The First Toolmakers

How do you make a giant stone statue walk? On one of the most isolated islands on Earth, the people of Rapa Nui carved AND moved the extraordinary Moai, colossal faces hewn from soft volcanic rock that still inspire wonder today.Today, Tristan Hughes is joined by Prof. Terry Hunt ...  Show more

Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Hittites usually dominate the story of the Bronze Age. But Syria was home to some of the region's most powerful cities and kingdoms and helped forge the ancient Mediterranean world.Tristan Hughes is joined by Dr Amanda Podany to uncover this lost cradle ...  Show more

Let us put some flesh on the bones of our prehistoric hominin story, and discover what our ancestors created to get carved flesh from the bones of animals. We investigate the technological advances from over three million years ago up to the last million years. 

The Director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor, retells the history of human development from the first stone axe to the credit card, using 100 selected objects from the Museum. In this programme, Neil goes back two million years to the Rift Valley in Tanzania, where a simple ...  Show more

HUMAN ANCESTORS (1) - In this episode we will be going right back to the very beginning, looking into the first upright walkers, then the australopithecines, homo habilis, homo erectus, hand tool construction, fire production and homo heidelbergensis.