The first tangible evidence we have of the whole journey from Africa
to Australia. Combined with Stephen Oppenheimer's genetic tests,
they could be real proof of our ancient migration.
As he found the evidence he needs.
For the first time,
archeology and genetics gives us the same answer at this crucial point
in our journey.
Now we can be sure that our ancestors came this way 74,000 years ago.
The results are very exciting.
The Orang Asli, the Semang group here, have their own unique genetic lines
which suggest that they may have been in that first beachcombing trip
75,000 years ago.
They have their own unique lines
coming out of the first two daughters of Eve outside Africa.
And they traced right back then not shared with anyone else
in Southeast Asia or Asia.
At that time, the sea levels were 160 feet lower.
Most of the islands of Southeast Asia were joined together into
the single landmass of the Sunda continent.
The survivors of the Toba's volcanic winter
would take our genetic journey onto its next great move,
the unknown continent of Australia.
100 miles of shark-infested sea separated them from the new land.
This is the second great exodus in the migration of mankind
across the world.
But this time there are no green hills in the Yemen to give them
the comfort of a safe arrival.
Why did they risk all on such a dangerous venture
not even knowing if they would make landfall at the end
Some scientists believe they were blown off course
and arrived on the unknown shore accidentally.
But new clues from the genetic evidence says no.
It shows that Australian aborigines have a number of genetic lines unique
only to them
dating straight back to the first daughters of our new Out of Africa Eve.
So many lines, carried by so many women arriving in such a short time
suggest deliberate intention not accidental raft raid.
The first group arrived 70,000 years ago;
more followed over the next 5,000 years.
All descendants of our Out of Africa Eve.
These were the first people to walk on this fast continent.
They would stay undisturbed for thousands of years.
The Australia they entered was home to giant creatures; megafauna,
three meter high kangaroos and tortoises as big as cars.
The cave paintings of this vanished world have been dated to
61,000 years ago.
But suddenly, 10,000 years later this fantastical creature and
all the other megafauna
were extinct.
The climate didn't alter.
There are no huge kill sites indicating over-hunting.
But, humans change the world wherever they are.
This sudden extinction is evidence of their presence.
It seems likely our ancestors destroyed the leafy habitat with fire
and the larger, plant-eating animals simply died away.
This dry lakebed is one of the places where the theory might fall apart,
in spite of the matching of archeology and genes
back up on the trail in Malaysia.
Mungo Man 3
When he was found, the earth around him was dated
62,000 years old.
When the bones were tested for DNA,
sensationally the DNA did not match anyone, anywhere in the world.
To those who don't believe in the Out of Africa theory,
this seems to be proof that
modern humans had evolved at different times and at different places
in the world into the people we are today.
But other scientists, like Professor Chris Stringer, are doubtful.
Now, there are many problems in extracting DNA,
particularly from a skeleton 60,000 years old.
So, firstly it might be that the DNA that's been picked up is contamination;
we're not sure of that.
But even if it's genuine DNA, other analyses have shown,
that in fact, it can quite reasonably be derived from an Out of
Africa ancestor just as the rest of us can.
So, in my view,
the Mungo evidence both from the bones and from the DNA, if it's genuine,
still supports a recent African origin for our species.
Australian aborigines are an ancient people.
But they no longer look like their ancestors who arrived all those
thousands of years ago.
Their bodies have adapted, retaining all those characteristics
needed to survive as hunter-gatherers in the harsh desert environment.
Under the skin, we are all very much alike.
Our DNA shows that we come from one very small gene pool.
If you look at the DNA of all of us
Australians, Africans, Europeans
we find that comparing the mitochondrial DNA of
all of us, we show less variation,
even though there are beings who have spread over the whole world
we show less variation in the mitochondrial DNA
than we would find inside a small group of chimpanzees
or rangutans or gorillas.
Those apes show more variation,
even in the same groups than the entire human race.
But if all the people from around the world descend from
such a small gene pool,
why do we all look so completely different?
Natural selection, adaptation to the environment are
the most important factors.
Sexual selection is crucial.
Climate dictates body shape.
The colder the environment,
the shorter and more stocky you become to maintain heat.
Height relates to diet.
The most obvious and striking difference is color.
And that's also part of our genetic inheritance.
Mila Jablonski, a leading scientist looking at the evolution of skin color
is working on the importance of folic acid in fetal development,
when she stumbled, by chance, on the answer.
I started doing the search on the evolution of skin color
after preparing a lecture for a class over 10 years ago.
It was interesting preparing for the class
I realized there was very little that was known about the evolution
of skin color,
and what was known wasn't very cogent.
I discovered an interesting paper
when I was preparing that lecture that showed that there was
an interesting and important relationship
between ultra-violet radiation and a very important biomolecule
called folate.
Folic acid is crucial for embryonic development
and too much ultra-violet radiation from the sun destroys it.
So, our ancestors in tropical Africa
needed to be dark to protect their survival.
But, too little ultraviolet prevents the formation of Vitamin D,
causing rickets,
which can kill. So as they migrated to the sunless North
they had to grow paler to survive.
She has uncovered a very simple evolutionary equation.
When we looked at the pattern of skin pigmentation
among indigenous peoples today,
we see very dark people in equatorial regions with
high and significantly lighter people as we get toward the poles.
And it turns out that melanin, the natural sunscreen,
is phenomenally good at screening out ultraviolet radiation.
To some extent, it's too good.
And, in order for us to be able to make enough Vitamin D in our skins,
we'll have to reduce the amount of melanin that exists in the skin.
And so, what we see in the course of our species' history,
as we move from an area of high UV to areas of lower UV,
our skin has become more and more depigmented.
She calculates that it takes about 20,000 years to turn
from black to white.
All that distinguishes the color in people are tiny genetic differences
laid down long ago.
During the epic beachcombing migration, from Africa to Australia,
our family left behind colonies who made new journeys of their own.
One group made their way up through Asia into China and beyond.
Another went from north India, past the Himalayas
onto the vast Asian steppes.
And another stayed here in the Arabian Gulf.
Large fresh water lakes allowed our Out of Africa families
to colonize these patches of vegetation surrounded by desert.
Continues occupation occurred here for more than 30,000 years.
Their bones and artifacts becoming submerged as sea levels rose.
About 50,000 years ago
genetic lines began for the first time to spread north into Europe.
But the timing has always been a puzzle.
If modern humans are able to reach Australia as early as
70,000 years ago,
why did they not arrive in Europe until 50,000 years ago?
It is a much shorter journey.
Stephen Oppenheimer thinks he has the answer.
I think the answer to this question is that they were stuck.
They were not able to get out to the near East to Israel and the Lebanon
because there was a great desert in the way.
That desert was the Saudi Arabian desert and the Libyan desert.
And between 80,000 and 50,000 years ago,
this was completely impenetrable.
The climate was so dry that the fertile crescent;
the route from the gulf into Lebanon and Israel and Europe was closed.
Then, 50,000 years ago there was a sudden improvement of the climate.
After centuries of domination by the desert, rains came.
Monsoon rainfall increased in Arabia and India
and the fertile crescent opened up,
rivers swirled and game spread north
our families and genetic lines followed them.
They walked north from the Persian Gulf,
deep into the fertile crescent,
following the rivers between the Zagros Mountains
and the Syrian desert.
The idea that Europeans came in from North Africa is very firmly fixed.
But Stephen Oppenheimer's genetic evidence does not support this.
Genetic evidence completely does not support this.
There's no evidence of the early branches and,
in fact, only one of the main branches that people is found
in the European region. Of course, that does upset a lot of
fixed views about the origins of the Europeans
and forces us to consider the fact
that Europeans were part of the same single family
that came out of Africa through the southern route.
This new genetic evidence will rewrite European prehistory.
These families founded the first successful modern human colonies
in the Middle East, Syria and Iran.
A land that lay between the rivers, Tigris and Euphrates, two great rivers
formed from the high lands of Turkey, in the north, down to the gulf
We have taken the first steps to the great civilizations
that would develop writing, warfare and found the great empires.
All from one direct genetic group back to our Out of Africa migration.
During this time there was also an explosion of new technology.
The stone tools and spears modern humans manufactured
became even lighter and more effective
The Zagros mountains were full of game and good hunting makes stability.
Likewise, they begin to establish the fixed geography of burial ground
in sacred places.
In the Lebanon,
the burial of the 12-year old modern child has been found,
dated 44,000 years ago.
His skull is broken.
His body tucked gently in the shelter in the overhanging rock.
From these the families spread quickly to the Mediterranean,
south along the coast of Syria into North Africa,
up through Turkey, across the Balkans and into Europe.
This is our new family,
direct descendants of our marshland Arabs in the gulf,
entering the unknown territories of Germany.
But the land they are entering is not empty.
Others were there before them.
Neanderthals had been the masters of Europe for over 250,000 years.
In 1856, in the Neander Valley in Germany,
quarrymen were digging out mud from a newly blasted site,
when they discovered some ribs,
part of a pelvis, some arm and shoulder bones of
a large, humanlike animal
they thought it was a bear's skeleton.
Scientists later believed it was some ancient northern savage
who terrified the Roman armies. Professor Chris Stringer is an expert
on Neanderthals and their world.
These people became known as the Neanderthals.
They became the center of the debate about human evolution,
about whether these people were possibly our ancestors
or whether they represented a strange sidebar of human evolution.
I've got here a more complete skull than the one that was found
in the Neander Valley in Germany.
This was found at the beginning of the last century in France,
and it shows us very well what the Neanderthals looked like
in the head and face.
There's a strong browage over the eye sockets.
The whole face is pulled forward and there's an enormous nose,
there's no chin on the lower jaw.
And we now think of the Neanderthals were, perhaps, cold adapted.
They evolved hundreds of thousands of years in Europe
under conditions colder than the present day.
And the shape, their physique; they were short and stocky,
very powerfully built.
And this nose may have been even part of the mechanism for breathing
in cold and dry air.
The Neanderthals were often thought of being dimwitted brutes.
But they certainly weren't; they were fully human.
Their brains were as large as ours.
I think the Neanderthals were a different species from us.
That they were closely related species a sibling species.
One that had common ancestors with us, maybe only half a million years ago.
So, on that basis, the Neanderthal are fully human.
They're ten times closer to us than chimpanzees are.
If they interbred with modern humans their genes have died out.
There's no trace of their presence in our world.
Within 10,000 years, the Neanderthals were extinct.
Modern humans would wipe out all trace of their rivals and
fill the space left behind.
The reason for their disappearance is not clear.
They lived alongside modern man for thousands of years.
But in the end, Neanderthals probably couldn't adapt fast enough
to the new world
and their new resourceful rivals.
Neanderthals used their bodies to mediate with nature;
modern humans used their brains.
Into the void grew waves of modern humans
from the Middle East and Russia,
spreading throughout Europe.
Scientists think that with these waves came four mitochondrial DNA lineages;
four granddaughters of our Out of Africa Eve.
They arrived between 45,000 and 10,000 years ago.
The most modern Europeans can trace their lineage back to them.
Neanderthal technology had hardly changed over 200,000 years.
As soon as modern humans arrive
a whole range of different tools suddenly appear,
as well as ornamentations.
Archaeologists regard these ornaments as a defining mark of modern humans
and the first interest in ornament in the 5,000,000 years of evolution.
And in here, our most famous of these statuettes from the Czech Republic,
made in baked clay and about 27,000 years old
from a site called Dolni Vestonice.
A beautiful little piece of work.
Some of them are certainly covered with ocher
and some of them are certainly polished for handling
perhaps over many generations.
So, these were treasured valuable objects.
And obviously they have ritual and symbolic significance for this people,
perhaps religious significance.
And here, one of the most delicate pieces of art.
This is carved from a mammoth which is a really difficult material to work.
This is from the French Sergeant Black St-pluie.
It's a beautiful representation of the head of, seems to be a woman
with again either a labor's hairstyle or perhaps a woven hat.
This is a really delicate beautiful piece of work.
It's difficult to tell from these representations whether they are
representations of real people
or whether they're in some way idealized to represent
some sort of ideal beauty.
In some cases, I think our data is enough to suggest that
these are based on real people.
Another thing that we find with these modern people in Europe
is the arrival of evidences of sewed clothing.
Here's one of the most direct evidence the fact that we have
a bone needle here.
So, these people were sewing cloths, sewing skins.
With evidence they were even weaving fabrics.
And so, this is another level of complexity
that would have given them much quite a range of adaptation to climate,
for example, and of course, a much greater opportunities
for personal expression
for things like fashion to develop through time.
And we see this inside some of the burials,
the people have been buried with garments,
which in some cases are covered with thousands of beads
made from mammoth ivory.
And each of those beads represented hours and hours of work.
So, we had evidence here of a real richness and complexity of life
that we don't find with the Neanderthals.
I've got here an engraving of a mammoth on a piece of mammoth tusk
from a French site
that's about 15,000 years old.
But these people, these early modern people,
the Cro Magnon didn't just carve on pieces of bone and tusk,
they also sculpted and engraved;
they made models with clay.
And, of course, they painted on the walls of their caves.
And this art goes back at least to 35,000 years ago.
They depicted a great variety of things,
often the animals they were hunting.
In some cases, dangerous animals such as lions or woolly rhinoceroses.
In some cases we can't even recognize what creatures are represented.
The creatures seem to be magical symbols,
imaginary creatures.
And it's possible that some of this art was being used in ceremonies
and initiation rites.
And possibly even some of it was created in a trance-like state
linked with shamans or magic.
Modern humans have come as far as we could come on the of the years.
Behind us, we have left clear genetic footprints
leading back to the one Out of Africa movement 80,000 years ago.
10,000 miles away in the other side of the globe
and 6,000 years later,
the invasion of the new world would begin.
The world was cooling down again.
As the new ice age began,
modern humans have found one place to settle,
Our genetic line's
now spread in all directions, from the once out of Africa
and the last remaining frontier of America now has us trekking north
from India and Southeast Asia and China
and east from the Mongol steppes in Siberia,
converging at the Bering Straits, the fragile strip of land
joining Asia with America.
For a long time, archeologists insisted
no one had reached America before 15,000 years ago.
But new information from the DNA genetic trail
has our American ancestors crossing the Beringia land bridge from Asia,
25 to 20,000 years ago.
This is the last great journey to populate the world.
And the genetic lines all lead to one goal.
These are the first Americans.
25,000 years ago the world was moving into one of
the worst ice ages we'd ever have to endure.
In places the ice was three miles thick.
But as the ice closes in,
this is the last possible move
before it shuts off the land from the Bering Straits into Alaska
and the rest of North America.
It would be another 8,000 years before it'd open up again.
The reason why we know that these first native Americans got in
about 20,000 years ago
is the fact that we know which founding types
they brought with them;
which mitochondrial founding types they brought with them from Asia.
We have types in Asia, which are similar to American types,
and therefore we know the ones that actually came into America
as opposed to those which derived since the arrival in America.
Now, on average, the founders in America
have accumulated one mutation
and since we know the mutation rate for our genetic system,
the mitochondria,
is one mutation every 20,000 years,
we know that these founding types have been evolving in America
for 20,000 years
and that is when they must have arrived.
In North America, the great Laurentian ice sheet smothered the central plains,
destroying everything in its path,
forcing our migrants down the west coast to South America.
If the ice retreated we could spread back into the liberated land.
There's evidence of a settlement at a rockshelter
on the Ohio River in Pennsylvania called Meadowcroft.
Meadowcroft is very important here to the American story
because it is dated about 60,000 years before to take
and it's therefore one of the earliest native American sites to be credited
by authorities. Wonderfully that there are genetic estimates
because it must have come in several thousand years before that
in order to get down to Meadowcroft.
Dr. James Adavagio led the team of scientists who excavated the shelter.
When we originally encountered it we assumed it would not contain
any cultural material whatsoever.
But, as it turned out, there were an assortment of artifacts and
other indications of the human presence
several thousand of years previous to what the estimate for the maximum age
for the people into the new world was.
Scattered across this surface and deeper occupation surfaces,
in and around these fireplaces,
are a series of artifacts,
among the more notable of which are blade core fragments like this,
and the blades that have been struck from these cores.
What's unique about these items is that
not only are they not manufactured, for the most part,
by later Paleo Indian groups in the Americas.
But they bear a striking resemblance
to blade cores from Northern China that are 28 or 29,000 years old.
In fact,
casts of these materials could be lost in collections from North China
and you wouldn't be able to tell them apart.
What the evidence from Meadowcroft suggests to us is,
along with data from an emerging series of sites
elsewhere in North America,
is that there was no single migration of human beings to the new world,
as was recently postulated in the last two decades.
But, instead a series of pulses or emanations.
So, multiple entries are now established as the pattern
for American migration.
These early settlers carried many different genetic lines.
They came from Siberia, China, Central Asia,
as far south as Malaysia and Japan.
In 1996, the skeleton known as Kennewick man
was discovered along the Columbia River in Washington State.
When it was brought to Jim Chatters, the forensic anthropologist,
he first believed the remains were those of a 19th Century pioneer.
He was astonished when radio carbon dating revealed it
to be 9,500 years old.
It was the oldest skeleton ever found in North America.
But what really intrigued Chatters was that despite his age,
Kennewick man did not resemble modern Native Americans.
His skull was Caucasoid, not Mongoloid
and reconstruction of his face
showed distinct similarities with the Ainu who lived in Northern Japan.
Kennewick man was an extremely beaten up individual.
He had multiple broken ribs.
He had an injured left arm, left arm. He had some injury to his skull.
He had some arthritis in his neck, his knees, his elbows.
Just, he'd certainly been around the block a few times.
But, what was most distinctive about him;
the most interesting injury, I guess,
from a forensic standpoint,
is that he had a spear point imbedded in his pelvis.
In fact, that's what caused us to radio carbon date the bones.
All that can be seen is a little ovoid window in each side of the bone.
But, when we cat scan it
we can see that there's a two inch long, one-inch wide,
quarter inch thick serrated edge blade in there.
Now, what's interesting about this spear point is that
it's of a style that we only see after this man's death,
in Eastern Washington.
We can see that style moving down the coast of British Columbia,
end up Washington
around 10,000 years ago and on to 9,000 years ago;
that's radiocarbon years.
The people who bring this spear point,
who are the ones that we find with this style of spear point
a short distance later in time,
are very similar to modern American Indians.
You can lose it in the crowd easily, American Indians.
So, what it looks like is,
we have a new population arriving with northeast Siberian characteristics
and it is beginning to replace the early arrival immigrants.
Now what this suggests in a broader way, is that there was
some sort of conflict going on.
In effect, it occurs that the time of the new arriving populations,
the fact that Kennewick man looks different from
the new arriving populations,
both suggest that it's a competition over territory that's at issue.
Now, from the angle of entry from the velocity of entry,
it's fairly clear that this spear was coming directly at him
and that he could see it coming.
Professor Chatters believed that Kennewick man died
by hypothermia and drowning.
Since the death of Kennewick man,
modern human populations have swelled from thousands to millions.
We have advanced from primitive hunter-gatherers to farmers and traders
town's people and city folk.
And from tribal domains to empires.
In 5,000 generation we have arrived in the modern world we know today.
Since the 1980's,
DNA samples have been taken from thousands of people
all over the world.
From Alaska to New Zealand.
From the Inuit to Icelanders.
By analyzing it,
scientists can trace similarities between personal pin codes
and see which people are most closely related.
All individuals can check their mitochondrial DNA
and trace the routes their ancestors took in their journey around the world,
from Africa to every corner of the globe.
In Chicago, we sampled five people
who are tracing their mitochondrial tree.
After analyzing their DNA swabs, scientists discovered
a remarkable connection between a Greek and a native American.
Angela Trakis is a Greek who came to the United States from Europe.
Leonard Maliterri is a native American full- blooded Creek.
They are both from the same small and rare branch of our family tree
and share a common ancestor 30,000 years ago,
maybe in southern Siberia.
As modern humans populated the empty world after leaving Africa,
some went north to central Russia.
There, a daughter was born, carrying a new marker, X.
Her children separated,
some going west into Europe,
and some east from Siberia and on into America.
Trakis and Melitarri arrived in America from opposite ends of the earth
and now meet for the first time in Chicago.
Their first family reunion in 30,000 years of
our evolutionary history.
It kind of blows, it, it just blows me away.
Well, I think it's really exciting that we all come from the same line.
Because maybe then people will forget about putting
so much emphasis on differences,
and talking about the common person
and then maybe that will help people be a little bit more
tolerant and loving,
and maybe that will progress
and maybe more relevant not only just science maybe humanity in general today
80,000 years ago
a tiny group of modern humans braved the terrors of the Red Sea
and left Africa forever.
They carried with them the future of the world.
By 10,000 years ago they have penetrated every corner of the globe.
The most incredible and important journey we have ever made.
For the first time, we now know who we are.
We know where we come from.
We know we are the same people as our restless and inquisitive ancestors.
But we have reached the end of our migration.
There are no more empty lands to move to.
Science tells us an unbroken chain links us to our past,
and to each other.
All share the same genetic inheritance from our ancestral Eve.
Perhaps, that is the most important message we should carry into the future
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