Four hundred thousand years ago, a new man enters the world. He's the first representative of an extraordinary species, the Homo sapiens, our family. His children cross the seas and the mountains.
They adapt to every climate. Time and again, they lose everything, but they reach beyond their limits and always managed to survive. They discover agriculture and they tame animals.
They build villages and change the landscape. Man becomes the most powerful creature in the animal kingdom. They explore their imaginary world and in the process discover art and the magic of dreams.
Over the last 50,000 generations, their knowledge has been passed down to us. We are their children. What's their real story?
How do they populate the earth? How did they make our lives what they are today? Here is the story of the dazzling rise of our great family, the Homo sapiens.
How does this story begin? How did our species appear? Where did it come from?
Remember, 8 million years ago, the planet suddenly cools. Water is locked into the poles and an enormous ice cap forms over Europe and Asia In the North, life has to acclimatize to the cold. In the tropics, life desperately struggles to survive the drought.
In Africa, the great apes see their forests disappear. Two of them, Orrorin and Toumai adapt to the savanna and invent a new way to get around. They stand up.
Four million years ago, they disappear, giving birth to a new, better-adapted species, the Australopithecus. Lucy and her fellow creatures continue to walk upright. They survive by eating hardy plants, but eventually, they die out too.
They are no match for their predators. Next, Homo habilis arrives on the scene. This skillful man is the first true representative of the human species.
He invents tools and starts to explore and travel the world. His evolution changes him into Homo erectus, the standing man, discoverer of fire. He's not yet king of the animal world, but he's just made a giant leap.
Erectus sets out to conquer the world. He leaves Africa and enters Asia and Europe. Unknowingly, a few thousand little groups of men and women prepare for the arrival of our species.
Imagine 400,000 years ago. We are in the heart of the African continent. Homo erectus sometimes walks up to 50 kilometers a day to survive.
He chases small animals and picks berries and roots for himself and his people. Sometimes, he dies along the way. At best, he lives to about 25 or 30.
They feel the loss deeply, but it confuses them. Erectus doesn't know anything about the mystery of death. Where has the breath gone?
Why doesn't he move? Meanwhile, the threat of danger lurks behind them. Walk or die, it's the law.
The body is left to the animals. They'll remember the person for a while and then the memory will fade. When erectus settles down for the night, first, he makes a shelter to protect himself.
Then he builds a fire to keep predators away. He's able to make all sorts of tools, but this is of little use to the woman carrying a child. She's been eating nothing but roots for days now.
She needs protein. She doesn't want any more roots. The erectus Chief is well aware that he hasn't succeeded in finding game.
He knows that roots are bitter and don't satisfy hunger. He doesn't need to be reminded. Erectus is curious and always eager to discover new things.
Although the Chief has heard this noise before, today, he takes pleasure in the resonant sound. Suddenly, it doesn't resonate. Nothing.
There. It's much better with his ear pressed to it. Homo erectus is a hunter.
At dawn, the Chief and his brother follow fresh tracks from She who walks on two legs. They know she's a fast runner, so they hatch a plan. One attracts her attention while the other lays in wait.
Ready to attack. Termites, the irresistible yellow ones. The Chief knows all about She who walks on two legs.
She's obsessive about her eggs, and knows them all individually. If one were to go missing, she would throw a fit. The chase is on, everything's going according to plan.
What's his brother doing? If she catches him, she'll kill him. Her legs cut like flint.
Her beak is like a spear tip. The brother always manages to mess everything up. He can't be trusted.
The animal can't escape. All is well. It's a good day for erectus.
Erectus starts by eating the stomach, full of freshly eaten plants. Then he cuts up the animal to transport it back to camp. Images of the capture fill the Chief's head.
It was easy after the beast fell into the hole. There's an idea there, but the flies distract him and keep him from thinking about it any longer. Erectus's body is less and less hairy.
Insects constantly attack his naked skin, especially the sensitive parts, but the brother's privates are protected. It's the animal skin. With the protective skin, the flies don't bite.
Perhaps this is how Erectus invented clothing. Hierarchy determines the sharing of meat. The hunters are served first.
Then, the preferred females, for whom choice pieces are reserved. The woman carrying the child now has meat. Erectus is flushed with pride at having done his duty as Chief and protector.
When in power, you learn to watch your back because there's always someone ready to take your place. The skin. He forgot his skin.
It's his skin. It's his place, and he's the Chief. Some things aren't shared.
Like the woman carrying the child. Like suffering or hope. The Chief's head is brimming with images.
He can't stop thinking of a hole, so he decides to dig one where the animals drink in the hopes that they fall in like the creature on two legs. Digging in the mud changes their appearance. Surprised, the Chief doesn't recognize his brother.
They may well have just invented laughter. Perhaps the first laughs of humanity, but also the discovery of beauty, thanks to an important find, a stone different from the others. He finds it pretty, so the stone becomes something else.
A treasure that's a joy to behold. What's it like on him? Isn't he handsome?
Handsome and different, it's his stone now. It's his sign, the sign of the Chief. The Chief wants the one carrying the child to look at the stone, but now's not the time.
She's got searing pains in her stomach. The woman wants to be alone when the child comes from her. She knows instinctively what she has to do.
The Chief is full of hope. The trap, the skin that protects, and the stone. The child.
Will it come? One time out of two, it's born without breath, like those who fall on the trail. Sometimes the pain kills the woman as well.
Will a new life begin? It's alive. It's a little girl.
She has a funny head with a straight forehead and no hair on her skin. She looks so fragile and vulnerable. The Chief doesn't want the cold to take her breath away.
He knows now that his skin is no longer for him. His skin is for the child. Without knowing it, they've just given birth to a new species of man, a species that will soon replace them.
Homo erectus senses he's done his time and he's holding the future in his arms. Homo erectus will disappear. He'll have lived more than a million years.
Homo sapiens arrives. He will change the life of man and conquer the world. The evolution of erectus into sapiens happened over hundreds of generations.
Little by little, his body became more slender, his forehead smooth, and his brain became bigger and more complex. Sapiens leaves Africa and explores the Middle East. He starts to wear clothing, develops a sense of aesthetics, and makes tools.
His thoughts and imagination will turn him into a new man. We are at minus 100,000 years. Electrical storms are the worst.
They kill every time. Where does this blinding light come from? Who spits this anger that rattles our skulls?
One of us will find an answer to the great mystery of death. He's called Neka, the youth. Ever since he's known how to hunt, Neka protects his mother and little sister.
The Clan had walked since daybreak. The wind came up suddenly and the sky began to spit fire. The Chief looked for refuge but found nothing.
We huddled together waiting for nature's fury to pass. Naoki, Neka's sister, got scared and took off. Her mother followed to protect her.
That's when tragedy struck Neka's life. A horned beast appeared from the lightning strike. Neka sighed, the animal left, leaving the bodies of his sister and mother on the ground.
They were motionless. Neka had been unable to protect them. He felt responsible, they had to move and get up.
The Chief quickly understood that the breath had left them, but Neka didn't want to believe it. He refused to listen or to see what everyone else did. They were dead, and nothing could be done.
The Chief wanted to leave as soon as possible, but Neka wanted to stay. He wanted to wait until they woke up. The Chief didn't understand, but he couldn't abandon Neka, so we stopped there.
At the beginning, it was just for one night. Sapiens is nomadic. Now, he makes shelters with skins.
His language is more sophisticated. He's got words to talk about abstract concepts like time behind and time ahead. His brain has more memory and is capable of more associations.
His imagination is more active and likely his dreams are more impressive. In his sleep, sapiens believes he travels into another world, a parallel world situated just behind his eyes. The Clan was still sleeping when a horned beast came to drink at the river.
The body of an animal this size meant meat for everyone in the Clan. Without a doubt, for Neka, this was the same horned beast, the one who came the day before with the great light. That time, the Chief wasn't clumsy.
The wound would kill her. The Chief was proud. Thanks to him, the Clan would have food for weeks, but Neka had other things on his mind.
In the dying breath of the animal, he heard his sister groan. At the same moment the beast died, the inexplicable happened. As the breath of the animal disappeared, his sister's breath returned.
How was it possible? Naoki, breathe. She was coming back to life.
That's how Naoki came back to us. We were joyful, but Neka was preoccupied. He wanted to understand what had happened.
Did the animal give its breath to his sister? Did the death of the animal allow Naoki to live? It was a big mystery.
The Chief expected thanks for his catch, but instead, the Clan was taken up with Neka and the miracle. Neka found new hope. Maybe the animal's skin held a bit of breath to revive his mother.
At the beginning, everyone said Neka had lost his mind. He was obsessed with the idea that the horned beast could give life back to his mother. We hoped that Neka's mother would come back too.
However, we didn't understand his behavior. He didn't eat. He stayed by the body, waiting for a sign.
The sign came from above. It was the vultures, who came to take the body. Neka refused.
If the vultures took his mother's flesh, no breath could ever return. It's perhaps on that day that Homo sapiens invented the first burial place. It protected it, but more importantly, it kept a decomposing body out of sight.
Even without vultures, the body disappeared little by little. The Chief wanted Neka to eat, and he offered him a choice piece, which he never does. What he wanted was for Neka to give him the secret of his magic.
He wanted to understand how Neka brought Naoki back to life, but he was in for another surprise. Neka told him that his mother lived in another world and that she needed to eat. He was delirious, but the youth gave his meat to his mother.
That was too much, she didn't need food anymore. She was dead. A few of us began to believe in this world.
The world we went to when we slept. Where we could meet the dead. It was the land of dreams.
A few days later, three Clan members decided to leave. There were a lot of us, and fights broke out all the time. They wanted to find another Clan and another Chief.
They couldn't put up with him anymore. Before leaving, they wanted to hear about the images Neka saw behind his eyes one more time. They wanted to hear the extraordinary account of Neka's mother to remember it.
To take it with them. Neka could see the other world. The one where the dead went when their breath left them.
He saw his mother with the horned beast. His mother looked at him as if to say, all is well. She was no longer hungry or cold.
There was a glow behind his eyes that said life continued elsewhere, a life after death, and that changes everything. These beliefs are probably the beginnings of religious thought. An extraordinary flight of imagination that will endow sapiens with a phenomenal power, faith.
The idea of eternity was spread to all people and appeased the anguish of death. Now man can imagine a life beyond the limits of his own existence. The time of shamanistic beliefs has arrived.
The spirit world as a place alongside the world of the living. We are between minus 100,000 and minus 50,000 years. Sapiens explores almost all the territories on the planet.
Some head towards Asia, others towards Europe. Why do they risk their lives in an unknown world? Do they follow the game migrations, signs from nature?
Many believe in the power of the sun and the moon. Fifty thousand years ago, the first group of Homo sapiens arrives in southern Europe. This Clan worships the sun.
Understandably, its disappearance in the middle of the day terrifies them. A woman enters a trance to fight against the devourers of light. It's coming back.
The sun is back. The woman who guides them is a shaman. Her name is Nata, she's the eldest of three sisters.
For Nata, the darkened sun is a bad sign. The suns must be strong for the Clan to survive. They will follow them behind the mountains to the land where all the suns travel.
They should have given up when faced with the immensity of the Alps. Nevertheless, their faith carries them. They don't hesitate to undertake the most perilous trip of their lives.
Sapiens encounters white Earth for the first time. Their feet burn. It acts like a skin and takes on the shape of whatever touches it.
To protect themselves from the cold, sapiens invent the shoe. Nothing stops the shaman's determination, they have to continue their ascent. Their skin starts to tingle, and their extremities begin to freeze.
They'd like to go back down, but no one dares defy Nata. The shaman decides for the Clan. Matriarchy is widespread among sapiens.
Women have the authority. They're responsible for the future of the Clan. The men follow.
The mute has just lost his ear. There's no blood or pain. What's to be done with his frozen ear?
How will they reattach it? The mute awaits the shaman's advice. Nothing can be done except maybe eat it.
No, the mute prefers to eat it himself. After all, it's his ear. A new sun rose this morning, but its first rays bring neither warmth nor nourishment.
Over thousands of years in heading towards the cold lands, sapiens skin lightened to better absorb the sun's ultraviolet rays and to promote the synthesis of essential vitamins. They have adapted to a weaker exposure to the sun, but not to higher altitudes. While she slept, Nata's elder sister left for the other world.
Her cold body became hard like wood. Sapiens' beliefs are as numerous as nature's mysteries. For this Clan, there is no burial site.
They offer dead bodies to the light. She in turn eats them and brings them to the land of the other life. Nata accompanies the dead to help them find their way.
One day she'll find her sister in the world of suns. They continue to plod forward. They've eaten nothing but snow for the last three days.
Nata promised them that at the end of the trail, night didn't exist. This gives them courage, but courage doesn't nourish the weakest ones. Not every sapiens is entitled to a ceremony.
Some are abandoned without funeral rites. Nata knows the pain her sister is feeling. She feels the suffering of her Clan, but they can't stop.
How did they survive? Was it their animal skin clothes or the animal fat they rubbed into their skin? The conquest of virgin lands commands a high price.
Sapiens leaves many of its own along the way, but every territory they explore will benefit future generations. Now, they number fewer than the fingers of one hand. As their last bit of strength drains from them, hope is rekindled.
Three shapes covered in snow. They are animals surely. Food to sustain them so they can complete their voyage.
They're saved. Rocks. Many rocks.
What are these rocks doing on these animals? A bird wing, but it doesn't have any flesh. Other men have been here, but who are they, and where do they come from?
Why are these bodies imprisoned beneath rocks? Their skulls don't look like ours. Nata is lost, the land of suns is not here.
There's nothing to eat, they're condemned. In this hell, no one can survive. No one except maybe an exceptional being.
In this cold and hostile Europe, another species of human is perfectly adapted to the environment, the Neanderthal. Nata and her companions opened the tombs of their ancestors. Neanderthal is also a descendant of Homo erectus.
His ancestor arrived in Europe 2 million years ago. Of all the human species, Neanderthal is the most robust, the hardiest. The Neanderthal Chief decided to bring the strangers to camp.
When Nata opens her eyes, she doesn't know if she's still in the world of the living. What are those beings who aren't exactly men? Neanderthal made numerous discoveries without ever having made contact with sapiens.
The invisible world, beliefs, music, and fire. He lives in caves and buries his dead. The Moon Clan rescued Nata and her companions.
Their Chief wants to know who dared dig up his ancestors. Nata's face intrigues the Chief. Who are these beings with flat foreheads?
They must be revived. The Moon Clan Chief wants to know everything about them. The shaman regains consciousness a few times.
Everything is strange and different from what she knows. What are they doing with her man? They can't do that.
He must stay with her, she needs him. Differences in culture, language, and way of life. For these sapiens, the Neanderthal practices are sacrilegious.
Nevertheless, its culture is no less rich or interesting. The next day, the smell of cooked meat wakes Nata and her sister. Hunger overrules fear.
Since the snow, they've forgotten everything. Where are they? Who brought them here?
Bit by bit, images of the men with big noses crowd Nata's thoughts. Who are these people? Memories from her journey surface.
It wasn't a dream. Samke, where is he? Nata suddenly remembers where they put her companion.
She has no idea that it's a tomb. They hid him like games stored for later, like the skeletons in the snow. Samke is dead.
She must give him to the light so that the mountain winds may carry his spirit. To survive during the cold winter, Neanderthal eats mostly meat. He's the greatest hunter on the planet.
As he enters the cave, a surprise awaits the Chief. The corpse buried the day before is gone. It escaped.
Where are you? Show yourself! Maybe he went into the ground.
What is that strange voice? Is it him calling? The body was there, the woman was crying out.
The Neanderthal Chief doesn't understand Nata's trance. The movements of her body intrigue him. Nata and her sister will stay with the Moon Clan.
Without knowing it, these sapiens will have discovered a new continent, Europe. This crossing of the Alps opened a route, and others will follow in the footsteps of these pioneers. This encounter is but the first, there will be others.
In a few millennia, sapiens and Neanderthal will undertake an exceptional adventure together, big game hunting. At the same time, on the other side of the planet, Homo sapiens discovers Asia. Due to the ice age, the ocean levels are 120 meters lower than today.
The islands of Southeast Asia are joined together. Homo sapiens' voyage will push him to the ends of the earth. Throughout his migrations, sapiens' appearance changed.
The climates and environments modified the shape of his eyes, his nose, and the color of his skin. He also discovered a new and marvelous way to get around, navigation. For generations, the River Clan made waterways the center of its life.
Water is sacred to them. She's the compass they follow and she protects them from danger. They've been traveling down this body of water for months.
They crossed the Indonesian peninsula without seeing even one other clan. Nevertheless, another human inhabits this land. He's been observing their movements for a long time.
This human being is also a descendant of Homo erectus, having arrived here almost 2 million years ago, he evolved into many subspecies that populate all of Asia. Peking man, Java man, or Flores man. Each of these adapted to their environment.
Only the youth saw the curious man and no one believes him. The River Clan is always on the move. They follow the water carried by the currents of this life-giving vein that becomes larger with each passing day.
Sixty thousand years ago, the River Clan arrives at Land's End in Asia and discovers the Pacific Ocean for the first time. For them, this expanse of water is a new river. It's so wide they can't see the other side.
They know nothing like it. The immense waves and crashing surf make their bodies tremble. They're fascinated.
The Chief is determined to find land on the other side of the water. He decided to split the clan in two. He leaves with his shaman and his family and will return for the rest of the clan.
Homo sapiens is still unaware that thousands of kilometers of deep, dangerous waters lay in front of him. Carried by their faith, this group of men and women throw themselves into conquering an ocean whose monstrous powers they can't imagine. Those remaining set up camp.
Just one warrior protects three women and a child, Snake Eyes, the best fisher of the Clan. Since they settled in, the curious man has come by many times. It's always the same one, and he always does the same thing.
Snake Eyes wants to meet him. He knows it's prudent to get to know strangers so that they don't become mean or dangerous. The man always runs away.
His behavior is curious. This time, Snake Eyes decided to act. He knows that no man has ever outrun him.
In this Asian jungle, he can read all the signals, decipher the animal cries, and locate any creature at a distance. He's right there, what does he want? Snake Eyes is captured like a blind buffalo.
Snake Eyes has fallen into the clutches of a forest spirit. These Homo erectus are truly formidable hunters. In such a hostile environment, their rules for survival assume that every living thing is edible.
Even humans under certain circumstances. These Homo erectus captured him like they would a bird. For the moment, they admire his plumage and colors and invite him to share their meal, but what blood is this?
Do they plan to kill and eat him too? Snake Eyes must remain calm. Those navigating towards the other shore were quickly swept away.
The winds and currents take them far from land. When they wake up that morning, there is no land on either side. There are no birds in the sky.
The Chief doesn't understand. The world disappeared. The giant river covered everything.
They drift slowly towards Antarctica. Snake Eyes is alive, they're saved. Snake Eyes has aroused the hunters' curiosity.
They want to know the secrets of the painted men who walk on water and about the powers of their shells and fishhooks. The Clan Chief still hasn't returned. What if they never come back?
Weakened by the lack of water, the shaman has just died. His beliefs shattered. When faced with nature's wrath, Homo sapiens often doubts the reason for his existence.
Those who walk on water begin exchanging their knowledge with the forest people. The art of jewelry making, fishing techniques, and manufacture of tools and clothing. Bonds form between these two peoples, despite their genetic differences.
All over the Asian continent, sapiens and erectus probably intermingled to make up the large family of Asian peoples. After hundreds of kilometers, the navigators are weak, dehydrated, and sunburned. Land!
The other side of the big river! Land has returned from the depths. They navigated for days and days.
Thanks to the currents, their ignorance, and bravery, they finally arrive in a land yet unexplored by man. Perhaps they believe they have reached the secret world of their dreams. Sixty thousand years ago, Homo sapiens discovered an immense land mass separated from the rest of the world for millions of years.
Australia, the cradle of unique plant and animal species. The Chief and his people will navigate the ocean many times without finding their way back. They'll form the basis of another large human family, a people of extraordinary navigation skill, the family of the Pacific.
In the rest of Asia, the migrations continue. Homo sapiens crosses China and enters America on foot via the Bering Land Bridge. Meanwhile, sapiens enters Europe in succeeding waves.
He adapts to the cold and the frigid life of the tundra. We are at minus 40,000 years. Whipped by glacial winds, the European winter is terrible.
Man's only food is meat, but the herds are scarce. Sometimes they disappear altogether, and famine takes hold. Sapiens is always on the move looking for game.
He lives in teepees made of animal skins and branches perched on high hills. They're constantly on the lookout. During these times of scarcity, women don't produce milk for their infants, so they die, one after the other.
The Chief of the Reindeer Clan has found one rabbit, dead from cold. Not nearly enough to feed his two women and his clan. The Reindeer Clan is turning into the Silent Clan.
The Chief, Akea, stalks the vicinity tirelessly, listening for movement in the bushes or the smallest animal cry. Even the tough and smelly flesh of the Blackbird is better than nothing. He never misses his mark at this distance with his new weapon.
He asks her who she is and what she's doing there. The woman doesn't understand She wants his necklace. She's got an odd face with bumps over her eyes, as if she'd banged herself.
This woman is a member of the Neanderthal people. They're starving too. She's entranced by the shells on the sapiens' necklace.
She's never seen any before, but he's overwhelmed by his desire to touch her and to smell her. He wants to take her. His advances have never been shunned before.
He's Akea, Chief of the Reindeer Clan. At dawn, strange and new animal cries rang out near the camp. Massive animals covered with long hair and enormous teeth saunter down from the North.
These are the long noses, the shaman knows. There were many before, huge herds, but they disappeared. All that meat is within easy reach, but how will they go about killing them?
The crazy old fool is ready to face them, but that doesn't reassure the Chief. The shaman will call upon the ancestral spirits to give strength to the hunters. Akea will succeed, the shaman knows.
The mammoths have been on Earth for millions of years. For these pachyderms, as for the men, the Ice Age is a curse. These huge beasts travel enormous distances every day to find the 200 kilos of food they need.
The shaman stays on the mountaintop, invoking the spirits. Spirits of our ancestors, give courage and strength to our hunters. Kill these giants for us.
Akea knows how to kill reindeer, stags, and pigs, but he's never dared attack such a powerful beast. They are nothing in the face of these monsters. Although their hearts beat with fear, their stomachs scream with hunger.
The smell of meat makes them salivate and their feet fly. However, they're too fast. The long noses are suspicious of men, and they flee.
The way is blocked, it's a dead end. They'll have to retrace their steps and confront their attackers. Their desperate fear makes them even more dangerous.
One of them, the youngest, is frightened by the human cries. He's afraid to turn back. It's man against beast.
Man lost and one of them was killed, but there's still hope. Over there, a group of Neanderthal. They've also come to hunt.
They have an advantage over the Reindeer Clan. They know the long noses are afraid of fire. The Neanderthal woman frightens the mammoth and forces it to retrace its steps.
They've still got one last chance. Their spears are useless against the animal's tough skin, but they don't have a choice. The young mammoth charges for the opening, but Neanderthal is there.
Neanderthal knows that isolating the beast isn't enough. He must cut off any escape. Neanderthal is the greatest of hunters, but a mysterious sickness eats away at his body.
The long nose is cornered. Sapiens and Neanderthal are united around the same prey for the first time. These men and women close in on the giant, pushed together by the same instinct, to survive.
Its movements must be kept to a minimum. This time the Neanderthal woman isn't competing against the sapiens man. They've got him, and he's at their mercy.
They aim for their vulnerable spots where the skin is thinnest, the groin and the anus. The shaman will thank the ancestors long into the night. Thanks to them, the Reindeer Clan just invented a new way to hunt organized big game hunting.
This new method will have considerable consequences on the life of man. The mammoth's meat gives the Clan an enormous supply of food. They can go months before their next hunt.
For the first time, man has time ahead of him. Free time to think, experiment, and make seemingly useless things. Neanderthal and sapiens are assembled around a meal with new feelings of helping one another, solidarity, and feelings of attraction.
The Neanderthal woman wants the Chief of the Reindeer Clan for herself but Akea already has two companions, and nothing will happen without their approval. They approve. In the future, they'll live together.
The two Clans have a lot to learn from one another. Gradually, they'll learn each other's language, word by word. The discovery of cooperation for big game hunts laid the groundwork for an inevitable connection between men of different origins.
Soon, new links will be forged. Marriages, alliances, the roots of society. Tonight, Akea wants to take the woman who stirs his desire.
What evil makes her nose bleed? Although the Neanderthal woman suffers from a sickness, they don't let it interfere with their enjoyment of one another. The shaman isn't pleased with this alliance.
He's suspicious of the Neanderthal woman. This woman and man both belong to mankind, but they're not the same species. Their union will not produce offspring.
They're genetically different. The woman's spirit stole the Chief's. The Reindeer Clan must be protected.
Akea's spirit must be regained. That night, the fire projects the shadow of the Chief's headdress onto the rock. The shaman sees it as the animal nature within the Chief dancing on the rock.
He wants the memory of this magical moment to last, so he follows the contours with wood charcoal. A spirit is there. The spirit of Akea stays on the rock, he took it back from the woman.
Forty thousand years ago, the first symbolic representation was drawn on rock. The birth of art. Soon this invention will have a universal impact.
A few years have passed. In their travels together, most of the Neanderthals have died from the sickness that afflicts them. They're just three, including the Chief's woman.
She can't take it any longer, she'll remain where she is. It's the end of her journey. No child came from her belly.
The clan can't stop, winter is nipping at their heels. They must walk South. Time is of the essence, Akea must walk at the front.
The future of the Reindeer Clan takes precedence over everything else. Exhausted from the fever, the woman wants to rest and cool down in the icy water. He'll never see these people again.
Neanderthal is dying. Little by little, this species will disappear from the Earth, cut down by disease, and a declining birth rate. It remains a mystery.
Akea doesn't want to hear the shaman's prayers anymore. Perhaps he questions the fragility of our species. Neanderthal disappears.
Big game hunts spread. The rhythm of life changes all over the planet. More free time, more creations.
Homo sapiens sculpts objects. He makes costumes and jewelry and decorates his tools. It's a veritable cultural explosion.
In certain areas, a powerful human creation will appear, cave art. Art will become a message. We are in France, 20,000 years ago.
Homo sapiens have dispersed throughout Europe. Sometimes he suffers from isolation. Some Clans don't find other populations to mingle with.
They reproduce amongst themselves over one, two, and three generations. Inevitably, inbreeding strikes their children, leaving them incapable of reproducing. This puts the survival of the Clan in jeopardy.
For years, Atka the sorcerer has tried to cure his people of this curse. However, the ancestor who guides him says nothing. There's no response.
Has Atka lost his power? What good is a sorcerer who can't look after his clan? Atka feels alone, isolated from the group, with his son to look after.
Before, the Bison-hunting Clan was prosperous. There were eight hunters, 12 women, and lots of children. Today, there are only nine, with one lone male child.
If he doesn't find a solution soon the clan will die out. The Chief has just found a winter shelter. Atka's son is agitated, it's as if this place spoke to him.
As if he heard voices. The cave is welcoming, spacious, near water, and sheltered from the wind. It has the shape of a skull.
Fires have been lit here, and there, people slept and ate. Others lived here before them, but where are they now? The child was the first to find the passage.
It was his illness. He was always looking to hide himself and avoid people. Atka senses a presence.
Who's hiding deep in the belly of the cave? Bears, lions, or humans? The rock answers him.
Caves are the best places for shamanistic rituals. This one looks promising. He senses something, there, right beside him.
Signs made by a man's hand. The first rock paintings show streaks, circles and spirals. These shapes are a shaman's visions in the first stage of a hallucinogenic trance.
They'd been here. Other men's hands had etched this rock. What went on here?
Did they wish to leave a message? Atka knows how to take the hidden powers from roots, insects, and mollusks. He turns them into colors for his paint and healing potions.
He'll use them to help find the wayward spirit of his son. He wants to bring him back into the real world. This slug is magical.
It will allow him to reach the depths of his soul and travel to the invisible world where his son's spirit hides. His sorcerer ancestor taught him everything. Returning to nature long ago, he became a bison.
Since then, the animal spirit has guided him. Atka calls upon it now and asks for help healing his son. The slug's magical effect is quick.
The sick spirit of the child resists, it flees to evade capture. Atka follows step by step, he won't let it escape. Outside the trance, the clan settles down to eat.
Their wish is about to come true. Men and women from another clan. They don't speak the same language.
They must welcome those who come from elsewhere. Luck is with them. It's their cave, and they don't want another clan here.
They don't want to share. As his arms fight, the spirit of the bison takes over Atka's body. This woman wears sorcerer's signs.
She tuned in immediately to Atka's calls from the depths of the stone skull. The sorcerer is no longer Atka. His body doesn't belong to him, his movements are those of the animal.
The sorceress has understood, she enters his trance. Before the stranger's eyes, Atka's hand traces the contours of a new image. The men from both clans are so taken with the spectacle that they stop fighting and wait to see what will happen next.
The image takes on a form they recognize. It reminds them of an emotion they've experienced. They look at one another and feel the same thing, and go straight to their hearts.
Everything's in motion, a transformation is taking place. Is it from the glow of the flames or the sorcerer's dance? They all see the spirit of the animal, it advances and walks.
They can even hear it. They are experiencing the inner workings of the human soul. Cave painting becomes a language that will allow all the Homo sapiens to understand and accept one another.
It will be a universal message that will touch the hearts of men and bring them solidarity. Together they prepare for the arrival of winter. They help one another, exchange skills, and find a better way to protect themselves from the icy winds.
Atka hasn't found his child's lost spirit. Not yet. The two sorcerers exchange secrets on medicinal plants.
Knowledge shared is knowledge gained. They begin to amass an understanding of nature's mysteries. One day, from this vast knowledge, medicine will be born.
Between minus 30,000 and minus 20,000 years ago, works of art appeared over most of the planet, thousands of kilometers from one another. It was as if all the Homo sapiens had given each other a signal. All over art assembles little groups of men and allies them with bigger communities.
Soon, immense populations will come together to become nations. Suddenly, 12,000 years ago, the temperature rises. It's the beginning of a major climatic change.
Two-thirds of the polar ice caps melt, the ocean levels rise 120 meters. The continents gradually take on the shapes we recognize today. A grandiose era of the life of man is coming to a close, but a new one is beginning.
Almost everywhere, the weather becomes mild, water abundant, and the earth generous. Sapiens discovers regions so rich in game and edible plants that he stops traveling. He builds villages of stones, built to last.
For many, it's the end of a nomadic life that dates back to the beginning of time. With settling down, everything will change. [Foreign spoken audio] We're in Mesopotamia, 12,000 years ago.
Listen to my story, it completely changed the life of man. My mother was young. We didn't know then what we know today.
[Foreign spoken audio] Everyone loved Nene. Especially my mother. When he stopped to see her on his way back from hunting, he always brought bird eggs.
Life had become easier for men and women. They were beginning to take the time to enjoy each other's company. My mother was in love with Nene, and he was in love with her.
They didn't hide their affection and it amused everyone, especially the Chief of the village. [Foreign spoken audio] They'd been together barely two moons. They were happy and carefree.
However, that day, she'd had a premonition. Back then, we had to go far into the mountains to pick the wild wheat that grew there. As summer's days grew shorter, we harvested as much grain as possible to last through the winter.
Nene knew that at this time of year, the falcon laid her eggs. My mother loved eggs. Ten thousand years ago, man is in complete harmony with nature.
She no longer made him suffer, and he enjoyed her wonderful surprises. [Foreign spoken audio] She didn't see him leave, so she thinks he's playing a trick on her. -Nene!
-Nene! Then, she remembers her premonition. Nene!
Homo sapiens takes pleasure in nature, but if he upsets the balance, nature retaliates. The mountain swallowed Nene's body. My mother looks for him in vain.
-Nene! -Nene! Right up until they heard the wolf howl.
They feared for Nene's life. Nene! If there were a pack of them, it was better to stay together.
We feared wolves. Nene! -Nene!
-Nene! -Nene! -Nene!
-Nene! -Nene! A howl, a moaning man.
She senses that Nene is close by. It's not Nene, but the strangest thing she's ever seen. A little boy with a she-wolf.
The most ferocious carnivore. The wolves had been by our side forever. When our children got lost in the forest, the wolves devoured them.
We didn't like wolves, especially our Chief. He'd killed more than one. He doesn't have time to take care of this one.
He hears the moans of the child, too. [Foreign spoken audio] The child is wild, and abandoned by another clan. [Foreign spoken audio] My mother tries to comfort him, but he resists.
Enough! The Chief loses his patience with the child. They stop looking for Nene, distracted by what to do with the child.
He would have answered them if he were there. Homo sapiens live here in little stone huts, assembled around a common grain loft. The first village.
The first houses. My mother took the child with her and gave it Nene's bed but he didn't want to sleep. He listened to the mountain.
She couldn't believe that the she-wolf was the child's mother. His animal mother. We'd never seen this before.
My mother had a lot of love to give. She needed someone. I was the wild child.
I didn't feel human. I thought I was a wolf. My animal mother had picked me up.
In this first village, Homo sapiens share the labor. Each works for the community. Animal skins are now used for receptacles.
Hot rocks from the fire make the cooking pots boil. Women think about men. There's not a clan anymore, but many families and each family has their house.
People do favors for one another and visit. Polygamy is disappearing. The family revolves around the couple, a man and a woman, their children, and sometimes their parents.
It's the birth of today's family. For my mother, this dream was shattered. No trace of Nene.
No one had seen or heard him. My mother needed to give and to love. She needed to share her life.
[Foreign spoken audio] I didn't want anyone near me. I couldn't stand being touched and hated the feel and smell of clothing. I rejected everyone's presence but hers, but I wouldn't eat the black meat she offered from the fire.
Little by little, she grew attached to the wild child. She grew fond of me. I was beginning to take a place in her heart.
The place of a son. One day the she-wolf returned to reclaim her son. She'd fed me, protected me, and kept me warm since I was born.
Men don't like wolves because they don't know them. My wolf mother would never have harmed me, but the men thought I was in danger with her. Like all children, in the presence of wolves.
[Foreign spoken audio]. She was the first to understand. Maybe because she could sense the animal's love.
She was suffering from the absence of a loved one too. I now had two mothers and I didn't know which to choose. She knew how to speak to the wolf as to the child.
That's how my mother became my mother for always. A year passed, I lived among the people. The she-wolf stayed near the village, and little by little, she got accustomed to the presence of men.
An alliance between man and animal was born. It was the beginning of a big adventure, not just with wolves, but with other animals too. Twelve thousand years ago, the first wolf joined the community of men.
However, it would take generations of wolves born among men for them to become what today we call dogs. Thanks to my wolf mother, we made another major discovery. A skeleton lay in the middle of the wild wheat.
[Foreign spoken audio] It was Nene. [Foreign spoken audio] He disappeared the day my mother found me. She gave me the love she had for him.
It was his necklace. My mother knew right away what she had to do. The grains of wheat from Nene's pouch had germinated.
They'd grown right where they'd fallen. [Foreign spoken audio] The Chief understood that each grain had reproduced into a multitude of others. It was so simple, yet no one had ever thought of it.
My mother gave me Nene's necklace, and I've worn it my entire life, until today. This necklace comes to you, son of my son. Wear it, and leave it to those who come after you.
Tell this story to all men so that they never forget it. It's 10,000 years ago. Thanks to these amazing discoveries, the life of man will never be the same.
The discovery of agriculture becomes widespread throughout the world over a few centuries. Homo sapiens settles down permanently next to his crops. He lives his life by the rhythm of the seasons, and each year reaps the fruits of his labor.
The domestication of the wolf is followed by that of numerous other animals. Homo sapiens discovers breeding, which provides a steady and abundant supply of food. In many places all over the world, giant monuments reach towards the sky.
Man's homage to the divinities. The population increases. Villages are built.
Trade expands and bigger and bigger groups form. Soon, large civilizations will appear. Prehistory is finished.
No matter the color of our skin or the shape of our eyes, the 6 billion human beings who populate the Earth today all descend from the same family. She lived in the dawn of time and would give birth to thousands of generations of men and women, right up to us. Their discoveries still enrich our lives.
Such is the gift that our parents as far back as they reach, gave to us. Thanks to them, our children will go on to populate other planets.
