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Africa, two million years before your time,
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and life on Earth has a brand-new face.
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First, our ancestors walked on two legs,
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and stood out from all other animals.
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Now we'll meet creatures
who took the next vital step
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from ancient apes to us...
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...creatures perhaps like him.
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I'm travelling back in time.
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With science, we can build
a picture of our past...
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...and bring our dead ancestors to life.
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Join me on a journey through our human story.
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We've arrived at a critical moment
in our story -
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a crossroads in our evolution.
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I'm right here,
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where there's not just one species
of apeman on the savanna, but several,
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and one of them could be
our ancient ancestor - but which?
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Meet Paranthropus boisei - boisei for short.
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You know, you can sometimes discover
an enormous amount
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about how a species behaves
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from just one or two simple observations,
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and these boisei are no exception.
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If you had to pick one species
from modern times - from the 21st century -
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that they remind me of,
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it would be the gorilla.
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This is a full-grown adult male.
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And this an adult female.
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He's taller than her
at around four and a half feet,
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and he weighs nearly twice as much.
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This difference tells us about how they live.
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He's the dominant male of his troop.
His sheer bulk and power
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holds the rest together,
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and he alone mates with all the females.
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And she's not just any female -
she's the most senior in his harem.
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But that position could be under threat.
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It's a young female,
looking for a new troop to join.
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But a stranger, with their capacity
to upset the balance of power,
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is always a disturbing sight
for a settled troop of apes.
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(GRUNTS AND SHRIEKS)
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To win herself a place in the group,
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the newcomer must be accepted
by both the dominant male
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and to an extent, the other females.
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Whatever the potential for trouble,
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the dominant male is already interested.
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He seems keen to add to his harem,
whatever the consequences.
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(GRUNTS)
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By piecing together
what we know about these creatures
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from the bones they will one day leave behind,
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modern scientists think they have
an idea of the part they play
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in the evolution of you and me.
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But by being here in East Africa
two million years ago,
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we can also do something else.
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We can actually see for ourselves
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the everyday lives of individual apemen,
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and we can discover what it is
about them which lives on in us.
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And to do that, we're going
to need to follow the lives
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of more than just one type
of apeman, the boisei.
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(SHRIEKING)
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We're also going to have to take
a close look at apemen like these -
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Homo habilis.
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They don't remind me of anything
alive in the 21st century.
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The Africa of two million years ago
is one of the most diverse habitats on Earth,
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with creatures both familiar and strange.
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Dinofelis, the False Sabre Tooth.
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The giant elephant-like Deinotherium.
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The browsing ancylotherium.
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And unlike anything we can imagine
in the 21st century,
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there are the many two-legged apemen.
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There's the habilis -
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impish scavengers.
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Rudolfensis - their slightly bigger rivals.
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The gorilla-like boisei.
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A whole range of upright apes.
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Each of them has
a different strategy for survival,
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and from one, we've inherited
our own way of life. The question is
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which one? Who do you
most recognize in yourself?
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Which one is our ape ancestor?
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To find out, we must first ask
why there are so many to choose from.
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Why, two million years ago,
do we find so many different apemen?
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Well, one explanation
lies not on Earth but in space.
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It turns out that it's all the fault of the sun.
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As the earth orbits the sun,
it's always on a slight angle, a tilt.
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It's this that gives us our seasons.
The bigger the tilt,
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the more severe they'll be.
But the tilt is always changing,
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and around three million years
before the 21st century,
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it was getting bigger.
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On Earth, the summers got colder.
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At the poles, ice made during the winter
didn't melt properly during the summer.
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Year by year, the polar ice caps grew.
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They locked up huge amounts
of the planet's water.
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The earth began to dry out.
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In East Africa, vast areas
of rainforest and woodland died off,
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leaving a hotchpotch of scattered trees.
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And an alien species took hold.
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It's grass.
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And with alien plants came alien animals...
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...with bizarre adaptations
to exploit the new foods,
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like the improbable four stomachs of an eland
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that can digest tough grass like a cow does.
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And new animals create new food,
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and new creatures have evolved to eat it.
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And this is the key to the puzzle
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of why there's so much diversity
of apemen species at this time,
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two million years before the 21st century.
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Africa now offers an incredible variety
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of things to eat and ways to live,
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and all kinds of animals
have evolved to live here...
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...from the ancylotherium to our apemen.
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Take these reeds, for example.
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I can't eat this kind of food,
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but there is a species of apeman
here that can...
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...the boisei. These magnificent
creatures are adapted brilliantly
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to make the most of the foods
that surround them.
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Powerful muscles in their cheeks,
an enormous jaw
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and back teeth four times the size of our own,
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means they can eat the toughest vegetation
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like the roots of these reeds.
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Their specialisms make the boisei
incredibly successful.
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We're months into an exceptionally
long dry season,
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and many animals are finding the going hard,
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but for this troop, the pickings are easy.
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With ample food within easy reach,
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there's plenty of time for any
apeman's favourite pastime - sex.
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The new female is still hovering
around the troop,
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waiting for a chance
to get close to the dominant male.
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For the existing queen of the harem,
the newcomer could be a real threat.
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(FEMALE SHRIEKS)
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(MALE GRUNTS)
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But the dominant male has a simpler view -
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a new female isn't a threat, but a challenge.
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Although almost entirely vegetarian,
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we know from tell-tale signs in their teeth
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that there's one kind of meat
a boisei can't resist -
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termites.
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Doubly irresistible when on the menu
of a romantic meal for two!
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Grooming is how all apes bond with each other,
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and the boisei are no exception.
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The newcomer has become a new favourite.
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But whether she'll prove as popular
with the rest of the troop
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remains to be seen.
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If the boisei lead comfortable lives
with mostly domestic concerns...
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...how are the other local apemen faring?
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The Homo habilis we met earlier
are finding the long dry season
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considerably tougher
than their boisei neighbours.
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This is the habilis dominant male,
and he's found a bee's nest.
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His position as leader depends
mainly on his ability to find food.
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Though tricky to get at, and not
really offering much of a meal,
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desperation has forced him to try a raid.
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That's one of the females
the dominant male mates with.
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She'll stick with him for now,
but unless the troop finds food soon,
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it will begin to break up.
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This is our cheeky friend who attacked the car,
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eating his first meal for days.
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The truth is, the habilis are struggling,
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and there's a simple reason why.
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They don't have the special
adaptations of the boisei,
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and without big teeth and powerful jaws,
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the habilis can't live off
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the kind of tough vegetation
seen at the end of a dry season.
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A boisei speciality like reed roots
or this hardened acacia pod,
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isn't exactly on their menu.
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To make up for their lack
of specialist eating equipment,
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habilis have taken a very different tack.
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They've developed into
the archetypal Jack-of-all-trades.
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Inquisitive scavengers,
prepared to try anything to survive!
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But it's a difficult way to live,
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because while the boisei
know where to find their food,
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a meal for habilis could be anywhere.
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To find it, you need to be
a tireless investigator.
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But simply being inquisitive
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is no guarantee you're going
to find a square meal.
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You also need a bit of luck...
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Oi, you!
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(SHRIEKS)
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And good luck is something
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that this troop hasn't had much of recently.
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In fact, the troop's plight is desperate...
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...but their inquisitive way of life
has given habilis a few tricks,
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because if you're inquisitive,
you investigate mysteries...
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like why do vultures gather together?
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The answer, of course,
is that they've spotted food.
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An eland has been killed on the savanna.
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The carcass is a godsend.
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Not only is it food,
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it's valuable protein and animal fat.
Unlike the boisei,
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habilis eat meat.
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Normally, the dominant male
would approach a carcass warily,
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particularly one so fresh.
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Whatever killed it could be still around.
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Today, his hunger, and the troop's excitement,
outweighs any caution,
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though the young male seems quite wary.
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But other apemen
have also spotted the vultures.
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Habilis aren't the only scavengers around.
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A rival species, rudolfensis,
has also come for the meat.
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(GRUNTING)
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Habilis and rudolfensis are remarkably similar,
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and are frequently driven to fight for food.
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It's the dominant male's moment of triumph.
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He's led his troop to food
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and thinks he's successfully defended it.
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The troop are distraught.
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Not only have they lost the valuable meat,
they are now also leaderless.
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With no obvious candidates
to succeed the dominant male,
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the habilis have reached their lowest point.
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There is little for the troop to do but wait
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and hope that their luck may change.
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The long dry season is at last at an end.
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The onset of rain brings relief
across the savanna.
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(GRUNTS)
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The boisei sometimes display
when it starts raining.
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No one knows exactly why.
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Perhaps it's out of sheer exhilaration...
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...or maybe they just hate getting wet,
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but it's common behaviour
amongst apes in your own time.
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And sadly for boisei,
just like modern-day gorillas,
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they're useless at building shelters.
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The boisei and the habilis
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00:21:00,600 --> 00:21:04,388
embody two very different
approaches to survival.
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Habilis are the Jack-of-all-trades,
the boisei the master of just one.
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But which trait will be passed on
to future apemen?
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What will we inherit in two million years' time?
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Although the boisei have a lifestyle
which is incredibly successful,
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it's only a success as long as the world
in which they live doesn't change,
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and if there's one thing you can bet on
about the environment or the weather,
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it's that nothing stays the same forever.
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Let's take a glimpse at what's to come.
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Over the next several hundred thousand years,
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the same forces which created
the vast range of environments in Africa
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will continue to shape the continent.
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New habitats will appear,
along with new animals to exploit them,
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while old ways of life will die,
and old species of animal with them.
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Caught up in all this change,
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the boisei will find themselves
in a world they're simply unprepared for.
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But for the moment,
all that lies hidden in their future.
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The dominant male boisei rejoins his harem...
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...to find its number expanded by one.
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The dominant female has taken
the newcomer under her wing,
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and subtly shifted the balance of power.
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He may well find
that he has some making up to do.
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Their successful way of life hides the fact
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that the boisei have put all their
evolutionary eggs in one basket.
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The trouble with being a specialist
is that you end up getting left behind.
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Perhaps they won't be able
to adapt to vegetation changes,
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or new animals will make their lives difficult.
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The truth is, were we to come back to this glade
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in a few hundred thousand years' time,
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these magnificent creatures,
the boisei, would have gone.
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The only legacy that these lovely
animals will leave will be these -
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fossilized bones.
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Nothing from these apemen will live on.
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But the part that habilis plays
in the story of you and I
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will be very different.
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Now that the vultures have had their fill,
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there will be little meat left
on the carcass for anyone else.
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But the habilis have a secret weapon.
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Their scavenging, inquisitive lifestyle
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has made them quick-witted and inventive,
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and it's led to a real breakthrough.
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Habilis are the first creatures on Earth
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to be able to make stone tools.
It's a hugely important leap forward,
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for stone tools mean that they can live off
an amazing range of different foods.
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But first, they have to be able to get to them...
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...and that's where habilis's
second secret weapon comes in.
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Eating meat has brought habilis
the essential protein and fat
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to allow the development of their brains.
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In fact, habilis's brains
are almost half as big again
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as those of the boisei.
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In other words, meat has
enabled them to grow smarter.
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Smart enough to know that you stand
more chance of scaring off a lion
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if you work as a team.
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Welcome to the new world of ideas.
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Although the eland carcass has
almost been totally stripped of meat,
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there is one last meal left -
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bone marrow, one of the most
nutritious foods on the savanna.
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Neither lion nor vultures can reach it,
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yet habilis's new tools
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seem almost purpose-built for the job.
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The troop may have also solved
their leadership problem.
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The young male's actions in getting food
have given him a real status.
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It seems likely that he will
now take over as the dominant male.
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Habilis' Jack-of-all-trades way of life
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means that they have a chance of surviving
in an ever-changing world.
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It's this trait that will live on
and be essential in us.
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So it's habilis which has taken
the next step towards being you and I.
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By being able to live in different ways
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instead of being trapped in just one,
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it's begun to free itself
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from the rules governing all other life on Earth.
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Does this mean that it's habilis
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which will dominate Africa in millennia to come?
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You might think so.
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But the end of our story has a strange twist.
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Round about now, two million years ago,
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an apeman appears in East Africa
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which does what habilis does, only better.
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But they have something else
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which means that they could end up
hounding habilis out of existence.
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They are called Homo ergaster...
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...and they are the creatures
we're going to meet next
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on the journey from apes to us.