Prof Alice Roberts - From Cell to Civilisation

Who are we? Where do we come from? What does it mean to be human? For thousands of years, such questions have been explored through philosophy and religion, but the answers now seem to lie firmly within the grasp of an empirical approach to the world and your place within it. By peering deep into the past and dragging clues out into the light, science can now provide you with some of the answers to the questions that people have always asked. From the first spark of life on earth 3.8 billion years ago, they track the evolution and connectivity of all living things. Join in as they follow in the footsteps of our ancestors from Africa into Asia and around the Indian coastline, to Australia, north into Europe and Siberia, and, eventually, to the last continents to be peopled: the Americas. You'll meet some other human species along the way. They’ll examine the sophistication of some of the earliest civilisations, and discuss how they know what they know and why they think what they think, what the science can tell you. This is the story of us, from single cell to civilisation.