Human evolution documentary | LOST HUMANS part 1 | How many Human Species were there?

[Music] [Music] what interests me also is not only our direct ancestors but the other strange if you like kinds of humans which died out so today we're in an exceptional time when there is only one kind of human on the earth [Music] yes so that's the peculiar thing yes so we're all we're very lonely on the planet this is only human modern humans here [Music] well i think for me personally one of the most interesting questions is why we are the only humans left on earth so why did these other species disappear was it because of us [Music] at least 24 kinds of humans other than us had existed on the earth [Music] they survived through bitter winters grim famines and even predator threats [Music] in the end all perished except us homo sapiens [Music] but why [Music] [Music] the final moment of a species an individual who belong to groups is now left out in solitude with no one to share the fear of extinction he endures life for a while what could have been his last thoughts [Music] could his memory be found in us today [Music] 950 meters above sea level at the northeastern tip of the spanish highlands in the late 1890s a limestone hill was discovered while building a tunnel for train tracks there an astonishing discovery was made from one million years ago to zero a.d the hill had been a human habitat [Music] in 1976 a student discovered a human jawbone here since then it became the greatest archaeological site in the 20th century [Music] archaeology begins from bones and stones a scrupulous search is made to find clues to understand who became modern humans and how we homo sapiens are one of them the largest number of human remains have been found since historic times time was dusted off and pieces were put together another species other than homo antecessor had existed for a million years there was homo heidelbergensis after a couple thousands of years neanderthals came along us homo sapiens arrived at the end the genealogy of the human race is like a tree with many branches breaking away from chimpanzees seven million years ago humans have evolved into diverse species the four types of humans found here were recent inhabitants of the earth now we are the last survivors on the tree of human genealogy [Music] it is unclear why we are the only ones left we can only take small steps towards the truth [Music] the truth can be uncomfortable sometimes a large pit full of bones was discovered while digging 13 meters below the ground 5500 pieces of bones belonging to 28 people in total mostly in their late teens and 20s they'd been buried in a mass grave another strange thing was the stone axe it is made of quartzite which is too soft to make tools [Music] homo heidelbergensis was the owner what had happened to them [Music] foreign [Music] the continuous hits near the left eye socket of the skull it was a deliberate murder [Music] [Music] homo heidelbergensis a human species that appeared 700 000 years ago and lived for 500 they 000 a shared ancestor between neanderthals and us known as the first humans who practiced intra-species killing [Music] [Music] the cold silence reveals another truth the early human species homo heidelbergensis lived in a dangerous world alongside animals like lions hyenas wolves and bears and we can find direct evidence of that at box grove box grove located in southern england used to be a quarry here a leg bone belonging to a well-built man in his twenties was found the size of the bone leads us to believe that this individual is is nearly six foot tall so that's around one meter 80 tall one meter 82 that's big and robust so the the frame a big frame muscular something maybe like a modern day rugby player the bone also reveals his final moments manner of a of an animal chewing on on that end of the bone and exactly the same on on this end these sort of breaks are characteristic of something chewing on the ends of the bone the owner of this bone had been eaten by an animal you can see an unusual amount of scars on heidelbergens's bone [Music] which is proof of his exhausting life still his robust frame could easily withstand a 90 kilogram body weight [Music] homo heidelbergensis the most intelligent humans on the earth two to three human species coexisted with them but none of them managed to out survive homo heidelbergensis life was certainly dangerous for these people um they had many predators around that would have eaten them they also had to survive at times quite challenging climate conditions the winters could have been very cold and yes their bodies were built with great strength they had a lot of muscles they had very thick bones so life was very demanding and their bodies were built very strongly for those conditions the ecosystem was different from what it is now zebras weighed 80 kilograms more an african buffalo had horns two and a half times longer presumably humans had to grow bigger the glacial period came and the earth became more arid fierce competitions for food were inevitable [Music] [Music] oh [Music] the death of a peer puts the entire group into peril [Music] the group must overcome the shock [Music] okay the stone axe suggests the possibility of existence of language [Music] quartzite is not the type of rock found in this area imagine [Music] a friend is lying dead on the ground he double checks to assure his friend's death [Music] this murder scene could be reinterpreted [Music] they cracked the skull of the dead open mashed his brain and ate it could hunger be the reason primitive tradition eating brains of dead to gain wisdom could have been in play [Music] the reddish rock they had traveled far to obtain was used for this particular purpose this is why the stone axe was placed next to the corpse evidence for the beginning of a spiritual ritual [Music] in this case language is no longer an impossibility [Music] the climate is becoming increasingly colder those with larger bodies manage to bear beyond their limits [Music] ultimately yielded by drastic changes of the earth they disappear [Music] next a stronger humankind better suited for the coldness appears [Music] [Music] once we thought that modern humans had gradually evolved from a single ancestor and became us however just like other creatures we had many branches how did we come to know this in 1975 kenya remains of homo erectus were excavated it was a surprising discovery because another human kind was known to already exist in this stratum this was evidence that two different human kinds had co-existed here is the protagonist paranthropus boisei modern tooth molars are going to be maybe a centimeter by centimeter but these are these are at least double so they have really very large teeth huge teeth their molars were relatively huge compared to their incisors [Music] their faces were wide and flabby [Music] a human species that lived about two million years ago the shape of their jaw gave them a nickname the nutcracker man their brain was about one-third the size of ours during his time about five to six human species competed against one another for survival about five million years after since the tree of humans grew three human species with graceful frames homo habilis homorodolphensis and homoergaster existed in kenya africa [Music] at that time there also lived more robust species like paranthropus boisei we homo sapiens were a member of the grassle species just like other creatures humans have a sizable family with numerous branches [Music] boisei were vegetarians [Music] males were 130 centimeters tall and weighed 49 kilograms on average [Music] how do they maintain this physique [Music] this room preserves time which dates back two million years ago professor macho uses the teeth of primitives to travel through time and space what these things are are the storage organs of grasses that were eaten by boisei they're relatively large they're as large as chickpeas they're quite sweet and they are rich in carbohydrates this handful has about 300 calories so actually quite quite great nutritional value but of course you need to chew it quite a while to digest it their strong jaw and wide face were developed because they had to chew excessively when the tea started to become smaller the process didn't start with cooking but it started with the emergence of homo and generally we associated with habitual consumption of meat because meat is high in quality you don't need to eat that much what did eating meat mean to humans [Music] first hunting became a necessity they had to devise complicated strategies compared to when eating plants consequently their brains were enlarged mainly the brain is a chunk of fat it requires an extreme amount of nutrients [Music] to consume the same calories substantial amount of grass needs to be consumed just like boisei [Music] humans can only consume a limited amount of energy at a time naturally the brain has no choice but to compete with other organs for energy they plotted the brain size versus gut size and showed that there was indeed an inverse relationship between the brain size and the gut size in other words animals with big brain had small gut and animals with big gut had small brain so there was the compatible data to show that there cannot be both big investment in those organs [Music] [Music] our bodies consume 1.25 watts of energy per kilogram on average [Music] muscles use 0.5 watts per kilogram [Music] the skin 0.3 watts it accounts for a large space but it is energy efficient next there are the more expensive tissues the heart uses 32.3 watts [Music] the kidneys 23.3 watts the intestines 12.2 watts [Music] and the brain 11.2 watts the heart and kidneys have to maintain their sizes to fulfill their functions [Music] however the intestines can become shorter if the quality of diet is improved when humans began eating meat they evolved to have shorter intestines and larger brains boisei ate an incredible amount of plants to maintain their bodies they had to eat eight hours per day [Music] they were easily exposed to predators in their search for food a life spent eating just to gain enough energy to find more food [Music] living slowly always in search for pastures was this a good strategy the interesting point is in order to maintain that amount of brain size and that size of body they had to probably eat as much as a big gorilla who were four times as big as them in other words what they ate they had to eat as much as gorillas and barely maintain one-fourth size 25 percent of the body size meaning the quality of their food was extremely low [Music] the land were both robust and graceful humans roamed [Music] a battle was fought between the brain and the stomach [Music] boisei which chose the stomach may not have been unfortunate while the grassel humans who chose meat starved without food they thrived for about a million years fossils show that boisei disappeared approximately 1.2 million years ago humans with square jaws and round faces now the time of the humans who chose the brain despite hunger begins [Music] we do not have to eat all day like boisei just like homo heidelbergensis we are the most intelligent creatures on this earth with greater ego than any other species we also live in communities it seems like much has changed but most remain similar a a latte a large latte thank you very much professor robin dunbar is interested in why the human brain grew bigger instead of studying bones and rocks he conducts cognitive experiments there have been lots of theories as to why brains have got bigger in the course of human evolution for making tools you need a bigger brain for more complicated tools perhaps for meat eating but the key really seems to be to be able to create large communities which are bonded together cohesive communities which can act to defend themselves against predators against other tribes from nearby apes formed groups to stand up against predators the size of these groups was correlated to the size of the brain this applies to humans as well [Music] the orbital frontal cortex is a part of the frontal lobe located close to the eye the larger the group which a person interacts with the larger the orbital frontal cortex becomes people with larger orbital frontal cortex have a higher desire to contact a greater number of people within the same time we all want to communicate with others and make sense of them we are a species that overcomes the limitations of our body through forming relationships groups are skins that hold mankind together [Music] now we are at the era when formation of groups determine the survival of humanity [Music] the earth enters its last glacial epoch [Music] there was a human species which lived in this unforgiving coldness they were neanderthals who appeared about 300 000 years ago 100 000 years later we homo sapiens would appear and compete with them they had larger brains than us [Music] at most they lived about 30 to 35 years they had short life spans [Music] and led a busy life moving from place to place although their entire population never exceeded 70 000 they spread across the frozen continent living in harsh climates they understood the importance of each other well funerals were held for the dead could it have been because of the miserable reality [Music] they knew feelings of grief and loss although their day-to-day lives were filled with hardships they knew deeper meanings in life like us they were curious about what lies beyond death [Music] perhaps they had developed burial rituals faster than we had they acknowledged the loneliness better than anyone else [Music] although they lived in a similar period of time as us neanderthals have some unique characteristics a neanderthals were violent and capable of hunting they brought down deers bears buffaloes and even mammoths if the opponent was a powerful beast they relied on their head rather than strength no other humans had patience like theirs here they provoke the beast hunts determine the fate of the crew each death is a painful loss especially since they have a small population so [Music] an intelligent strong and brave human species unfortunately these strengths may have led to their downfall [Music] neanderthals were stronger and more muscular than homo sapiens in order to maintain their body heat and strength they needed up to 350 kilocalories more than us each day [Music] if it were today this slice of pie would be sufficient [Music] neanderthals had to hunt throughout their lives they either feasted or starved depending on the outcome of their life-threatening hunts they worked together and shared fairly this behavior was the key to their long survival looking at these lost humans we can see our future this elderly scholar has devoted his entire life to the study of linguistics philip lieberman does not think that language as an exclusive property of homo sapiens they lived for several hundred thousand five hundred thousand years in a very cold climates in europe that cope with the end of the glacial so neanderthals clearly had a language and it some people suggested they just hummed that's i think nonsense the fundamental function of language is communication it fortifies relationships as complex as their lives had been they must have had a language the only thing i would say is you can't have a word with an e or an ooh and it's probably their speech was a little nasalized that's and we can tell that by looking at their airways when you reconstruct you look at the skull and you look at the neck neck bone bones of the neck you can uh see the limits of the anatomy you would do it so the speech would be on a long angle oh yeah now i have mine okay a system of song-like sounds to convey emotion [Music] gestures with meanings [Applause] [Music] languages consolidate groups people use languages to talk about politics economy society and others the more time they spend communicating the more unified the group becomes [Music] professor dunbar believes that these human relationships had an effect on the human brain people use their big brains to talk about their friendships with each other their relationships the complexities of the social world in which we live that's the sort of icing on the cake of this whole process monkeys and apes create their kind of bonded communities by grooming each other living big groups spent a lot of their day doing this kind of social grooming to each other somehow language is like grooming usually apes groom one ape at a time [Music] however language is conveyed to multiple people at once the reason humans were able to form larger groups than apes was because of this language [Music] neanderthals who had larger brains than us had entered the realm of language first but what made them disappear was it the climate [Music] [Music] we survive the cruel coldness in the final glacial epic with them then why is it us who are left standing a tooth is a record keeper of an individual's entire life it can be used to reconstruct the biological clock of primitives [Music] teeth grow like trees layers are accumulated [Music] the part formed first rises to the top [Music] the lower part of the tooth tells the death time of an individual [Music] lines are formed when an individual suffers from poor nutrition or disease these lines can be used to speculate periods of great stress while we get permanent molars at the age of 10 they get molars at the age of six their childhood was four years shorter than ours neanderthals had no time to enjoy their childhood they had to grow up fast to replace the adults who died early at the end of the glacial epic their population had dwindled to five thousand why would we slow down our childhoods you know modern humans have one of the longest childhoods on the planet and many people have offered ideas about what's the advantage of having a long and slow childhood one idea is that modern humans allow a longer period for our brains to develop and our social behaviors to be mastered during childhood we learn the complex rules of society the brain develops in quality during this time what homo sapiens had and the neanderthals did not have was a long childhood the last individual standing from 15 to 10 then to five and finally alone near the end of the final glacial epic neanderthals vanished from the earth eventually all species may encounter such a fate there's no reason why humans should be an exception that will go on forever when we look in the past it's the fate of almost every species that existed in the past disappeared in our own case yes we are not invulnerable i think humans we could go extinct in the future of course we could [Music] in the final 30 000 years neanderthals and homo sapiens had met [Music] how would our ancestors have treated these hearty humans with large heads [Music] had he known that his death meant the end of his own kind [Music] if he had he too would have asked why it had been us and not them [Music] so [Music] [Music] you

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Keywords: human species, different types of human species, types of human species, different types of humans, other human species, extinct human species, different species of human origin, species, different human species, species of humans, human, human evolution, all human species, diffferent types of human species, everything about the different types of human species, how many human species are there, documentary series, human species documentary, documentary movies

Id: UR4rJDE9A2o

Length: 49min 22sec (2962 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 06 2022