Neanderthals: Meet Your Ancestors

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- 3.1 Chapter 1:
- 3.2 Chapter 2:
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Science Documentary hosted by Ella Al-Shamahi, published by BBC in 2018 - English narration

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Neanderthals are not the knuckle-dragging apemen of popular imagination. They are our distant ancestors. About 2% of the DNA of most people is of Neanderthal origin - and it continues to affect us today. Archaeologist Ella Al-Shamahi examines the reasons neanderthals became extinct.

[edit] Chapter 1:

Investigates what Neanderthals looked like and and how they lived in their Ice Age world. It turns out that almost everything we thought we knew about them is wrong. They weren't hunched, grunting, knuckle-dragging ape-men at all. In reality they were faster, smarter, better looking - and much more like us than we ever thought. Our guide is Ella Al-Shamahi, a young, British, rising star in Neanderthal research, with an unusual sideline as a stand-up comic. She enlists the skills of special effects company Jellyfish and Andy Serkis, best known as Gollum in the Lord of the Rings and Caesar in Planet of the Apes, to create the first ever scientifically accurate, 3D, working avatar of a real Neanderthal. In Andy Serkis's studio, Ella brings together a core group of experts from all over the world - our Key Investigating Scientists - who are at the cutting edge of Neanderthal research.

Ella also gathers evidence by pursuing leads across the globe, meeting leading experts in their labs and at significant sites of Neanderthal discovery, from Iraqi Kurdistan to Gibraltar. She begins with a fossil Neanderthal skull found in Shanidar Cave in Iraq that she calls Ned and takes it to a forensic expert who is able to reconstruct the face using clues from the bone structure, allowing us to admire the face of one of our ancient ancestors - one that hasn't been seen for more than 50,000 years.

Next, Ella enlists the help of her team to work out what Ned's body was like, building up layers from the fossil skeleton to create a digital Neanderthal. Then, using his motion-capture skills, Andy Serkis brings Ned back to life. Physically, he was smaller than modern humans, but much stronger and faster. With the help of our experts, we are able to reconstruct a Neanderthal hunt, showing how they used their immense strength and speed to ambush and bring down vast animals like woolly mammoths. These were people supremely adapted to their environment. But there was more to Neanderthals than their physiques. New archaeological research is revealing intriguing details about the Neanderthal mind. In the sea caves of Gibraltar, we find evidence of Neanderthal art - and even their penchant for dressing up in vulture feathers. And in London, computer modelling of the Neanderthal vocal track can let us hear a Neanderthal voice 40,000 years after they became extinct. These were no brutish apemen - they were surprisingly like us. So finally, to see just how well Neanderthals would blend in to modern society, we put Ned amongst the commuters on a busy tube train. He fits right in.

Ella visits caves in Gibraltar which are their last recorded homes. The computer-generated reconstruction of a Neanderthal based on surviving remains is aged up to the end of his life, revealing evidence that he received medical attention, suggesting he was part of a community. Plus, a look at neanderthals' surviving influence on modern humans.

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Explores the fate of the Neanderthals - asking why they became extinct, and discovering how they live on inside of us today. The programme starts in the caves of Gibraltar, which may have been the last place the Neanderthals survived. Discoveries here have shown the Neanderthals lived a good life - feasting on seafood and wild game. These were a people who were supremely well adapted to their environment. But about 40,000 years ago they disappeared. Why? It wasn't because they were socially unsophisticated. Back in the studio we return to Ned - the scientific recreation of a Neanderthal we built in the first programme with the help of actor Andy Serkis and a team of scientific experts. In this episode, Andy helps us see Ned towards the end of his life. Ned's fossil shows that he had survived for many years after suffering a number of crippling injuries. This could only have happened if he had been cared for by the rest of his community. This was an advanced society that knew how to survive. So why did they disappear?

One of the reasons might have been that they lost out in a physical showdown with modern humans. Ella investigates one of the world's oldest murder mysteries. A Neanderthal skeleton found in the Shanidar cave in Iraq gives us clues to a gruesome death. In the studio Ella and her team of scientists reconstruct an experiment to discover whether the perpetrator of this murder was a Neanderthal or a modern human. There are other reasons why Neanderthals may have become extinct: their small population size, or climate change. But when their DNA was first decoded in 2010 it became clear that they hadn't completely disappeared - because they live on inside of us - everyone except people from sub-Saharan Africa. Ella meets scientists who reveal how our genetic legacy from Neanderthals may have made all the difference to our survival in Ice Age Europe and how today the DNA from our ancestors affects our skin, our immune system, our risk for cancer, and even certain neuro-psychiatric diseases such as addiction.

At the Pasteur Institute in Paris, Ella meets a scientist who explains how, once we know exactly what we have inherited from Neanderthals, we can use this information to develop new approaches to treating diseases such as the 'flu virus. But not all of our Neanderthal inheritance is necessarily good for us - it is possible that obesity and type 2 diabetes may have their roots in Neanderthal heritage. Finally, Ella explores a truly mind-blowing possibility that we could manipulate their DNA to bring a Neanderthal back to life. Individually many of us have around 2% Neanderthal DNA. But each person's 2% is different. It turns out that modern humans living today collectively have up to 70% of the Neanderthal genome walking around within us. It's enough that scientists have started contemplating bringing Neanderthals back from extinction.