- 2 months ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00La historia de la humanidad
00:30La historia de la humanidad
01:00La historia de la humanidad
01:02La historia de la humanidad
01:04La historia de la humanidad
01:06La historia de la humanidad
01:08La historia de la humanidad
01:10La historia de la humanidad
01:12La historia de la humanidad
01:16La historia de la humanidad
01:18La historia de la humanidad
01:20La historia de la humanidad
01:22La historia de la humanidad
01:24La historia de la humanidad
01:26La historia de la humanidad
01:28La historia de la humanidad
01:30La historia de la humanidad
01:32La humanidad
01:34La humanidad
01:36La humanidad
01:38La humanidad
01:40La historia de la humanidad
01:42La humanidad
01:44La humanidad
01:46La humanidad
01:48La humanidad
01:50La humanidad
01:52La humanidad
01:54La humanidad
01:56Pero en muchas maneras, no es realmente el destino que se informa.
02:01Es todo lo que tomó, todos los desafíos que tuvieron que sobrevivir
02:06para hacerla tan lejos de donde empezaron, en África.
02:14No éramos los primeros humanos a dejar África.
02:19Antes de evolucionar, los ancestros de nuestros vecinos,
02:23los vecinos de los Neanderthales, comenzaron.
02:27Y Homo Erectus, uno de los más antiguos humanos,
02:31ha logrado entrar en Asia.
02:39Pero nadie ha logrado el viaje a Australia.
02:46Cada otro especie de humanos ha llegado a un punto,
02:49y luego simplemente parla.
02:50Tiene que enfrentar una barrera que no podía o no pas.
02:54Pero no nos.
02:57Esto es la historia de cómo, time y again,
03:00tomó perillosa jornada,
03:03cómo la última especie de humanos a evolucionar,
03:06tomó en environments como no otros han,
03:10a convertirse en la única especie global de humanos.
03:14Este título es Nuestro y Nuestro Solo.
03:17Este título empieza más de 1200,000 años.
03:20Esta historia comienza hace más de 120,000 años.
03:37Cuando nuestra especie se desplaza por encima de las fronteras de África,
03:42están bloqueados por expanses de océanos en la mayoría de los lados.
03:46Una de las pequeñas lugares que pueden ir a la izquierda,
03:51a la vasta tierra que hoy se construye de Arabia y el Levant.
04:03A esta vez, una de las pequeñas puestas de África para el resto del mundo.
04:16África para el resto del mundo.
04:46África para el resto del mundo.
04:51África para el resto del mundo.
04:57Oh!
04:59De todas las especies de human éstamente existentes,
05:04creo que nosotros, a Homo sapiens,
05:06somos la especie de exploradora.
05:09No podemos ayudarlo, tenemos que mirar.
05:17Estamos en nuestra deseada de viajar.
05:21Y este lugar era el más grande de la ciudad.
05:24Puedes verlo desde África.
05:26Y velo en él.
05:28Es absolutamente respiratorio.
05:34Pero no es exactamente agradable.
05:36Nada en este lugar dice casa.
05:42Y la pregunta es, ¿por qué los homo sapiens vinieron aquí?
05:51Saben que lo hicieron.
05:54Gracias a fines de Israel y de Saudi Arabia,
05:58a los estados gulfos.
05:59Y incluso a los fringos de Europa y Asia.
06:07Que es difícil de explicar.
06:13Cuando hoy, estas tierras son solo como un barrio.
06:18Como cualquier océano.
06:19Estos sonidos.
06:21Estos sonidos.
06:22¡Suscríbete al canal!
06:52¡Suscríbete al canal!
07:22¡Suscríbete al canal!
07:24¡Suscríbete al canal!
07:26¡Suscríbete al canal!
07:28¡Suscríbete al canal!
07:30¡Suscríbete al canal!
07:32¡Suscríbete al canal!
07:34¡Suscríbete al canal!
07:38¡Suscríbete al canal!
07:40¡Suscríbete al canal!
07:42¡Suscríbete al canal!
07:45¡Suscríbete al canal!
07:46¡Suscríbete al canal!
07:48¡Suscríbete al canal!
07:50¡Suscríbete al canal!
07:52¡Suscríbete al canal!
07:54¡Suscríbete al canal!
07:56¡Suscríbete al canal!
07:58¡Suscríbete al canal!
08:00¡Suscríbete al canal!
08:02¡Suscríbete al canal!
08:04¡Suscríbete al canal!
08:06¡Suscríbete al canal!
08:08¡Suscríbete al canal!
08:10¡Suscríbete al canal!
08:12¡Suscríbete al canal!
08:14¡Suscríbete al canal!
08:16¡Suscríbete al canal!
08:18¡Suscríbete al canal!
08:20¡Suscríbete al canal!
08:22¡Suscríbete al canal!
08:24¡Suscríbete al canal!
08:26¡Suscríbete al canal!
08:28¡Suscríbete al canal!
08:30intensas, mirando en mapas, mirando en imágenes satélites, y esto es el resultado de ese trabajo.
08:39Ahora, si miras aquí, esto es un mapa de la región un poco más norte de aquí,
08:45esto es Saldí, que es hacia el norte, y aquí es el Sinai de Egipto.
08:50Ahora, mira, esto es alrededor de 125,000 años atrás.
09:03El agua litera esta tierra.
09:06Quiero decir, puedes ver las veinturas que se muestran.
09:09No es posible que esta tierra no hubiera sido verde.
09:14Hay palio lakes y palio rivers absolutamente todos lados.
09:20Y esta es esta región como nunca lo conocíamos.
09:30Ahora, recuerda, esta era un mundo sin fronteras,
09:34y esta era una tierra de plenty,
09:37dentro fácil de alcanzar.
09:39Y así, ¿por qué no los homo sapiens no hubiera aquí?
09:50Pero lo que no sabían, lo que no sabían,
09:54lo que no podían saber,
09:56es que esta región sería una caja.
09:59La guerra, la guerra, la guerra.
10:08La guerra verde de Arabia se desistió.
10:12La desast es el marzo.
10:14Subtle variations in the orbit of the Earth cause the climate to change.
10:31Within as little as a few hundred years, the rains vanished, starving this entire region of water,
10:39leaving humans at the mercy of the desert.
10:50If you set out to create an environment that was completely and utterly hostile to our biology,
10:55you'd come up with this. The heat is such a presence that I can feel it on my back.
11:01The sun, even at this time of the morning, feels like it's borderline torture.
11:07And there is no water. As far as the eye can see, there's nothing.
11:15And back then, it would have been so much worse. It wasn't arid. It's what we call hyper-arid.
11:22It's thought that there was no rainfall for years on end.
11:26And so we go from seeing multiple sites where humans lived in this region to nothing.
11:37We seem to vanish for thousands of years.
11:43And this could so easily have been the end of our journey.
11:51Defeated by the harsh desert.
11:54We think that some Homo sapiens clung on in pockets that we call refugia.
12:08Those are refuges where the climate is milder.
12:13But from all we can tell, they would have been few and far between.
12:17And they effectively faded away.
12:21And so for all intents and purposes, Homo sapiens outside of Africa had failed.
12:26And what's interesting is, other species of human had cracked the code of living outside of Africa, but not us.
12:38And so how did this happen?
12:41People like me, so many of you, how did we become the only species of human who exists across the globe?
12:50People like us.
12:51People like us.
12:52And so we can't endure.
12:53These brutal conditions persisted for years on end.
13:06Until finally, there was another subtle change in climate.
13:15Allowing conditions to become less extreme
13:22And giving Homo sapiens another chance
13:38Occasional seasonal rains returned
13:41Just enough to bring precious water back to the desert
13:51Now the conditions here did get better
14:07So yes you had desert and sand dunes
14:10But you also had lakes and rivers
14:14And that resulted
14:18In us being able to exist in this place
14:22But not just exist here
14:24From an oasis here to a river and spring system there
14:28We were able to actually leave the Arabian Peninsula
14:33And face the rest of the world
14:35As they did
14:44These new waves
14:45Likely absorbed any small pockets
14:48Of Homo sapiens
14:49That had held on
14:51And now scientists studying
14:56The genetic code
14:57Of people alive today
14:59Believe this moment
15:01Was a pivotal point
15:03In our history
15:05Our DNA has the power to tell stories about us
15:15But some of them aren't just stories
15:17They're sagas
15:18And they're extraordinary
15:20And one of them
15:21Is that every single one of us
15:24Whose origins are from outside of Africa
15:26Comes from a tiny population of Homo sapiens
15:30We started in Africa
15:35From multiple populations across the continent
15:38But then
15:39Only a small group of us left
15:42Perhaps as few as 10,000 individuals
15:47And so
15:50All of us
15:51From outside of Africa
15:53And from this
15:55Minuscule population
15:57Who went on
15:59To populate not one
16:00Not two continents
16:02But five
16:03But our journey
16:14Through the desert
16:15Was only one
16:19Of a multitude
16:20Of challenges
16:21Homo sapiens would face
16:23As we spread
16:25Across the globe
16:26And because
16:30We were so few in number
16:31Our very survival
16:33Outside of Africa
16:35Was far from certain
16:37As this tiny population
16:54Grew and spread
16:55They would crash
17:00Into another extreme environment
17:03One that had defeated
17:08All other species
17:10Of human
17:11A vast green wall
17:15Once beyond the desert
17:23Our species found themselves
17:25In the giant landmass
17:26Of Europe and Asia
17:28To their north
17:30Lay high cold mountains
17:32So many spread eastwards
17:35And south
17:36Down through what is now
17:38The Indian subcontinent
17:40Reaching modern day Sri Lanka
17:42At that time
17:44Joined to the mainland
17:45By lower sea levels
17:47And dominated
17:55By expansive
17:56Dense rain forests
17:58And while this may look
18:10So much more welcoming
18:11Than the desert
18:12Nothing could be further
18:15From the truth
18:16These leeches are
18:25Absolutely everywhere
18:27And when I say everywhere
18:28I mean
18:28One has just got me
18:30And there are creepy
18:33Crawlies
18:34Absolutely everywhere
18:35Including in our trousers
18:36And they are actually
18:38Quite irritating
18:38This place is also full
18:42Of mosquitoes
18:42We saw a viper
18:45And a cobra
18:46And that's the thing
18:48About this place
18:49It is difficult
18:51To exist in
18:52It's hot
18:52It's humid
18:53It's oppressive
18:54And you have to
18:55Constantly have your wits
18:56About you
18:56This is one of the most
19:07Extreme environments
19:08On the planet
19:09So much of what grows here
19:14Is poisonous to eat
19:16And there are few
19:19Large animals
19:20To provide meat
19:21Conditions so difficult
19:24That as far as we can tell
19:28No other species
19:29Of human
19:30Ever made it past
19:31The fringes
19:32Of these rainforests
19:35A nation
19:36Of these rainforests
19:37That as they can
19:39Flexible
19:39That must be
19:41Take off
19:41To live
19:43Intuitous
19:50On regardless
19:51On the planet
19:51atha
19:52Breathing
19:53To havemaster
19:54Serval
19:56Au
19:56lies
19:57O
19:57dead
19:58The
19:58Courage
19:59The
19:59Un
20:00To haveda
20:00unusual
20:01At
20:02beloved
20:03Av
20:04Estar aquí es un poco como descargarse en tiempo, porque hace 50,000 años, este lugar
20:11sería el mismo lugar. Este enorme cajón podría haber estado aquí.
20:16Solo en ese momento, la cajón era romántica y ha ido por kilómetros en cada dirección.
20:25Y todavía, en este cajón y en dos otros cajones no lejos,
20:31hemos encontrado evidencia de nuestros ancestros viviendo aquí,
20:36en el centro de lo que hubiera sido un gran rastro.
20:46¿Cómo fueron los homosapiens a poder desplazarse en un lugar que no otros han?
20:54¿Cómo encontraron la comida, especialmente la carne?
21:00Ellos tenían la beneficencia de la tecnología de la cajón y la escena de la cajón,
21:05que apareció miles de años antes.
21:09Pero los arroes de la cajón, son menos de suficientes a la cajón de la cajón.
21:16La solución fue descubierta gracias a más de 30 años de excavaciones
21:26deep into the floor of this and the other two caves.
21:32Digs que llegan a todo el camino de 48,000 años
21:37cuando los pioneros de nuestra especie
21:41first intentaron a superar los desafíos de este río.
21:46Empezando con uno de los más difíciles.
21:53¿Cómo encontrar la carne suficiente para sostenerlos?
21:58Aquí puedes ver un monkey bone.
22:02Puedes ver el V-shape.
22:05Estas V-shape cut marks solo sonido por las cinturas.
22:09Sí, aquí es donde alguien se ha cortado.
22:14Sí, sí, sí.
22:16La carne también puede ser posible.
22:18Lo que se mueve con los pioneros, lo tratamos de eliminar.
22:22Es interesante porque creo que la carne de la carne de la carne
22:24necesitan verlo con un magnífico, pero no siempre.
22:27Y, en realidad, este es bastante claro.
22:29Y este no es el tipo de que se veía si un animal killed.
22:34Este es un indicador que esto se ha cortado.
22:36Este es definitivamente un homo sapiens.
22:39Y, en realidad, la pregunta es cómo se mató.
22:46Es muy interesante, Ella, porque hay muchas de las cinturas muy altas.
22:53En segundos, pueden subir a la parte.
22:56Por lo tanto, es muy difícil.
22:59Los prehistores o nuestros ancestros deben desarrollar su tecnología para que los agregue.
23:14Les llamamos a mostrar algunas de los primeros, que se vuelve a 48,000 años.
23:19Ellos desarrollaron esta tecnología de bonefine, y hicieron de arros con arroes.
23:26Ellos identificaron que los monstruos son muy especiales para hacer arroes,
23:32porque son los luchos en la vez, para hunt a estos animales rápidos.
23:37¡Gracias!
24:07These bullpupts are only the tips of the full arrowheads.
24:12Many are chipped from actually hitting prey,
24:16and each one would have been attached to the end of a long wooden arrow.
24:24These hunters,
24:26this is a portion of rank and this is a piece of art.
24:30y a la ropa de la ropa de la ropa de la ropa.
25:00Exceptional skill and efficiency within the forest.
25:24But we know that the humans living here were doing more than just surviving.
25:30Oshan and the team also found beads fashioned from shells, perhaps brought in through trade
25:54from groups living on the coast, a constant struggle to survive, doesn't leave much time
26:02for making works of art.
26:09Suggesting a long established and successful community existed here.
26:14And for that, to turn this place into a true home would take something fundamental to our
26:30species.
26:31This is a replica of a tool that was found in the caves in this area dated from about 40,000
26:37years ago.
26:38It is a monkey tooth, specifically a canine, but that's been modified.
26:45If you look here, it's been cut into to create a much sharper point.
26:51And the reason for that is that it's a tool used for puncturing.
26:58Oh, it's not easy.
26:59All right.
27:00I finally managed to make a hole.
27:05And once you make a hole, you can then use plant fibre, animal sinew as a string, start stringing
27:12animal skins, animal skins, animal hide together and create clothes.
27:13But actually, in so many ways, that's not the most interesting thing to do.
27:14It's not easy.
27:15It's not easy.
27:16It's not easy.
27:17All right.
27:18I finally managed to make a hole.
27:24And once you make a hole, you can then use plant fibre, animal sinew as a string.
27:32Start stringing animal skins, animal hide together and create clothes.
27:37But actually, in so many ways, that's not the most interesting thing about this tool.
27:44Because for me, the most interesting thing is what this tells us about the minds of the
27:49people who have made it.
27:51Because you have to be taught how to use it.
27:54You have to be taught how to make it.
27:57So it actually tells us something much deeper.
28:00Throughout the years humans made this cave their home, countless elder generations would
28:13have taught children these techniques.
28:18Something we still do to this day.
28:21A communal passing on of knowledge that is key to our ability to master so many different environments.
28:30That engagement, constant engagement, turns every generation of children into a set in the evolution of knowledge.
28:47And for us homo sapiens, that's probably what adaptation is.
28:52The evolution of knowledge.
28:54Because it's what turns a simple projectile like a bow and arrow into a weapon fine-tuned, honed and specialized for the rainforest.
29:04And that constant innovation unlocks resources that were completely out of reach to other species of human.
29:15Resources like the rainforest.
29:18And it's this ongoing evolution of tools and techniques that has allowed our species time and again to live and thrive even in extreme environments.
29:46That is the strength of our species.
29:53That we were opening up so many new environments.
29:56Places that previously other species saw as impenetrable, as too difficult.
30:03We saw it as having long-term potential.
30:06And we were able to expand in number.
30:08We were able to then adapt to it.
30:11And as we grew, some people would decide to move on to yet another environment.
30:17We were becoming a species with truly global potential.
30:22It was that ability to take on so many different challenging environments that carried us through so much of the world.
30:38By now, to the fringes of Europe, into the cold expanses of northern Asia.
30:51And within only a few thousand years of leaving Africa, deep into Southeast Asia.
30:58Lower sea levels had created a single region known as Sunder.
31:05Where today there are sweeping stretches of tropical waters.
31:11Our wandering feet brought us to its outer edge.
31:21Beyond lay an ocean.
31:24Dotted with isolated islands.
31:30There are these places that you turn up to and you think, I'm on the edge of the world.
31:44They are incredibly remote and isolated.
31:48And this is one of those places.
31:50And it's been like this since the very beginning.
31:52Since its formation.
31:53Because it's been surrounded by this very deep sea.
31:57Which makes what was found here even more intriguing.
32:01Because a mind-boggling, completely unexpected human history plays out here.
32:06Over hundreds of thousands of years.
32:14Even all those years ago, the ocean could not stop the spread of our species.
32:19We reached these remote islands, thanks to a technology that as far as we can tell, we are the only humans to master.
32:36This is a tuna fishbone.
32:38This particular one happens to be quite fresh.
32:40It's a few days old.
32:41But we have actually found tuna fishbones on an archeological site on these islands that dates back to over 40,000 years.
32:51But tuna swim in open waters.
32:56And that means that our ancestors, over 40,000 years ago, they were fashioning some kind of vessel and going out into the open waters and coming back again and again and again.
33:11We can't be sure what form these vessels took since no evidence survives.
33:16But they were probably simple rafts made from available wood.
33:24And they did more than just help us fish.
33:31There is a very interesting archeological site on one of the neighboring islands that has this one layer that is just filled with artifacts belonging to Homo sapiens.
33:40But the layer just before it, immediately preceding it, is empty and barren of those same artifacts.
33:47So it almost suggests that our ancestors just kind of turned up overnight and spread rapidly through these islands in large numbers just because of the sheer volume of artifacts within that layer.
33:59And none of that would really be possible unless you were skilled enough to build robust craft.
34:06You were skilled enough to navigate treacherous waters.
34:14But in a truly surprising twist, we were not the first to reach Flores.
34:21Somehow someone made it here before us.
34:25Sometimes in this job, you get to fulfill a lifelong dream, and one of them is about to happen.
34:37See, there's this cave in paleoanthropology that isn't just fascinating, it's basically explosive.
34:44It started in 1950 with this one priest called Father Theodore Verhoeven.
34:49Now, back in the day, it was actually quite common for priests and missionaries to also dabble in archeology.
34:54So he was out here on Flores looking for archeological sites.
34:58And in talking to locals, he got told about this one cave that had potential.
35:03He turned up. It was actually being used as an amateur school.
35:07But just below the surface, he did actually find archeology.
35:13Actually, it was stone tools belonging to ancient humans.
35:16Now, that in and of itself is huge. It's really significant.
35:21But it would take another half a century before we understood just how important this cave was.
35:27For over 20 years, a joint Indonesian and international team of archeologists has been excavating these caves.
35:46They had been searching for evidence of the spread of Homo sapiens through the islands.
35:58Instead, they found something completely unexpected.
36:03A strange skeleton from at least 70,000 years ago.
36:07So long before our species reached this far from Africa.
36:13I think the first thing, obviously, that strikes you when you see her is that she's very short.
36:21Yeah, yeah, very short.
36:23What are we talking? One meter?
36:24Yeah, this skeleton is about a meter and six centimeters tall.
36:29So about three and a half feet.
36:30Yeah.
36:32All of our team, when we saw this for the first time, we thought this belonged to a child.
36:41But then, after we were able to clean up all the dirt, you can see all the molars already erupted.
36:50It's got wisdom teeth.
36:51Wisdom teeth.
36:52Yes, yes, there is already permanent teeth.
36:54Yeah, I mean the molars, the adult molars are there.
36:57Yes, already there, three of them, yeah.
36:59As soon as you look closely, this is 100% an adult.
37:03Yeah, yeah.
37:07An adult, but the size of a child.
37:11And that was only the first surprise.
37:16The legs, they're quite short.
37:18Yeah, the leg is only slightly longer than the arms, yeah.
37:24Whereas with us?
37:25Yeah, with us it's different.
37:27Our legs are really long.
37:28Really long, yeah.
37:29Compared to our arms.
37:30Compared to upper limb, I think.
37:31Yeah.
37:32And also, if you have a look on the feet.
37:33Yeah.
37:34Yeah, the feet is about 70% of the length of the femur.
37:39Which is huge, because on me that would be about that length.
37:43Yeah, it's true.
37:45Because so many unique features not seen in other species,
37:51we placed this skeleton as a new species.
37:56And we named the skeleton Homo phrasiensis.
38:00I mean, this is one of those moments in the history of the field
38:03where I just wish I had been there.
38:06I know she's a replica, but she's a replica of the real thing.
38:10Yeah.
38:11And, yeah, it's giving me goosebumps.
38:14This new species of human was a revelation.
38:26Named Homo phrasiensis after the island,
38:30they quickly became known to many as the hobbits.
38:34After the heroes from Lord of the Rings,
38:37who were also small as adults.
38:44It's likely they arrived entirely by chance.
38:48Perhaps a few individuals swept here on driftwood,
38:51from the islands to the north.
38:55More than 700,000 years ago.
39:02Eventually becoming a unique species,
39:05seemingly with a mix of modern and more ancient characteristics.
39:10Now, we can see, obviously, the brain is small,
39:16but how small are we talking?
39:17Only one-third of the modern human's brain size, I think.
39:22Almost similar to a dog chin.
39:26That. That's right.
39:27How incredible.
39:28We discovered this skeleton with stone artifacts here.
39:32Such a small brain, and yet they had stone tools.
39:36Yes, indeed.
39:37Before this, scientists assumed that a human with such a small brain
39:45could never have developed such tools.
39:49One theory is that they were initially a much larger species,
39:53before the long isolation on floras caused them to shrink.
39:58A process known as island dwarfism,
40:00where large animals get smaller due to fewer resources.
40:06At the same time,
40:07some small animals actually get bigger
40:11due to a lack of predators.
40:13We found the giant rat up to about 3 kilos.
40:23We also found elephant-like creatures called stegodon,
40:27as big as a water buffalo.
40:29This is a smaller one.
40:31So stegodons generally are not the size of water buffaloes.
40:35But on this island, they're the size of a water buffalo.
40:39Yeah.
40:40And then on this island, you've got humans that are a meter tall.
40:42Yeah, this one.
40:43What you're describing there is a species
40:47that has been shaped by this island,
40:50has been shaped by the environment on this island.
40:52And the result is this.
40:54Long isolation allowed evolution to tailor the hobbit to this environment.
41:08Their long arms compared to short legs,
41:11a response to perhaps the steep terrain,
41:14or the lack of predators on the island to run away from.
41:20Physical adaptations that,
41:22along with those simple stone tools,
41:24helped them survive here
41:26for hundreds of thousands of years.
41:39You can see it's like layers of cake.
41:40Yes.
41:41So every period has left a layer.
41:44So this is like a snapshot in time,
41:47telling us a lot about different periods.
41:50Yeah, there is a series of volcano eruptions,
41:56eight volcanic tephras.
41:59That's basically flow from volcanic eruption.
42:01Yeah.
42:04This tephra is very important in the Young Bloor
42:06because this tephra,
42:09called tephra tree,
42:11this dated to about 50,000 years ago.
42:14Mm-hmm.
42:15And all homophilous skeletal remains
42:19derived from below this tephra.
42:21Right.
42:22And then tephra 5,
42:24the gray and pink is taller.
42:26Yeah.
42:27And when we dated this flow stone,
42:29including charcoal,
42:31dated back about 46,000 years ago.
42:34Right.
42:35And just above these layers,
42:37we found several elements of modern humans.
42:41So homo sapiens.
42:42Homo sapiens.
42:43Homo sapiens.
42:44So there is the boundaries between fluorescence
42:47and modern humans.
42:49The massive pyroclastic flow here.
42:52That's really significant.
42:53So the pyroclastic flow is when you have the gas and material
42:56that comes from a volcanic eruption.
42:58And really, I mean, that would just be quite destructive.
43:00Yeah.
43:01But we still don't have the fixed evidence
43:06that this volcanic eruption
43:09causes the extinction of the homo sapiensis.
43:15We don't think that that final eruption alone
43:19caused the extinction of the hobbits.
43:21It would have been a catastrophic event here at the cave,
43:25but we don't know how it affected the rest of the island.
43:30What we do know is that this shows
43:33the time of the hobbits here was coming to an end.
43:39So you're looking at actually quite a different world down there.
43:42Exactly.
43:43Yes, exactly.
44:00This tiny island has been home to two species of human.
44:03One remains to this day, one vanished long ago.
44:29It is wonderful to imagine what this place was like before.
44:32Before all of this.
44:36Thousands of years before our ancestors.
44:39You had these miniature elephant-like creatures
44:42who wandered open grasslands.
44:45You had actual dragons.
44:48The Komodo dragons who still exist.
44:51And then giant marabou storks.
44:54Storks that were carnivorous,
44:56that were my height or taller and could fly.
44:58It was like a fantasy island.
45:01And amongst all of it,
45:03there were these humans who were tiny,
45:06who came up to about my hip.
45:11And those hobbits lived here on this island
45:14for a staggering length of time.
45:16Potentially for more than 700,000 years.
45:19Longer than we've existed as a species.
45:23And yet, there is this twist.
45:28Because so far we have found no evidence of them past these shores.
45:33Their whole story plays out only on this island of Flores.
45:37Our own species, in just a fraction of that time,
45:42was able to spread across a huge portion of the globe.
45:46Around 50,000 years ago, the climate here became warmer and drier,
45:52changing the environment.
45:55At the same time, those violent volcanic eruptions also struck.
46:00Whatever the reason, it meant that
46:14It also struck.
46:25Whatever the reason, it meant that Homo floresiensis faced,
46:29not just change, but rapid change.
46:32That meant that their physiology, their physical adaptations
46:36that for so long had been a benefit,
46:39were now a trial.
46:41They were being left behind because it's actually incredibly difficult
46:44to rapidly evolve your way out of a sudden crisis.
46:49And they couldn't behaviorally adapt to this change either,
46:53nor could they, say, escape and move to another island.
46:56And so these wonderful, fantastic relatives of ours vanished forever.
47:03And in their place, Homo sapiens appeared,
47:06making this island, like so many places, their home.
47:11So far, we've found no evidence that our two species overlapped.
47:30But for many, the final factor in the hobbit's extinction
47:34is likely our sudden arrival.
47:41The hobbit simply couldn't compete with this highly adaptable newcomer.
47:50A species able to change its behavior to suit almost any environment and condition.
48:00The very characteristics driving our continuing spread across the globe.
48:05As we spread further and further away from Africa,
48:17entering into brand new environments that we had never experienced before,
48:23we're not just surviving in these places.
48:26We're actually setting down routes and routes that would last us till this very day.
48:40There was one last part of this journey to go.
48:43We set out on a path no other human species had traveled.
48:57Perhaps following tantalizing hints that there was more land to explore.
49:02Clouds on the horizon, returning flights of birds or maybe something much more instinctive
49:16that inspired, we think, dozens of families
49:20to strike out on a voyage that would carry them to a new continent.
49:27Now, these were people who were comfortable on the water.
49:40They were going from island to island.
49:43But Australia was something different.
49:45We're talking about a journey that was up to 800 kilometers, 60 miles.
49:51That's days and nights on the open ocean,
49:56probably in something as basic as a raft
49:59that was perhaps being propelled and steered with just paddles.
50:06Launching out into that hostile and expansive ocean,
50:12that would be an expedition today, let alone back then.
50:17When I think about the risk involved,
50:22when I think about the emptiness,
50:26it is just absolutely astonishing.
50:28The islands of Indonesia were another waypoint in our ongoing journey.
50:37The islands of Indonesia were another waypoint in our ongoing journey.
50:50Our unique adaptability that helped us cross the harsh deserts
51:00and break through the barrier of the rainforest
51:04now carried us practically to the ends of the earth,
51:13to Australia, around 9,000 miles from where we began.
51:22Which does beg the question, what kept driving us on?
51:28Ultimately inspiring us to take on the dangers of the open ocean.
51:32It's true that there will often have been a push.
51:40The simple need to find new resources
51:42for our expanding population.
51:48I would argue that that is not the full explanation.
51:53But this is the most intangible part of the story.
51:57See, these people, in my opinion, were just like us.
51:59So they had the same fears and hopes for their families.
52:05We are clearly the explorer species.
52:07I think that is beyond a doubt.
52:11And as a result,
52:13we have been able to take on things that seem absolutely impossible.
52:19In that desire to understand what was out there.
52:23In the thrill and excitement of understanding the unknown
52:26and the willingness to take risk to know it.
52:30See, wanderlust, creativity,
52:33and the imagination required to put yourself in a different place,
52:38into a different future and world.
52:41I think that is fundamentally us.
52:44To do.
53:10¡Gracias!
53:40...who had long mastered life...
53:42...in these cold lands.
53:55In this episode, we filmed at a place I've long dreamt of visiting.
54:00One of the most important human archaeological sites of all.
54:04The Angboa Cave.
54:06Where scientists are still trying to solve the many mysteries surrounding the hobbits.
54:11The ancient humans that lived here.
54:15In 2004, their discovery sent shockwaves through the scientific community.
54:22So, the moment the papers dropped, it was massive.
54:28It was all over the news, it was all over the internet.
54:31Everyone was talking about this tiny, unexpected hobbit from Indonesia.
54:37Page has known Thomas and the team since 2017, documenting their research.
54:44Like many scientific breakthroughs, the initial discovery created intense controversy.
54:50The conferences got extremely heated.
54:53Sometimes there would be hobbit sessions where, within the same session, you would have a few talks would be sort of pro-hobbit.
55:00So, this is a new species, this is really exciting, this is changing a lot of what we thought we knew about human evolution.
55:06And then in the same session you would have people that are saying, this is the biggest mistake that human evolution scientists have ever made.
55:13Many argued that this was not a new species, but a Homo sapiens suffering from an illness that caused its small physical features and brain size.
55:27Eventually, that was discounted, and Homo floresiensis was recognized as a new species of human, raising, if anything, even more questions.
55:40We still don't know, for example, where they came from or who they're closely related to.
55:46So, that question of the origins of Homo floresiensis is still, I would say, almost completely an open one.
55:53It's possible they evolved from another ancient species of human, such as Homo erectus, which we know was in the area just over a million years ago.
56:08Perhaps carried to the island by chance, and then shrunk down over many years of isolation.
56:15But there is an even more controversial idea.
56:23If you look really hard at a lot of the characteristics, particularly below the cranium,
56:29you see that this is a creature that looks a lot more like some of our really ancient ancestors, more than two million years old, in Africa.
56:38And so maybe there was an exodus out of Africa a million years before we thought there was.
56:45This current dig might reveal the answer.
56:50With help from the Max Planck Institute in Germany, researchers are trying to collect fragments of hobbit DNA.
56:58Ancient DNA is really helpful at really laying out relationships for us between different species across time.
57:07And so, because of the way that mutations accumulate over time, it allows us to kind of work backwards and trace back when some of those lineages would have split.
57:17Homo floresiensis and whoever their closest ancestor is, which is not a question we can answer until we kind of have some of that information.
57:26The problem is, successfully finding hobbit DNA will not be easy.
57:33Normally, it would be impossible to recover DNA from a situation where it's this hot. It's just too difficult.
57:43DNA degrades really rapidly, and other things move in and muddy up the signal, like bacteria and other things.
57:50But in this cave in particular, it is about slightly higher altitude than a lot of Indonesia is. It's right up in the mountains.
57:58And so it is a little bit cooler than most equatorial areas.
58:02And so there is a little bit of hope that we might be able to get a little bit of a signal from the species.
58:08If successful, we might finally solve the mystery of the Hobbit.
58:15Whatever happens, Homo floresiensis will remain one of the most important and unexpected discoveries of recent history.
58:26THE END
58:54Gracias por ver el video.
Comments