The Early Americans

A BAFTA award winning documentary. Locations for the film range from Alaska and the southwest of the USA to the Eastern woodlands. It depicts geologists, archaeologists, anthropologists and scientists from other disciplines piecing together the clues to man's rise from ice age hunter to builder of complex societies more than 2000 years before Columbus set sail for the New World.

This is quite an interesting, if somewhat dry, documentary that gives us a potted history of ancient life in North America. We start with quite an intriguing dig from Arizona that was discovered in the mid 1950s the revealed the skeletons of some nine mammoth as well as some flint spear heads that were crafted by the early Clovis population. Using carbon dating. They have established that these animals have been dead for over 11,000 years - but are by no means the oldest examples of life on a continent that was once freely accessible from Siberia. As time moved on and the ice retreated, human beings evolved into more organised and cultivated societies able to capitalise on predictable migration patterns whilst harvesting less aggressive and substantial prey like elk or fish. It tries to recreate some of the tasks carried out by these early hunters - including the crafting of the flint weaponry, and using some paintings it gives us an idea of just how tough life was as mankind attempted to thrive against both the elements and their four legged friends. The narration is a bit static though and the whole thing errs a little too much on the side of academic archaeology rather than paint anything particularly exciting which is a shame, but it’s an adequate introduction for any budding “Indiana Jones” types out there who, like me, find the whole evolution of mankind within rather that above nature quite fascinating.

This is quite an interesting, if somewhat dry, documentary that gives us a potted history of ancient life in North America. We start with quite an intriguing dig from Arizona that was discovered in the mid 1950s the revealed the skeletons of some nine mammoth as well as some flint spear heads that were crafted by the early Clovis population. Using carbon dating they have established that these animals have been dead for over 11,000 years - but are by no means the oldest examples of life on a continent that was once freely accessible from Siberia. As time moved on and the ice retreated, human beings evolved into more organised and cultivated societies able to capitalise on predictable migration patterns whilst harvesting less aggressive and substantial prey like elk or fish. The film and the archeologists try to recreate some of the tasks carried out by these early hunters - including the crafting of the flint weaponry, and using some paintings it gives us an idea of just how tough life was as mankind attempted to thrive against both the elements and their four legged friends. The narration is a bit static though and the whole thing errs a little too much on the side of academic archaeology rather than paint anything particularly exciting which is a shame, but it’s an adequate introduction for any budding “Indiana Jones” types out there who, like me, find the whole evolution of mankind within rather that above nature quite fascinating.