ALICE ROBERTS:

They say this is where it all began,

That we are all children of Africa,

But if so, why do we look so different?

And how on earth

could a handful of African families

become a whole world full of people?

I'm Alice Roberts,

medical doctor and anthropologist,

I'm fascinated by what bones, stones,

and even our bodies

can reveal about the distant past,

I'm going in search of the traces

left by our African ancestors

and their journeys

to populate the world,

This time,
the most challenging journey yet;

Asia,

Could people out of Africa

really have conquered its frozen wastes?

I don't think I've ever been so cold.

And did the journey cause a change

in the way people look?

Or have I got it completely wrong?

I'm going to investigate

an astonishing idea

that the Chinese could be descended from

a different branch of the human family

to the rest of us.

Come with me
in the footsteps of our ancestors,

on the most epic adventure

ever undertaken.

ROBERTS: Siberia,
north of the Arctic Circle,
I'm going to meet
one of the most remote peoples on Earth

to help solve a mystery,

Why would our ancestors have ever

ventured into such a wilderness?

We're flying over

vast expanses of ice and snow,

but I'm getting very close

to my destination now.

I'm heading deep into Asia,

5,000 kilometres east of Moscow

to the small town of Olenek,

I've come to meet the Evenki,

These people are the closest I can get

to the humans I think

first conquered these lands,

I've arrived on a special day,

It's the annual reindeer festival,

(PEOPLE CHEERING)

These animals have been vital

to the people of Siberia

for as long as anyone can remember,

That's one lost his seat.

People have come to this festival

from an area the size

of Britain and France put together,

to race their reindeer

on the frozen river.

But it's also an opportunity

for the people that live so scattered

across this landscape to come together.

ROBERTS: How our ancestors

first came to these cold lands,
and then survived here, is a mystery,

So I hope the Evenki can help,

But to find out more,

I must leave the festival

and head for one of their remote camps,

It's going to be tough,

It's already minus 26 degrees Celsius,

and they say it could get a lot colder,

I've got layers and layers on here.

There are two, three, four...

five with the coat.

And it's absolutely essential

that every bit of my skin is covered,

including my face.

Because if anything is exposed,

it will literally freeze.

But it seems that even my finest

21 st-century, hi-tech clothing

is no match for the Siberian winter,

Thank you.

My driver is not convinced

that this jacket is adequate,

and he's given me

a reindeer-fur jacket instead.

I think he might be right,

because reindeer fur is amazing.

Each of these outer hairs

is actually hollow

and it's got air inside,

so it's fantastic insulation.

And I'm going to be testing it out.

ROBERTS: Wonderful. Amazing stuff.

To start with,
the reindeer fur keeps me really warm,

I even have a go at driving myself,

But as the journey goes on,

I begin to feel the cold,

And with the wind chill, the temperature

drops well below minus 40,

As the hours go by, it gets colder,

I'm starting to lose feeling

in my fingers and toes,

Is it really possible
that our ancestors survived this cold?

After all, their bodies were not made

for this climate,

Because the latest research claims that

Siberians, along with most humans,

can trace their origins

to a tiny group which left Africa

around 70,000 years ago,

A few family groups could have followed

the great rivers north,

around and through the Himalayas,

But we just don't know,

All we have is a few stone tools

suggesting someone had reached Siberia

by 40,000 years ago,

What could have driven such a tropical

species on deeper into the frozen north?

The last half hour of the journey is

the longest I have ever experienced,

After what seems like forever,

the Evenki camp finally appears

through the trees,

Oh, God!

I don't think I've ever been so cold

in my entire life.
That's a six-hour journey.

I saw some of it,

but a lot of it I didn't see,

'cause just look at that.

Nothing at all.

Oh, but we're here.

I'm gonna go and get warm.

ROBERTS: I wake up to find the camp

in a fever of activity,

Even in bright sunshine,

it's still minus 20,

But I feel privileged to be here,

These Evenki are one of the most

isolated peoples in the world,

And this is the first time they've

allowed their camps to be filmed,

Well, the question that really leaps out

is why on earth did

the ancestors of the Evenki

come this far north?

But the answer is obvious. Hunting.

And in fact, although the Evenki today

have herds of domesticated reindeer,

they still depend on the wild animals

for their meat.

Just as their ancestors did

thousands of years ago.

Well, I'm just about to go off

on a reindeer hunt.

So, Vasily, have you got

a good feeling about the hunt today?

MALE TRANSLATOR: Well, I feel

it's going to be a good day,

But you never can tell,

ROBERTS: Vasily Stepanov,

the brigadier,

leads what's known as a brigade

of Evenki herders and hunters,

We know that people have been

hunting in Siberia for a very long time,

because scattered across

this vast wilderness

archaeologists have discovered

ancient butchered reindeer bones,

and tools carved from their antlers,

MALE TRANSLATOR:
You can see all these reindeer tracks,

They passed through

and went off in that direction,

Over there,

(SPEAKING LOCAL LANGUAGE)

ROBERTS: The brigadier reckons they were

here recently, but are moving fast,

After some time tracking,

it becomes clear
that he won't catch them today,

But his people still need to eat,

So, reluctantly,

they choose one of their

domesticated animals for slaughter,

But now, as far as the Evenki people

are concerned, it's...

it's dinner.

And the anatomist in me

is quite intrigued

to see how they're going to skin it

and how they're going to cut it up.

ROBERTS: Quite interesting,

'cause they're using the knife

with the blade basically facing outwards

so there's no chance of cutting through
the deeper tissues.

And it's almost bloodless.

I mean, look at that.

That skin is just peeling away.

ROBERTS: For 40,000 years,

a key to survival
in this incredibly harsh environment

has been to use every single bit

of the reindeer,

The eyes, liver and brain

are delicacies,

The antlers are used

to boost male potency,

And that's not all,

MALE TRANSLATOR:
Alice, it's like French wine,

(EXCLAIMS)

ROBERTS: But food

is only one part of survival,

To withstand this terrible cold,

our ancestors had to come up

with something really ingenious,

Well, compared to the hunt,

what these ladies are doing here

seems a bit frivolous.

But in fact, it's one of the greatest

technological advances

the humankind has ever seen.

ROBERTS: Our species wasn't designed

for this climate,

Yet somehow, uniquely amongst apes,

we made it this far north,

And the secret is right here,

Tanya is measuring me up
for my very own pair

of reindeer-skin boots,

FEMALE TRANSLATOR: Okay, that's it,

I've got your size, Let's get to work,

There's a very specific part

of the reindeer hide

that's being used here.

You can see from the shape of it

that it's the fur

from the reindeer's legs

that they use to make boots out of.

ROBERTS: But what happens now

is the really important bit,

ROBERTS: And this is it.

This amazing technology

that makes survival

in this harsh environment possible.

Sewing.

And it all depends on having a needle.

Some of the most

ancient needles in the world

are found in Siberia.

ROBERTS: We'll never know who it was

that first thought

of carving a needle out of bone,

But the oldest one found

dates to around 40,000 years ago,

It's no good having a needle

if you don't have

tough thread to sew with,

And that comes from the reindeer, too,

(SPEAKING LOCAL LANGUAGE)

FEMALE TRANSLATOR: I'm using sinew

from the body of the reindeer
to make threads
for sewing clothes together,

If you use these, it's a very sturdy

and long-lasting way of sewing things,

(SPEAKING LOCAL LANGUAGE)

ROBERTS: It's humbling

that this apparently simple approach

still beats synthetic clothing today,

Beautiful! Spasibo,

(WOMAN LAUGHING)

ROBERTS: The needle and thread

made the difference

between death and survival,

Tailored clothes meant

people who originated in the tropics

could now venture further north

than any humans before,

That evening, I get an invitation

to join the brigadier's family

as they tuck in to the reindeer

killed earlier,

And there isn't much else on the menu,

The Evenki's meaty diet

may sound unhealthy,

but it boosts the metabolic rate

and raises body temperature,

Basically, it makes them feel warmer,

As the evening moves on,

our conversation turns

to an eternal question,

Anatoly, do the Evenki

have any stories about creation?

About how they came to be here?

MALE TRANSLATOR: A bird called the loon

dived three times into the sea,
And only at the third time
it brought a bit of mud,

And from that mud, the earth arose,

And then the mammoth came along,

And with its tusks,

it raised the earth still further

and formed the rivers and mountains,

So this is our beautiful story

about the creation of the Earth,

(CLANGING)

ROBERTS: I feel I understand

how our ancestors would have been

able to survive here,

But the consequence

of having to follow their food

would have been

an endlessly nomadic lifestyle,

All this commotion around.

People are literally

packing down their homes and moving off.

And this is what

a nomadic lifestyle is all about.

These people have to move.

They have to take their reindeer

to new pastures.

ROBERTS: The only thing

the reindeer eat in winter

is lichen under the snow,

And they get through it very fast,

So they're constantly on the move

to find more,

And the humans follow them,

This is just amazing. We've got

this caravan of reindeer sleighs
carrying everything from the camp.

And the entire herd,

hundreds and hundreds of reindeer,

are following us.

ROBERTS: Finally, the reindeer stop,

and so do we,

Everybody joins in to put up the tchum,

There are so few people around the world

who still live like this,

but once we were all nomads,

ROBERTS: That's got to go on by itself.

So what we've seen today is

a nomadic lifestyle in action.

We've seen a whole village

being dismantled and moved on.

And it took about 10 minutes

to put this tchum up,

and it's made of large poles

and reindeer skin,

the sort of materials

that would have been available

thousands and thousands of years ago.

This is a very ancient way of life.

ROBERTS: And it seems

that for over 10,000 years

this life on the move

took family groups right across Siberia,

Recent discoveries tell us that they

reached the edge of the Arctic Ocean

nearly 30,000 years ago,

Humans survived here

for thousands of years,

But then a dramatic turn of events

changed their journey through Asia -

the peak of the Ice Age,

The latest climate research reveals
what happened 25,000 years ago,

as the Ice Age really took hold,

In places, the temperature reached

as low as minus 80,

And it became unimaginably dry,

Such extremes are impossible to survive,

So what happened
to these men, women and children?

St Petersburg,
the former imperial capital of Russia,

The Hermitage is one of the world's

greatest museums,

home to some of the most

celebrated works of art,

But there's something else here, too,

It's not on display,

but it's every bit as precious,

Here, in the storerooms,

are a few objects

that could unlock the secrets

of those Siberian families struggling

in the depths of the Ice Age,

What is really striking

about these objects

from the height of the last Ice Age

is that they're found in just

a few places in the south of Siberia.

Which is interesting because it suggests

that as the climate worsened,

these prehistoric people

retreated into refuges

where it still
would have been very cold,

but they would have been

just able to survive.
ROBERTS: People vanished from
the frozen wastes of northern Siberia,

to the south,

One of the refuges they gathered in

is now called Mal'ta,

So can the few remains found here

tell us anything about what happened?

Just look at these tiny blades

from the Ice Age.

They are unusually small.

And the archaeologists think

this is because the appalling cold

made it difficult to reach the quarries,

so the stone itself

was such a precious resource

that they were using it to its utmost,

getting as many blades

as they could out of it.

So the blades themselves

got smaller and smaller.

And something extraordinary

was happening during this period.

In spite of that struggle for survival,

there was a blossoming of art.

Now, we may never know

the meaning of this

beautiful pair of swans

to the people that made them,

but archaeologists have suggested

that they might be hunting charms.

That when the first swans flew,

the first deer would appear,

and it was the beginning

of the spring hunting season.

And how they must have

longed for spring.
ROBERTS: Many of the objects
in this collection are mysterious,

This unique plate is made

from mammoth ivory,

Some have suggested it's a map

showing the physical

and spiritual worlds,

with the connection between them

symbolised by a hole in the middle,

These precious bone figurines

are among the earliest depictions

of people wearing fur -

further proof that

plenty of these Asian pioneers

could sew clothes by this time,

(CAMERA CLICKS)

And finally, there are

these delicate and beautiful

little statues of women.

And some of them are pierced,

so they may have been worn as pendants,

perhaps amulets.

It's possible that

they're fertility symbols,

really underlining
the importance and difficulty

of producing children
during such harsh conditions.

And in fact, some archaeologists

see this entire,

very beautiful collection

as a cry to the spirits

in a time of stress and struggle.

ROBERTS: It is amazing
to think of those ancient people,
who after all
originated in a much warmer place,

surviving in Ice Age Siberia,

But it seems that around this time

something else happened to them,

Something which is
much more difficult to explain,

This is our best guess as to

what our African ancestors looked like,

This reconstruction is based

on the skull of a woman

who lived over 100,000 years ago,

But sometime
around the peak of the last Ice Age,

the faces of the people of East Asia

changed,

Why?

Today, from Siberia to Hong Kong,

you come face to face

with these changes,

Almond-shaped eyes, a flatter face,

a smaller nose,

Most of all,
we associate these features with China,

And here they have become

the subject of great interest -

not to scientists,
but to the beauty industry,

ROBERTS: For cosmetics companies,

understanding variation
in people's faces can be big business.

Now, during the Cultural Revolution

Chinese women were forbidden

from wearing make-up,

but now China is one of the biggest

markets in the world.
Secret filming.

ROBERTS: Here's one multinational

that's in there

trying to convince the Chinese

to use their products,

Crystal, she has a very

traditional Chinese eye.

So what I need to do is make her eye

look bigger and more attractive.

So you're actually
trying to make her look less Chinese?

No!

(BOTH LAUGHING)

ROBERTS: They claim to have some insight

into what is special

about the Chinese face,

I'm curious, if a little suspicious,

Now, in here is the wrinkle laboratory

where they grade your wrinkles

from nought to six.

ROBERTS: The company is trying

to compare the way skin ages

in European and Chinese women,

Sit down, please.

This is all rather clinical-looking

and scary, isn't it?

ROBERTS: Carole wants to assess

my wrinkles

and contrast them

with a Chinese woman of the same age,

- Grade one.
- Grade one?

CAROLE: Yes.
ROBERTS: That's good.

CAROLE: That's lateral folds.

Grade two. Crow's-feet wrinkle.

Grade one.
You have very little wrinkle

- for your age.

- ROBERTS: Excellent!

I've paid Carole to say that,

Thank you very much.

So how does the Chinese woman do?

CAROLE: Grade one, grade two, grade one.

- Thank you very much, Carole.

- You're welcome.

ROBERTS: At our age,

Carole sees very little difference,

But what happens 10 years later?

This is a 47-year-old European,

This is grade four.

Grade three.

Grade four.

ROBERTS: Compare her

with a 47-year-old Chinese woman,

Grade two. It's grade one.

Grade one.

There's a suggestion
that Chinese skin ages more slowly,

I'd need a lot more evidence

to be convinced,

But that's not nearly as controversial

as the whole question of where

Chinese features came from

in the first place,

It's one of the most fascinating

and perplexing questions

of our human origins,

Some have suggested
that these facial characteristics,

like narrower eyes, smaller noses

and flatter faces,

could have been adaptations to cold,

protecting the eyes

and reducing heat loss from the face,

It's an alluring idea,

The problem is,

there's no evidence for it,

But there are many people in China

who believe there's another explanation

for the way they look.

And their theory, if proved true,

could be absolutely explosive.

ROBERTS: It would mean

we'd have to totally rethink our ideas

about how Asia, and indeed

the whole world, became populated,

Many Chinese people believe

that they look different

because they are fundamentally different

from the rest of us.

The claim is that they come

from a completely separate branch

of the human family tree,

and that they descend

from an ancient type of human

who arrived here in China

nearly two million years ago.

ROBERTS:
Before we modern humans existed,

there were earlier species of human,

such as Homo erectus,

A bit more ape-like than us, perhaps,

with a heavy brow and a smaller brain,

About 1,8 million years ago,

the Homo erectus population

started spilling out of Africa,

I always believed

that Homo erectus in Asia

eventually died out,

while Homo erectus in Africa

ultimately evolved into us,

Homo sapiens,

Then, around 70,000 years ago,

a tiny group left -

ancestors of everyone
outside Africa today,

But in China
they think this is completely wrong,

I've come to Zhoukoudian, near Beijing,

where the Chinese say they have evidence

that Homo erectus in Asia

did not die out,

but is in fact their ancestor,

They believe passionately

in their separate origin,

and it's something everyone in China

is taught from childhood,

It's such an amazing idea,

that the Chinese originate

from a different branch

of the human family tree

from the rest of us.

And it goes against everything

I've discovered so far.

ROBERTS: It was here,

early last century,

that the most important evidence

behind this idea was discovered,
So this is the cave itself?

One of China's most revered scientists

is Professor Wu Xinzhi,

He's dedicated his life

to studying what was found here,

- This cave named Pigeon Cave.

- Pigeon Cave?

Because here usually

there are many pigeons...

ROBERTS: Right.
WU: Living here.

And the main fossils

were found over there.

ROBERTS: Half a million years ago,

this huge pit was a cave,

And it's here that archaeologists found

a treasure trove,

incredibly rare evidence

of a long-lost world,

The largest collection of Homo erectus

fossils ever unearthed,

The oldest skull

is about half a million years old.

- Really?
- Yes.

And the youngest one is between

200 and 300,000 years old.

So they were living here for...

For around 300,000 years.

- Right.
- A long time.

So I believe this is the home base

of Homo erectus.

ROBERTS: Right.

Professor Wu is sure
that Asian Homo erectus evolved here
into the modern Chinese,

And a few metres away,

he shows me where some really crucial

evidence was found,

Here, in what is called the Upper Cave,

they found more skulls,

but these ones were quite different,

This is Upper Cave.

Many human skeletons was found here.

30,000 years old.

ROBERTS: The skulls clearly

belonged to our species,

but the researchers saw something

surprising, too -

they appeared to share some features

with the Homo erectus skulls,

There are many common features

among them.

And I think it is most probable that

Upper Cave men are the descendants

of Homo erectus.

ROBERTS: Wu believes
that Asian Homo erectus

evolved into the humans

found in the Upper Cave,

and that they evolved

into the modern Chinese,

So, for him, Upper Cave Man

is a sort of missing link,

proof the Chinese do descend

from Homo erectus,

I'd love to see those ancient skulls,

but tragically,
in the mayhem of the second World War,

the whole collection went missing,

Luckily, before they were lost,

plaster casts were made,

and now even these copies

are considered priceless,

(LAUGHING) So, this is

the exhibition room.

Right.

ROBERTS: Chinese scientists come here

to study the history of their people,

But the casts I want to see

are securely locked away,

I will ask him to take out.

Oh, please do.

(SPEAKING MANDARIN)

I think I'm going to have

to remove myself actually,

because I'm not allowed to see

the drawers that the skulls come out of.

So, I'm just gonna come

and stand back here discreetly.

(WU LAUGHING)

Wait for the skulls to appear.

It's sort of layers of security.

We're not allowed to see

which key goes into which locker.

He keeps the key

so that nobody to know the number.

- Do you know the numbers?

- No.

(LAUGHS) No?
Even Professor Wu doesn't know.

No, I do not want to know,

because if I know that,

if it is lost,
I have the responsibility.

- Yes.
- But now I don't know anything.
- Right.
- No responsibility for me.

ROBERTS: Finally I'm allowed in

to see the plaster casts

of the Homo erectus skulls

from the Lower Cave,

And Professor Wu has a surprise waiting,

(ROBERTS EXCLAIMS)

You see, this is the original specimen.

That's the original?

Yes, original.

As you know, most of the original

specimens lost during the war.

I didn't know any of it had survived.

Yeah, after the war

we have done some new excavation.

- ROBERTS: Right.
- And got some new specimens.

- This is one of them.

- Can I hold it?

Yes, yes.

I honestly thought all the specimens

had been lost,

but this is an actual fossil

of Homo erectus in China.

It was found in 1966.

ROBERTS: So this is hundreds

of thousands of years old, isn't it?

WU: So this is another piece.

It's just amazing for me to, I mean,

to be holding in my hand

this actual fossil, which is

hundreds of thousands of years old.

I honestly thought all I would see

is casts, is reconstructions.
- WU: Yeah, yeah.
- And this is the actual fossil.

WU: And now you hold original one.

That's amazing.

ROBERTS: But even more important

is what Professor Wu has spotted

in these fossils,

First, he shows me some features

of the ancient Erectus skulls

that he believes are typically Chinese,

The face is flat. The nose is flat.

Not very protrude, as in Europe.

ROBERTS: Yeah, yeah.

And this part is also flat.

So, this part of the cheek bones

is sort of rotated like that.

Then he shows me the much more recent

Upper Cave skulls

and picks out the same

distinctively Chinese features,

WU: But it also have the more flat face

and a not very protruding nose.

So the features that you're looking at

in these skulls are really

the features which characterise

modern Chinese people today,

and the sort of differences

between your skull and my skull.

- WU: Yes, yes.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, so your face here is like this.

- Yeah.

- And mine like...

- And yours is flatter.

- Yes.
- ROBERTS: Yeah.

And your nose is flatter here than mine.

So we inherited some features

from our ancestor.

ROBERTS: Professor Wu sees a clear line,

Homo erectus evolving into Upper Cave

Man, becoming today's Chinese,

For him, these fossils prove

that the Chinese

come from a completely different branch

of the human family,

But I can see significant differences

between the skulls,

The whole skull shape of Homo erectus

is quite different from modern humans,

And even those features

that Wu pointed out,

the nose and the cheek bones,

don't seem that similar to me,

Professor Wu, I mean, you've spent

a lifetime studying these skulls,

and I'm a complete novice in comparison,

but I look at this modern skull here,

this 30,000-year-old skull

from Zhoukoudian,

and this looks quite similar to me

to other skulls from Europe

at the same time, so I don't think...

It doesn't look Chinese to me.

No, but the profile in Europe

is different.

Quite subtle though, isn't it?

I'm still not convinced that the Chinese

are so fundamentally different

from the rest of us.

Professor Wu is so knowledgeable
and his arguments are so persuasive,

so maybe I'm missing something.

ROBERTS: And there is other evidence

to suggest that Professor Wu

could be right,

that the Chinese do in fact descend from

a different branch of the human family

to the rest of us,

I'm travelling 2,000 kilometres

into Central China,

to investigate something
that's a real problem

for my Out of Africa theory,

And it's all to do with stone tools,

Elsewhere in the world,

our species, Homo sapiens,

is associated with
sophisticated styles of tools,

Like these from Europe,

But in China, you find something

completely different,

A lot of very basic tools,

A type in fact typical of Homo erectus,

Archaeological evidence, then,

that seems to undermine the idea

that the Chinese evolved

in the same way as the rest of us,

If modern humans suddenly arrived

in China,

we might expect to see

modern-looking stone tools

appearing with their arrival,

just like in Europe.

But the tools in this part of the world

stay looking fairly crude.

And Chinese scientists say

this is because there wasn't
an influx of modern humans.

But there could be

another rather intriguing explanation.

ROBERTS: Archaeologist Dr Joe Kaminga

has spent decades

working in Southeast Asia,

And I'm hoping that his work

might shed some light

on this mystery of Chinese origins,

I mean, this really is

about as crude and basic a stone tool

as you can get, isn't it?

Yes, it is.

Which is a bit bizarre, isn't it?

Because in Europe

at this time they're making

quite sophisticated stone tools.

So, I mean, what's going on here?

We're in a completely different part

of the world here.

In Europe, there are

different resources, different plants,

different animals
and different kinds of stone.

And you have very large cobbles of flint

in Europe,

but you don't have very large cobbles

of flint here in Southeast Asia

or in South China.

ROBERTS: But there is

something else here,

and Joe thinks they could've used it

to make tools

just as sophisticated as European ones,

Bamboo,

Why would you go through so much trouble

to make a sophisticated stone tool,

beautifully shaped, when you can just

take a piece of bamboo

and use that, and throw it away

when you've finished with it?

Because it's everywhere. You can always

get it again, next valley along.

ROBERTS: Joe believes that the crude

stone tools were just used to chop down

and work bamboo,

(CREAKING)

(EXCLAIMS)

- Excellent.
- Excellent.

You carry it down the slope

and I'll follow.

(ROBERTS LAUGHING)

Watch your step there.

- Is it slippery?
- It is.

(EXCLAIMS)

JOE: Perfect.

ROBERTS: It's a tantalising idea,

but it's not easy to believe

that a flimsy bit of bamboo

could ever do the job

of a sharp stone tool.

We need to put it to the test.

If you just want to make a small knife,

we've got a flake.

- Right.
- Just saw it.
You can open up the cut
by bending the bamboo.

The next step is

simply to thin the edge.

And just cut...

cut it on the inside of the bamboo.

And it should work very well.

It has a completely different

texture to wood.

The fibres are very long, very even.

Everything's very predictable.

- There's no knots in it.

- ROBERTS: No.

And it's as simple as that.

'Cause I think I'm about done.

ROBERTS: Really?
JOE: Yeah.

And behold.

It's pretty sharp stuff.

ROBERTS: Bamboo's sharpness

comes from silica,

a hard mineral also found in sand,

I'm not sure

if I'm going to be able to...

butcher a chicken with it, though.

(CHICKEN CLUCKING)

ROBERTS: What are you making now?

I'm making an arrow head.

JOE: So I'll just start

to shape the point.

ROBERTS: We don't know if ancient people

used bamboo arrow heads,

but it seemed like a good way

to test the limits of bamboo technology,

A very snug fit.

ROBERTS: Now we need to shoot something.

(BOTH LAUGHING)

ROBERTS: First, I want to see what Joe's

bamboo knife is capable of,

So this is going to be
somebody's dinner, hopefully.

Well, maybe ours.

- All right.
- Okay, I'll have a leg.

(CRACKING)

You have to saw a bit,

but it's getting through it.

Oh, this is pretty good, Joe.

Look at this.

JOE: Good.

Well, we've just disjointed a leg,

so that's...

The bamboo has got through skin,

it's got through ligament as well.

So it's doing pretty well, I'd say.

How about that?

ROBERTS: And, just how effective

is a bamboo arrow?

Well, I don't think I'm going to be

too adventurous.

Shall I try the arrow head

you just made?

Go for it. You don't mind

if I step 20 metres aside?

Yeah, you keep well to one side, Joe.

I wouldn't trust me with this at all.

Let's have a look at this, then.

(LAUGHS)

Can you see that, stuck in the ground?

Well, how about we try the cabbage?

ROBERTS: I mean, look at that, though.

That's a bamboo arrow

embedded in a bit of wood.

Excellent.

(JOE CLAPPING)

Arrow in a cabbage. Look.

Well, that's pretty impressive

for bamboo technology, I think.

Well, now that

you've killed the cabbage,

we can have that for dinner as well,

with the chicken.

Excellent.

ROBERTS: Bamboo turns out to be

surprisingly versatile,

so it's at least possible that

modern humans from Africa were here

using sophisticated tools,

made not of stone but of bamboo,

But that still doesn't prove

that the Chinese came out of Africa

with everybody else,

However, there is something

that could settle this debate

of where the Chinese come from

once and for all,

After that...

ROBERTS: I'm meeting Professor Jin Li,

one of China's leading geneticists,

Recently he led a project that set out

to prove that the Chinese evolved

independently from everyone else,

from Homo erectus, here in China,

Before the project started,

I was hoping that I could identify

or could be able to find the evidence

that support independent origin

of Chinese in China.

Because I'm a Chinese,

I came from China,

and through the education process

I always believed that there is

something special about Chinese.

ROBERTS: He's singled out

a male genetic marker,

which only appeared

about 80,000 years ago in Africa,

So any man who carries that marker

must have recent African ancestors

and can't be descended from

the more ancient Asian Homo erectus,

Jin took DNA from over

160 ethnic groups around East Asia,

Over 12,000 samples,

And so, what did you find?

We did not see any...

even one single individual

that could be considered

as the descendant

of the Homo erectus in China.

Rather, everybody was a descendant

of our ancestors from Africa.

ROBERTS: The result

couldn't have been any clearer,

ROBERTS: How does that make you feel,

as a Chinese person?

After I saw the evidences

that we generate in my laboratory,

I think we should all be

happy with that, because after all,
modern humans
from different part of the world

are not so different from each other

and we are very close relatives.

ROBERTS: That's great. Thank you.

ROBERTS: So Africa
is the home of the Chinese,

Jin Li's research confirms

that their ancestors, too,

were part of that tiny group

that left the continent

around 70,000 years ago,

And genetics is also

helping us understand

how people spread through Asia,

Our ancestors reached Siberia

very early on,

But there was another

even earlier migration route,

spreading along the coast

of southern Asia

and eventually reaching China,

One day, as we push forward

the frontiers of genetic research,

we may even discover the origin

of those Chinese features,

So, if they weren't a result

of adaptation to cold,

where might they have come from?

It could simply be chance,

or it could be down to sex.

If particular features are considered

attractive in a population,

then people with those features

are much more likely to pass their genes

on to the next generation.
And if that group
then goes on to flourish,

those features could become

very widespread.

ROBERTS: And the handful of people

with these features

certainly did flourish,

Their descendants filled

the vast spaces of Asia,

And eventually they would move on

from hunting and gathering

to build one of the greatest

civilizations of the world,

In this city, the hub

of the world's second-largest economy,

it feels like I'm on a different planet

to the one inhabited

by those hunter-gatherers.

But is it possible
to look back into prehistory

and find those early steps,

the seeds of civilisation in China?

ROBERTS: What was it that turned

hunter-gatherers into empire builders?

I'm travelling through the awe-inspiring

landscape of Guilin, in South China,

in search of the key to their success,

This is the Tsung Pien cave,

Excavations here tell us it was once

lived in by hunter-gatherers,

And in 2001,
a wonderful discovery was made,

These fragments are so precious

that I'm not even allowed to touch them.

They are what remains

of one of the oldest pots in China.

In fact, one of the oldest pots

in the world.

So, who made this pot?

Well, the people living in this cave

so many thousands of years ago

would have been nomadic

hunter-gatherers,

still living an ancient lifestyle

in many ways.

But those insignificant-looking

crude pieces of pot

mark a great technological leap forward.

ROBERTS: So prehistoric pottery's

has also been found in this cave?

ROBERTS: Pots are something

we take for granted,

But for those ancient hunter-gatherers,

pottery was a part of

a completely new way of life,

So how did they do it?

I'm meeting a team

of experimental archaeologists,

who think they might have the answer,

The first breakthrough must have been

finding out how to stop

the pots cracking when they were fired,

tempering them by mixing calcite rock

with the clay,

And they even have an idea

how the pots might have been shaped,

thousands of years before

the invention of the potter's wheel,

This is very clever.

They've dug a pit here

to basically give us the form

of the pot, almost like a mould.

And then we're pressing this clay

in little slabs down into the...

(SPEAKING IN MANDARIN)

ROBERTS: Pre-formed pit.

(SPEAKING IN MANDARIN)

ROBERTS: Transforming clay

into hard pottery

requires firing at a high temperature,

Today, this is done

at 1,000 degrees Celsius in a kiln -

way beyond the capabilities

of those hunter-gatherers,

They would've had open fires,

which only produce temperatures

of about 250 degrees,

I'm quite doubtful

this is going to be enough,

So how's our pot?

(EXCLAIMS) I think that's it.

I think that's our pot there,

and it looks okay!

(SPEAKING IN MANDARIN)

ROBERTS: Fantastic.

There are many different theories about

why the Chinese hunter-gatherers

might have started making pots.

Some people say

it was a symbol of prestige.

But the Chinese archaeologists think

that the explanation

is much more simple - cooking.

ROBERTS: Pots meant that a wider range

of food could be cooked and stored,

vital in hard times,

And by 9,000 years ago,

there was another innovation -

farming,

One of the things that those early

Chinese potters would have been eating

was wild rice.

Now, it certainly wouldn't have been

the main source of food,

because it was hard to collect

and actually didn't give much energy

in return.

But despite the availability

of other vegetables,

it was rice that became

more and more important

and even crucial

to the early success of the Chinese.

ROBERTS: This looks good, doesn't it?

ROBERTS: But wild rice

doesn't produce much grain,

So how was such an unpromising plant

changed into the food

that would feed a continent?

Well, one of those early farmers

must have stumbled

on a way of tricking nature,

Rice needs plenty of water,

so I'm helping the farmers

irrigate their paddy field,

creating the type of watery,

marshy environment

that rice naturally grows in.

But when rice is deprived of water,

it does something rather interesting.

It starts to produce masses of seeds.

So what the early farmers hit on

was a cunning plan
to get rice to do just that,

by creating an artificial drought.

ROBERTS: Someone came up with the idea

of filling paddy fields up with water

and then allowing it to evaporate,

It's as though the rice plants

expect a drought and panic,

producing many more seeds,

Grains of rice,

Probably one of the things

which made rice so appealing

to hunter-gatherers
and made them want to grow it

was that you could store the seeds

for food during the winter.

ROBERTS: Once there was more food

and it could be relied on,

populations boomed,

Families settled down,

They started to build villages,

towns, and eventually cities,

These humble plants represent

the end of the journey

for Chinese hunter-gatherers,

and the beginnings of something new,

farming and civilisation.

It's no exaggeration
to say that this development

was the foundation

of the most successful

group of humans living today.

And the rest is history.