The Incredible Human Journey BBC2 21:30 Sundays

[London_Calling]

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.

Not so feller. You're talking about migration, the programme and the thread is talking about settlement. Settlement of the planet by homo sapiens coming out of Africa. The latter begat the former. It's a lot easier once someone's shown the way, whether it's a direction or making fire or nuclear fission.

 

[camouflage]

Not so feller. You're talking about migration, the programme and the thread is talking about settlement. Settlement of the planet by homo sapiens coming out of Africa. The latter begat the former.

Why do you think they settled? What do you think they were looking for?

There is no End of History.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

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.

Maybe they got dumped there in a cyclone?

Oh no, that was the programme before on the South Pacific

 

[Idaho]

There is no End of History.

Based on my experience of some of my degree lectures, this really does feel like the case sometimes.

 

[Cloo]

This was quite interesting watching, given I'm reading 'Guns, Germs and Steel' at the moment, which is largely about human development around the world.

 

[camouflage]

This was quite interesting watching, given I'm reading 'Guns, Germs and Steel' at the moment, which is largely about human development around the world.

Top book that. Spoke with a couple of American anthropologists about it once, they didn't like it, Jared's theories I mean, dismissed them as "environmental determinism".

Guns Germs and Steel makes humans sound almost like a gas being played with in funny bottles in a laboratory, whereby it's all about volumes and temperatures and concentrations and catalysts like latitudinal surface area and food abundance etc, the results as consistant as chemical formula... to produce the liquids of empires and writing and the crystals of civilizations and space-programs or not. That's what appealed to me about Guns Germs and Steel, and what- I think, dis-appealed about the book to the anthropologists. Figures.

 

[Kaka Tim]

Fascinating subject made almost unwatchable by the fucking partonising posho presenter carrying on like she was doing a home video for her gap year - whilst telling us that equtorial africa is hot and that night is dark.

The (fascinating) factual stuff was badly put accross and barely explained or analyised.

e.g - how modern humans emerged - and the other hominind species leading up to and alongside them and how we were different to them - was almost compltetly ignored - giving the impression that homo sapiens appeared out of nowhere.

Really fucking annoying cos Im really interested in the subject matter.

 

[danny la rouge]

cos Im really interested in the subject matter.

So am I, but I'm not annoyed by the programme because I fancy Dr Alice. You should try that, it makes it much more enjoyable.

 

[London_Calling]

Kala Tim - My view as well. I suppose part of it is the BBC giving chances to the yoof - new generation of presenters, it's a big leap from occasional inserts on Coast to 2 x 60mins by yourself.

I particularly liked the big cross on the map where Israel was though. That's the end of that then.

 

[Kaka Tim]

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.

I didn't get that bit at all - surely our ancestors would have been in a big group and be sitting around a big fire.

 

[London_Calling]

You can't blame her entirely, she's relying on the producer, director, editor and other BBC people around her and their professional experience - though these days they'll actually be younger than she is. But yep, some of it was just plain odd.


The other thing that's really starting to annoy me is they don't edit for UK vs. non-UK markets, so we get the 'welcome back after the adverts' continuity lines (which repeat what's just been said). Driving me up the wall.

 

[100% masahiko]

The second episode is meant to be pretty good - as she explores (a popular) discourse that the Chinese evolved from a different species to Africans altogether.

 

[danny la rouge]

The second episode is meant to be pretty good - as she explores (a popular) discourse that the Chinese evolved from a different species to Africans altogether.

It was once widely held that Homo erectus was the ancestor of Asians (and, incidentally, Africans and Australians), whereas Europeans were descended from Homo heidelbergensis via Neanderthals.

 

[100% masahiko]

It was once widely held that Homo erectus was the ancestor of Asians (and, incidentally, Africans and Australians), whereas Europeans were descended from Homo heidelbergensis via Neanderthals.

This is still a wide belief in some places.

 

[jæd]

This is still a wide belief in some places.

It was mentioned last night. Its unlikely since the Chinese are related to African. They have markers in their DNA which Africans also have...

 

[goldenecitrone]

I didn't get that bit at all - surely our ancestors would have been in a big group and be sitting around a big fire.

When was fire invented then?

 

[London_Calling]

We all know the Out of Africa theory and it is a great subject but this is dreadful presentation for 10.00pm: The only thing with any credibility in the whole two hours has been the DNA at the end of the second part. The rest seems a mixture of John Craven's Newsround and a Blue Peter expedition.

From what I understand the BBC 'mailbag' is full of people complaining about science being dumbed down so Points of View may have something on this programme next week.

 

[danny la rouge]

This is still a wide belief in some places.

It was once a wide belief in more places, though.

 

[danny la rouge]

This has popped up again on the iPlayer so I’m rewatching it. I think some of the theories have been overtaken but it’s still good.