Alice. You might have mentioned it somewhere in the hour, though.

You need as a starting point Stephen Oppenheimer's book Out of Eden.

 

[London_Calling]

It's just more BBC fill-in-the-gaps-yourself nonsense masquerading as authoritive 'popular' science. Same old BBC bollocks.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

and the Strait was called the Bab al-Mandeb (Gate of Tears)

I knew it was sad-sounding

Maybe it got the name after loads of people died crossing?

 

[London_Calling]

or maybe they didn't cross at all.

 

[camouflage]

and the Strait was called the Bab al-Mandeb (Gate of Tears)

I knew it was sad-sounding

Maybe it got the name after loads of people died crossing?

This is a process that continues today 'funnily' enough.... thousands of Somalis are dying every week trying to make that crossing. The bright lights and golden pavements of Djibouti, Saudi and the Emirates Dubai and Abu Dabi beckon.

We talk as if migration happened thousands of years ago and now everything is set. In reality the same forces are alive and well today across Eurasia and Africa, South and Central America... the never ending search for the Happy Hunting Grounds of a better life.

 

[jæd]

We talk as if migration happened thousands of years ago and now everything is set. In reality the same forces are alive and well today, the never ending search for the Happy Hunting Grounds of a better life.

The programme was about events that happened around 150,000 years ago — I suspect modern migration will be covered in a future programme...

 

[danny la rouge]

or maybe they didn't cross at all.

Maybe not. But there's evidence of humans from the right time period on both sides of the strait, so if they didn't get there by the direct route, they still got there. The point of the climate modelling, though, was to show that it was the most hospitable route. They'd have had too much desert to cross had they gone another way.