A scene from Walking with Cavemen.

How distant relatives lived

Walking with Cavemen
Begins Thursday, June 5, at 8pm. ABC TV.

Reviewer: CPL Alisha Carr

I have to admit that Walking with Cavemen is one of the best documentaries I have ever seen. Produced by the team who created The Human Body, this series uses the same powerful special effects.

Everyone will relate to this series because it tells the story of how we, as human beings, developed from gorilla-like animals into the most intelligent species on Earth.

If you are into the whole Adam and Eve thing, this might not be the show for you, as it will bring a few home truths to light in a fascinating manner.

The first episode takes us back 3.5 million years to East Africa – which at that time was covered in dense rainforest – when a remarkable species of ape, Australopithecus afarensis, roamed the land.

The second goes back two million years and represents a crossroads in human evolution – this is when brainpower begins to rule.

Social interaction and human characteristics we still possess today are depicted superbly in the third episode, which explores the world of Homo erectus 1.5 million years ago. It seems the social confusion and lack of understanding between men and women began some time ago, and, as this episode will prove, is completely natural!

The fourth and final episode takes us back 300,000 years to a time when Neanderthals and Homo sapiens were fighting, unknowingly, for world supremacy.

It was here that human evolution took two separate paths – one leading to a physically powerful being able to sustain life in harsh environments, the other using imagination as the key to survival.

This is an extraordinary documentary. Anyone who views it will appreciate the lengths the producers have gone to create such a vivid and chillingly realistic account of human evolution.