Hello everyone. I hope you are all having a good weekend. I know I am. My plan was to finally finish Wheelchair Wars (some day soon, I promise), but as is quite usual for my good self, I got distracted. One of my distractions, other than watching the Lions getting slaughtered by Australia was setting eyes on the above BBC series, called “Humans” presented by the wonderful (and quite pretty) paleoanthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi. It details how humans have evolved and dispersed over the last three hundred thousand years, as well as the demise of our sister species (unless you’re an alien reading this in which case I’d like to remind you to please like, share and subscribe) Neanderthals, Denisovans and the human hobbits Homo floresiensis.

What does it mean to be human? Is it the way we look that is important?

These questions are asked and an answer is given.

It is clear that modern humans did not appear all at once but more gradually. It also states that East Africa was only one pocket among many others across Africa where humanity developed. It makes clear that our intellect and ability to change our behavior is what sets us apart.

A criticism though about its portrayal of the extinction of the Neanderthals. It never explicitly stated that although they covered a wide range, their population was always low even at its height, with possible as few as three thousand breeding pairs. So, although they persisted for hundreds of thousands of years, they always lived close to the edge. The fact that human pathogens might have killed them off was never mentioned.

No comment was really made on how they were probably not our intellectual match. Their groups were far smaller, and they were more heavily dependent on kinship lacking the Machiavellian intellect that is theorized to be required for larger groupings .

It did make clear that the second wave of humans (the first wave failed) were far more advanced and better able to thrive in the harsh conditions.

I recommend you give it a watch.